SPANISH DRAMATISTS OF THE GOLDEN AGE A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook Edited by MARY PARKER
GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Spanish dramatists of the Golden Age : a bio-bibliographical sourcebook / edited by Mary Parker, p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. - ) and index. ISBN 0-313-28893-3 (alk. paper) 1. Dramatists, Spanish—Classical period, 1500-1700—Biography— Dictionaries. 2. Spanish drama—Classical period, 1500-1700—Biobibliography—Dictionaries. 3. Spanish drama—Classical period, 1500-1700—History and criticism—Bibliography. I. Parker, Mary. PQ6051.S63 1998 862'.609—DC21 97-21976 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 1998 by Mary Parker All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 97-21976 ISBN: 0-313-28893-3 First published in 1998 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. Printed in the United States of America
@" The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS Acknowledgments
vii
Preface
ix
Introduction: The Golden Age of Spanish Drama by Mary Parker
1
Juan Ruiz de Alarcon y Mendoza by James A. Parr
18
Francisco Antonio de Bances Candamo by Santiago Garcia-Castanon
28
Pedro Calderon de la Barca by Matthew D. Stroud
39
Guillen de Castro by Barbara Mujica
51
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra by Edward H. Friedman
63
Andres de Claramonte y Corroy by Christopher B. Weimer
75
Juan de la Cueva by David G. Burton
87
Juan del Encina by Stanislav Zimic
96
vi
Contents
Antonio Mira de Amescua by Manuel Delgado
107
Juan Perez de Montalban by Patricia Kenworthy
124
Agustin Moreto y Cabana by Frank P. Casa
132
Luis Quinones de Benavente by Diane Iglesias
140
Fernando de Rojas by Mary Parker
145
Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla by Anita K. Stoll
111
Lope de Rueda by Sharon D. Vows
188
Tirso de Molina (Gabriel Tellez) by Bruno M. Damiani
205
Bartolome de Torres Naharro by John Lihani
218
Lope Felix de Vega Carpio by Alix Ingber
229
Luis Velez de Guevara by C. George Peale
244
Selected Bibliography
257
Index
263
About the Contributors
283
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My very sincere thank you to Greenwood Publishing Group. In particular I thank James T. Sabin who planted the idea to do this book and suggested my name as author/editor, George F. Butler and Gillian von N. Beebe at Greenwood, and the scholars who contributed to this book. My special thanks also to Glen Tiffert, J. Abad of the Cervantes Society of America, and the Humanities and Interlibrary division of the Boston Public Library. My greatest debt is to my husband, Sam, who provided me with encouragement and support of all sorts, and to God. It is my hope that a lively interest in this book will be everyone's recompense.
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PREFACE Spanish Dramatists of the Golden Age: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook includes alphabetically arranged entries on nineteen playwrights of that period, ranging from Alarcon through Encina and Rojas to Zamora. It covers from the end of the fifteenth century through the seventeenth century. Among the names included are some highly esteemed and applauded dramatists who, until recently, had been long rejected, glossed over, or forgotten, due, in part, to the sheer vastness of the Spanish dramatic production of the luminary figures and, in part, to vogues, preferences, or unavailability of good-quality texts. These dramatists add significance and richness to Spanish drama. In some instances, they brighten dark areas or create a sense of balance and so deepen the understanding of the texts that are already familiar to many readers. The selection has made it possible for this reference book to present the Spanish dramatists in a more comprehensive way than similar publications permit. Here the entries are succinct and yet complete profiles of the dramatists and their most significant work. They include biography, analysis, and evaluative commentary of the dramaturgy and, whenever possible, the dates, place, audience's reaction, and description of the performance. The "Critical Response" sections survey the history of the principal texts and the main currents of criticism, analysis, and interpretation they have elicited. The bibliography at the end of each entry constitutes a blend of the past and present trends in Spanish theater, theatrical texts, and literary theory. It cites valuable criticism, wellreceived translations, and manageable editions. The ample coverage the dramatists receive in this book is one of its merits. The book concludes with a selected general bibliography. This reference work contains a large amount of informative and specialized material that may be useful to many: scholars, teachers, students and also the nonspecialist who is interested in Spain's dramatic literature or in the life story of the dramatists who created it. One hope is that the casual, curious, or interested public is motivated to read the actual plays or see them on the stage or in the growing number of videos available in bookstores, through university
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libraries, and from the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater. Mindful of the purpose and of the diverse audience we wish to address, the Introduction sketches, very briefly, the Spanish drama of the Golden Age with highlights of history. The contributor's name appears in parentheses following any original comment, finding, theme, translation, or insight mentioned in the Introduction. The entries mention surprising or amusing details, attitudes, preferences, and taste that determined the dynamics of theatrical forms, and style and the kind of plays performed. All these aspects bring out the reasons for the plays' lasting effects, their influence, and their survival through time. The belief is that the context and the compelling forces that existed when the plays were written help to underscore the talent and clarify the theatrical expressions of the high and low points in the drama of Spain's Golden Age. The Introduction focuses on the salient moments in the evolution of Spanish drama of the Golden Age. It traces them with the same approach that was taken to allege or deny literary and cultural influences in Spain and with the same framework used to investigate why in Spain the fifteenth century does not represent the end of the Middle Ages, the entrance into the modern world, and the gestation of the new spirit of the Renaissance. The debate on these questions is consistent with our overall purpose. The decision to be somewhat bound to tradition in the approach to and selection of representative figures and plays has made it possible to maintain the book's emphasis on the individual's creative talent, artistic ability, or original use of models and sources. It has also been possible to revisit old, common places and to follow or deviate from the norm. The entries state influences and sources (the debate on French sources of Spanish drama will be reenergized by Jean-Dominique Mellot's 1995 essay. K. H. Komer and Mark Vitse, 1988, treat the mutual European influences.) The Introduction touches on the subject to point out perceptions and complex circumstances that affected life, inspired creativity, and favored, promoted, or prevented artistic exchange during the Golden Age. The contributors to this reference book reconstruct, describe, and advance a good amount of the significant work done by themselves, other critics and scholars, and by the dramatists. They outline the conventional thought, influences, and methods of reading and interpreting the plays, as well as common threads, themes, and insights among the dramatists of the Golden Age. All of them, from Encina and Fernando de Rojas, to Cervantes, and from Lope and Tirso, to Calderon, recognize, express, and sometimes categorically disagree about artistic freedom, but they change what needs to be changed in methods, theory, and practice, so that both life and drama can be what the writers perceive they are or should be. The major playwrights of each succeeding generation have always considered that art must be pertinent. The dramatists' interpretations, representations, and transformations of reality reveal the attempt to free themselves— partially, not totally—from the artistic past in order to represent life as it is lived in their particular present. The entries make evident how not only artistic
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reality changes but also its interpretation. Drama's meanings, methods, and assumptions change with intellectual fashion, with the discovery of new writers, texts, and data evidence. Through references to assimilation, imitation, apology, and transformations that have correctly marked the movement of Spanish literature, it has been possible to reexamine and confirm conventional opinion, change it, or propose new views. The chapters suggest a tacit agreement with the lapidary statement that the contributor James A. Parr makes (in reference to long-held literary views on Alarcon): the "canon is not carved in stone" (23). In some cases their authors reexamine or reconsider the early findings in their own seminal work, and they signal caution or point out reattribution errors caused by newly discovered data. As a result, they invigorate debate and safeguard the integrity of dramatic history and of the dramatists concerned. The entries in this book will be a welcomed addition to the studies in the drama of the Golden Age in particular and of drama in general.
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INTRODUCTION: THE GOLDEN AGE OF SPANISH DRAMA Mary Parker Typically, dramatic literature has been traced from its derivative medieval Spanish writings of the transitional fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, to the more innovative plays of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, the period known as the Golden Age of Spanish letters. That reasonable approach was taken to investigate why in Spain, the fifteenth century does not represent the end of the Middle Ages and the entrance into the modern world, whereas in Europe, the fifteenth century marks the end of a cultural status and the gestation of the new spirit of the Renaissance. The question has been revived, or it was not settled. The present volume tangentially touches on the subject; the entries either confirm the conventional canon, change it, or propose new views. For example, it might still be possible to consider that the Spanish tragedy—the modern tragedy, with anagnorisis, Christian purification, and victory of the spirit—was as much an artistic coup as the triumph of the comedia Nueva. The two distinct historical eras that mark the high points of dramatic evolution show that the Italian Renaissance influenced the Spanish drama of the sixteenth century; most seventeenth-century dramatists, on the other hand, avoided, rejected, and replaced Italy's dramatic elements with the various Spanish literary and dramatic traditions. Some background from episodes of history and Golden Age drama, by way of this introduction, will perhaps, modulate and illuminate the issue. Fifteenth-century Spain saw the reign of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, the most transcendental in Spain's history. Under their rule Spain was politically united in 1474. Pope Alexander VI named them Catholic Sovereigns in 1494. As Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella established the basis of the social and political organization, with stronger monarchical powers and a diminution of the rights of the nobility and of the landowners; they defeated the Moors in Granada (1492), sealing the Reconquest that began in 711; and they financed Columbus' trips. His landing in the New World was followed by a period of exploration and expansion, which was, and still is, both admired and criticized in and outside of Spain.
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In 1504, the year when Queen Isabella died, the Spanish dynasty was at the peak of its power. For sixteen years King Ferdinand II and Cardinal Cisneros alternated as Regents, while the future king and Roman emperor was still a minor. Prince Charles (born in 1500) was crowned king of Spain in 1517 and ruled until 1556. The empire he inherited included vast territorial possessions, Austria, Borgone, Flanders, Germany, Naples, Milan, Sicily, parts of North Africa, and the New Word. It is not surprising, then, that instead of wanting to eliminate the culture of the Middle Ages, Spain dedicated added resources, will, and determination to enrich it. The end of the fifteenth century and the first half of the sixteenth century are, in every way, a period of indecision, ambivalent inclinations, continuous trying, transition, mutual influence, and a high degree of assimilation, which remain a constant up to the present. It is a known fact that Spanish men educated in the spirit of the classics and adept at writing poetry or drama look to Italy for inspiration. In Spain, the new age is marked by a series of simultaneous artistic movements that show a common and conscious wish to be modern and, particularly in dramaturgy, a cautious desire not to submit entirely to Italy, the country where the Renaissance began. Spain's artistic ideal is not to emulate its classical theoretical construct, or the commedia dell'arte; rather, it is to imitate Italy's example of assimilating, adapting, and then creating an artistic world of its own. Therefore, while Italy's enormous artistic influence results in major transformations in lyric poetry, in drama that influence is, above all, a powerful force that favors and encourages change. France, the other country more directly associated with the Hispanic world, has almost no influence on the creation of the national secular Spanish drama in Castile. The fact that early Spanish national drama found inspiration in folklore (regional festivals, country song, music, and dance) in the church reenactment of the biblical stories of the Lord's Passion and birth, and in the short, mocking games offered as comic relief offers proof that true-to-life realism was to be a strong characteristic trait. For example, in Encina's Auctos shepherds, on their way to Bethlehem to honor the Redeemer, celebrate the birth of Jesus with music, song, and dance. In the Farce of the Holy Sacrament by D. S. de Badajoz a shepherd vividly describes what he has seen and heard: "dances, songs / the perfect music / curtains, carts / banners, flags / masks, apparitions, / games and personages / figures / grumbling / grimaces." The farce re-creates the atmosphere in which the semi-religious pieces were represented. The liturgical pieces are associated with the French and English mysteries; the short, comic pieces derived from the Latin Ludi Scenici are sometimes mixed with elements of the Italian commedia dell'arte. Together, they describe the two basic components (art and life), and the two roads (the religious and the secular, the human and the divine) that the theater will follow. While the dramatists overcome obstacles, the regents and monarchs of each century set its tone, give it direction, and sometimes advance its course. Ultimately, both roads take it to a happy end. National dramatic pieces on secular subjects first appear in Castile in the
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1490s with Rojas' Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea and Encina's autos, farces, and the short shepherd's pieces he called eglogas (eclogues). Stanislav Zimic maintains that The Egloga nuevamente trobada a donde se introduce un pastor que con otro se aconseja . . . and Egloga interlocutoria . . . are the beginning of the Spanish secular theater, ' 'Because the human concerns, expressed in the dialogue, contain autobiographical material and, because the subtle, ironic interplay of the secular with the religious themes, affects structure, characterization, style, [and] diction." In the Representacion a la muy benditapassion . . . he sees "an extraordinary skill in using the word, unaided by external action, as a powerful instrument for dramatic, theatrical effect." Both Encina and Rojas express in theatrical pieces the ideals and concerns of the educated gentlemen of the court born in Toledo, as well as the popular and populist vein that shapes and triumphs in the nation's theater. The early secular (profane) theater in Castile is contained in the farces, eclogues, and short comic pieces, in the satirical treatment of vital reality by Fernando de Rojas and Torres Naharro, in the patriotic and heroic themes of Cervantes, in the dramatized versions of epic history by Juan de la Cueva, and in Gil Vicente's bilingual and/or bicultural and symbolic drama. All of these dramatists not only are educated in the classics but travel, live, and work in Italy. Therefore, they know its culture, its literary currents, and its theories on drama. These dramatists identify with, or take, modern conventional stands; that is, they have a central interest in the individual and in the world of the living. They adopt the critical spirit of the Renaissance and use it to defend human and artistic freedom, develop artistic expression, and experiment with language, style, and technique. Rojas' Tragicomedy (1499) projects, in a synthesis of dramatic forms, the common effort that was being made to introduce the classics to the various levels of the Spanish culture, through the most popular form of entertainment. He uses highly learned quotes, allusions, and speech next to sayings, proverbs, improperly applied terms, and crass, licentious, and humorous Spanish expressions. Present in Rojas' megawork (sixteen acts) are the new interest in the world of the living, the critical point of view, and the expression of artistic freedom. For his interpretation of reality he includes the tragic and the comic. His interpretation of the immediate world mixes or juxtaposes elements borrowed from sentimental stories of legendary lovers, the Italian novella, the exotic tales in the novels of chivalry, which were extremely popular in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the moral allegories of medieval didactic literature. Likewise, the language of the religious and secular representations by Encina and others is the vernacular of Castile, but the vision is drawn from various regions of Spain. Traditionally, Encina's Nativity plays and Gomez Manrique's Representation of the Birth of Our Lord, staged in the middle of the fifteenth century in the convent of the Sisters of Calabazanos, exemplify the religious dramatic writing of the time. Examples of the Latin mocking plays or elements of them in Encina's theater are viewed as a precedent of the short, comic pieces called pasos
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Spanish Dramatists of the Golden Age
and as the origin of a dramatic tradition in Castile, that is, the practice of introducing humor between the acts of the main text and during the play's intermission. They developed later into separate entities. Together they constitute the Short Theater, which includes the pasos, entremeses, and sainetes by Lope de Rueda, Cervantes, and Quinones de Benavente. The Golden Age of Spanish letters covers the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. Typically literary historians place the beginning of the Spanish Golden Age between 1517, the date of Torres-Naharro's Propalladia and the year of the coronation of Charles I as king of Spain, and 1616, the year of Cervantes' death. The Golden Age Drama period extends from 1500, the new proposed date of the princeps edition of La Celestina, until the death of Calderon in 1681. It covers the reign of Charles I and of his son, King Philip II, two different worlds and two very different styles of government. The plays written during the first half of the sixteenth century have medieval dramatic qualities mixed with undeniable Renaissance spirit and signs of future potential. During the second half of the sixteenth century, all the groping and experimentation take more definitive form, and the Spanish comedy reaches a degree of maturity. Agustin de Rojas Villandrando remembered it as the time when "the comedias reached new heights, and things were better" {"comedias subieron a mas alteza . . . / las cosas ya yvan mejor") even for his troop of traveling players. The sixteenth century is a time when Spain had strong political presence, cultural influence and prestige. The royal support and good economic times benefited the comedia. The two strongest supporters and promoters of the Golden Age comedia were Charles V (1517-1556), and the poet king, Philip IV (1621-1665). These monarchs mark the beginning and the high point of the Spanish Golden Age comedia. It triumphs and reaches its zenith during the reign of Philip II and declines under Philip III (1598-1621) and Charles II (1665-1700). Calderon's death in 1681 marks the end of the Golden Age. In favorable times there were optimism, financial incentive to write plays, better facilities, and larger audiences to enjoy them. Under these favorable economic conditions the sound, visual, and literary quality of the theater improved. With new machinery, stagecraft, and theatrical effects it was possible to stage more artistically demanding plays and autos, which were grand spectacle. The court plays, commissioned to celebrate special occasions in the life of the royal family—military or political victories, christenings, engagements, weddings—have real or imagined worlds, enchanted princesses, magical encounters, mythical lovers, religious heroes, legendary or historical kings and queens. Today, we still read, study, analyze, research, and enjoy many of these plays. Philip IPs reign has been called the period of assimilation. It is the time when regard for the new and the nation's letters becomes a deep concern only with what was Spain's own. Political defeats, poor economic times, and the expansion of the Protestant Reformation resulted in Spain's nationalist period: the high moment of Christian humanism is over, but most of the greatest national creations in prose, lyric poetry, and
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poetic drama were written then. Joined are narrative and dramatic poetry, popular expression and the learned style, idealism, realism, local tradition, patron saints, national values, preoccupations, kings, and heroes. The end of the apogee of the Spanish Empire is sometimes dated as 1587, one year before the military disasters begin with England's defeat of the Armada, as Spain marches downward to its nadir. The ideal and dreams are becoming veritable nightmares. The ideal of some Spanish writers was not to submit entirely to foreign influences. The individualism and ardent faith in the country and in religion, which are characteristic of realism then, are deeply imprinted in their artistic expressions. The conflict between classicism, paganism, and Christianity, especially Catholic nationalism, dominates the drama and literature. There is a stylistic divide during the seventeenth century. One of the two dominant styles is laconic, ingenious, and contrived. It uses witticisms, poetic conceits, double meanings, subtle play on words and ideas; it respects strict rules of syntax and seeks and maintains clarity through the use of everyday language and fixed grammatical structures. It is the style preferred by writers like Lope and Quevedo, who refused to submit to foreign influences. Their idea of remaining loyal to the nation and its ideals was to advance national letters. Lope, in Arte Nuevo. . . advises to let language be "clear, pure, simple,"— "language used as people speak it, is artistic truth." The second style is cultivated, learned, elegant, and highly artistic. It is as intellectual, imaginative and creative as the first (conceptismo) style. The cultivated style (also known as cultismo, culteranismo and Gongorismo, for Gongora, its best exponent, in poetry, and as Calderoniano style in drama) uses classical allusions, brilliant metaphors, hermetic language, neologisms, Italian and Latin words, and a twisted syntax, sometimes to hide a pejorative intent, common in both groups during their literary wars. Calderon's use of the "cult" style in his poetic dramas was often imitated in subsequent generations. The comedia, the principal artistic form of expression in the seventeenth century, mirrors the defining characteristics of the Spanish Golden Age: its realism, nationalism, independent, critical spirit regarding freedom from the neoclassical artistic norms, popularism, the conflict between reason and Christian faith, defense of Catholic religion, chivalric sentiments, ideal and human love. It also includes contrary, opposing, and heterogeneous elements—the erudite, intellectual, and the popular forms—explored by the preceding generation in a national theater that, not surprisingly, could gather in one place people from the various levels of Spanish people. When Lope crystallized the aspirations implicit in the attempts that the preceding dramatists had made, he named it new comedia. Significant in the term "new" is the implied tension between the old norm and the "new" form, the foreign versus the indigenous, expressed as artistic freedom. It was easy for the nationalist Lope to declare war on the Italian interpretations of Aristotle's Poetics, which the previous generation had adapted, in some degree, to both comedy and tragedy. The Spanish comedy succeeds; tragedy, even Christian tragedy,
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does not. Literary and dramatic convention still finds Spanish tragedy technically defective, derivative, and languid: instead of tragic emotion it offers religious conversion and hope in the world beyond, a happy ending, which is unacceptable in tragedy. Nevertheless, modern tragedy makes conversion coincide with the moral and psychological transformations antiquity prescribed. The comedia associates national, personal, and artistic freedom. Instead of the classical unities of action, time, and place and the strict generic division, Lope's artistic principle turned the theater into a social activity that united the Spanish people. The new dramatists found in the comedia the fertile ground to portray in an admirable way the nation's daily life. According to their commentators, art sometimes seems to fuse with it in its interpretation. The themes (nature, life, faith, free will, predestination, fortune) express a sentiment of human dignity, the importance of the individual who reaffirms his or her rights over unjust authority, social concerns, history, philosophical speculation regarding the physical world, the importance of the senses, human perception. Life as it is in the comedia expresses the deeper Spanish belief in personal, regional, and national autonomy, which has been studied as Spain's democratic tradition. The dignity of the individual and the rights of all citizens to justice were the essence of the original monarchy and, to a lesser degree, of the unified empire; there lies the motivation and essential meaning of the most famous peasant rebels in Golden Age drama and of the heated polemics they helped to create. Lope's protagonists in Peribdnez, the Sheep Well, The best Mayor [is] the King and The Mayor of Zalamea, and in Calderon's version of the latter honor drama are, assertively and defiantly "aunque villano, muy honrado," ("although a simple villager, very honorable"—a proud, old Christian farmer). Zealous people in the crowded theaters still applaud, jeer or cheer these characters. As Alix Ingber points out, twentieth-century critics continue to debate their political and social implications. Marxist productions and interpretations used to their advantage plays about peasant rebels as heroes, in particular The Mayor of Zalamea and the Sheep Well. In these plays the ignoble offender, who abuses his nobility status and the power of his public office to dishonor the peasant rebels, is killed. The villagers firmly believe that none other than the king will be obeyed, below the king all citizens are equal before the law, and an outraged community collectively exacts justice. The king and the commoners are united against the unruly nobility. A critical spirit is evident in the treatment of persons, personalities, conflicting ideologies, and contrasting views dramatized in late Golden Age drama through the themes that are close to the people's hearts: love and honor and their variations and corollaries of glory; justice; power; love and loyalty to the king, the nation, and the church; family honor; blood purity; rewarded heroic and religious virtue. These are themes or values that made the comedia the preferred form of entertainment. The technical failure of tragedy led to the practical search for other ways to success. It helped to shape and therefore explain not only the triumph of comedy or the use of the generic term comedia, but also Lope's "emotional appeal" prescription and the
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abundant number of emotionalist comedias that can be found in Spain's Golden Age drama (reattributed to Claramonte by C. W. Weimer and Rodriguez LopezVazquez). In King Don Pedro in Madrid, Lope passes on practical advice to the loyal disciples he found in younger promising talents: "know how to please the people / and you will hit it right." In his theory and practice, he hands down his formula: the vicissitudes of love disturb emotion but cases involving honor are better—they really bring everyone's emotions to a fever pitch. Most dramatists followed the maestro's advice and worked the honor theme to death. Dramatically, love's pursuits, obstacles, rejections, and passion, whether frustrated or satisfied, create suspense and encourage an increasingly complicated plot. The Arte Nuevo recommends that suspense be maintained until the last scene. If there are reasons for the public to suspect how the play will end, something entirely different should happen. Honor in the comedia, whether by noble birth, caste, or merit earned in battle, is life's most precious, dangerously delicate, and coveted possession. Honor amounts to what people say. Lost honor is equivalent to death. Love's transgressions soil personal and family honor, which must be cleansed. When single couples are involved in an illicit relationship, the only remedy is marriage. For that reason, in some comedias violating the rule appears as a calculated way of avoiding forced marriages of convenience, while killing for conjugal honor raises the question of abuse or practicality of the honor code, in post-Lope drama. The seducers, rapists, or ingrate lovers who ruin maidens and run or refuse to marry them are killed by the male who heads the family; the killing of the offender was justice, or, as Lope says it in his title, Punishment, no Vengeance, or Punishment without Vengeance, as Alix Ingber prefers. The king was above the honor code rules. He honors, not dishonors, the women he seduces, forces, and sexually abuses. Lope's disciple, Rojas Zorrilla dramatizes these notions in None Beneath the King, and the Most Honorable Farmer, Garcia del Castanar {Del rey abojo ninguno, y labrador mas honrado, Garcia del Castanar), treated by Anita Stoll. Except for the king, it is each person's duty to safeguard or regain personal honor {Cada cual lo que le toca). Many popular heroines dressed in male attire, like the type common in the Italian novella who go after the offender to avenge their honor. The stronger types kill the man while others are satisfied with marrying for revenge. So it is in Rojas Zorilla's Casarse por Vengarse. These heroines dressed like men were first studied by Ruth Kennedy and Melveena McKendrick under the label "La mujer Varonil." Conjugal honor conflicts are about women's infidelity. In numerous honor plays, adultery, even imagined or rumored, was punishable by death, of the man and the woman, if caught in the act, and always of the wife. Lope's formula for the New comedia reached full bloom and gained fame, respect, and legitimacy when political, economic, and social developments in the country forced significant artistic transformations. By 1620 the comedia no longer is an incipient and problematic genre with changing denominations— drama, tragicomedy, farce, comedia. Form, style, and content changed as the
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audience to which it was directed changed during the nationalist period. Philip IPs reign (1556-1598) is the time when what is idiosyncratic Spanish informs the arts and letters. Understandably, the comedia becomes the preferred national entertainment, and Lope (1568-1635), king of the theater. The triumph of the comedia during the crucial period of aesthetic and historical transition offers definite proof of its maturity. Soon, it is taken to its zenith and Spain rushes to see comedia by Lope, Tirso, and Calderon's sumptuous yet lucid spectacles for recreation, devotion, and entertainment. The eighteenth-century erudite Jose Pellicer de Tovar enthusiastically affirms that, in the 1620s and 1630s, the comedia was the most admired action in foreign nations, the most difficult poem written, and the most glorious artistic achievement of its time {Idea de la comedia de Castilla. Preceptos del teatro de Espana y arte del estilo moderno comico, 264265). King Philip IV, a strong supporter of the theater (some of the anonymous plays printed as written ["by one of the intellects of this court"] are attributed to him), imported Cosme Lotti from Italy in 1626 as engineer, architect, and supervisor of the scenarios built for the theatrical festivities at the palace. The increased royal patronage helped to improve the quality of the performances in the royal theaters. The Alcazar theaters in Aranjuez and Madrid were the two centers of the Spanish theater until the king built a new theater in his palace, the Buen Retiro, in 1632. The king's patronage in as yet good economic times and the renewed close cultural contact between Spain and Italy brought in a continuous flow of talent. Actors, acting companies, craftsmen, and stage specialists saw better opportunities and a brighter future in Spain. They helped created the machinery, stage setting, and artifacts of the magnificent stages erected in the courtyard of the palace. Technical progress and improved machinery made it possible to loft the actor in the air, bring him down, take him suddenly out of sight, or have him disappear from the stage. The supernatural beings that populated the religious and mythological plays, the phantom ladies, like the Gila, Don Gil. . . , by Tirso, in cape-and-sword plays (term later becomes our cloak-and-dagger or spy plays), as well as the wall-climbing Don Juans, made it necessary. When the Buen Retiro opened in 1632, Madrid already had become the main center of creative activity, and the theater had become the national entertainment, equal, in degree, to that of the age of Shakespeare in England, more than it had been in Italy, and equal to what it would be in France in the next century. The plays by Alarcon, Guillen de Castro, Tirso de Molina, Rojas Zorrilla, Moreto, and especially Calderon could stand comparison with the plays written in England and France and could be discussed, adapted, even imitated, and translated by Moliere, Corneille, Racine, or other lesser names, until the eighteenth century, when France, then the center of political and artistic power, reversed the trend, and the neoclassic art became the modus operandi. Lope's best-known disciples, Luis Velez de Guevara, Antonio Mira de Amescua, and Juan Perez de Montalban, in their early stage faithfully reproduce the
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9
spirit of his plays. They adopt his dramatic style, formulas, and techniques; write comedias in collaboration with their admired master; and identify with, and defend, his artistic stance from the attacks of his literary critics and opponents. However, they write original plays on their own, rewrite and reinterpret successful plays, or treat conventional themes with new, unsuspected twists. Lope, proud of his and their success, wrote to D. Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza: "I have forged more poets in Spain / than there are subtle atoms in the air" (he forjado en Espana mas poetas / que hay en los aires atomos sutiles). Lope's contemporaries, who were successful dramatists in their own right, take advantage of his expertise and pour their own highly imaginative and complicated cape-and-sword plots into the continuing successful comedia mold, but they do not coincide with him in every theatrical aspect. For example, the need or desire to please the audience with emotional or light and frivolous entertainment is not their most urgent concern. Political defeats, poor economic times, and the expanding Protestant Reformation resulted in a new kind of nationalism. The plays are the strongest unifying element of an empire that had long been at war, its people fighting with their neighbors, their rivals, and their own soul; of a country wishing to maintain its political domain, affirm, redefine, or save its spiritual identity. The background of these plays is a nation whose unity was being tested on all fronts: the long, debilitating wars in the Netherlands, which began in 1567, ended with Spain's recognition of Dutch independence, in 1648. With this costly loss and the humiliating military and political defeats in England, Northern Europe increased its threats to the weakening Spanish Catholic Empire. In Spain, Father Domingo Banez and the Jesuit Luis de Molinos, among others, espoused the ideas that Luther and Calvin had defended and that, arguably, Erasmus helped spread in Spain. The autos and comedias mirror the status, aspirations, and concerns of a world that is being turned upside down. Many celebrated Golden Age playwrights emphasize the transcendental philosophical and theological preoccupations of the new age: the meaning of grace, the question of sin and retribution, personal responsibility in salvation, the conflict between reason and faith, and the doctrine of free will versus determinism. Parr proposes that Alarcon ' 'can justifiably be considered the moral philosopher among his contemporaries." True. His best-known comedias contain social satire sprinkled with moral concepts, which Lope's secular comedia de intriga circumvents. Alarcon, Tirso, and Calderon share common dramatic themes, devices, and techniques. For example, the illusion-reality structure—the idea that reality's truth may be illusory, or the belief or, rather, the credulity in the power of the stars over man's destiny. The dramatic solution to these concerns in the plays, which sets them apart, also confirm Parr's views and reinforce his longstanding challenge to prevailing notions on Alarcon. As he points out, Alarcon's tragic ending in the agnostic Master of the Stars distances him from Calderon's resolution. And Truth Suspected distinguishes him from the theological approach and religious treatment of truth in Don Juan by Tirso, with whom he is chronologically closer. As Edward Sullivan saw it, Don Juan abuses his intelligence
10
Spanish Dramatists of the Golden Age
to lie to and wrong women. Damiani highlights the theological problem of salvation and the efficacy of grace (the abuse of it and retribution) in Tirso's El condenado por desconfado (Damned for Disbelieving) and Don Juan. In Damiani's words, Don Juan does wrong "without thinking about sin, repentance or remorse." Accordingly, Tirso de Molina settles unequivocally the theological question of free will and determinism in favor of freedom with the responsibility to act in a moral way. The subject of salvation—the role of grace, the sacraments, reason, faith, and good deeds—is also taken up by Calderon in La vida es sueno (Life is a Dream) and in the Autos Sacramentales. These magnificent spectacles mesmerized audiences both in the palace and in the streets and remained a very important part of the Corpus Christi ceremonies until the eighteenth century. Their patina seems even brighter when they are viewed in their historical context. Other seventeenth-century plays associate past and present history to voice concerns about political affairs. Since Juan de la Cueva made history a subject of drama in the sixteenth century, with plays based on fragments of epic poems {The Siege of Zamora, Bernardo del Carpio and The Royal Princes of Lara) and on the historical present (the annexation of Portugal by Philip II in 1580 on the basis that he had inherited it from his mother), other dramatists followed with plays about the Catholic monarchs, Cardinal Cisneros (the regent of the future king) Charles I of Spain, and Emperor Charles V—and their heroes, sometimes in their less glorious moments. Lope, Tirso, Guillen de Castro, Velez de Guevara, and Claramonte, for example, dramatize old stories that can be associated with the victories or misfortunes of Charles V, Juan of Austria, and King Philip IPs character, life, and policies. The episode of King Philip's son Carlos, prince of the Netherlands and heir to the Spanish throne, is the subject of two plays by Jimenez de Enciso and of Calderon's subtext in his masterpiece, among others. Lope and Calderon and their disciples Guillen de Castro, Velez de Guevara, Bances Candamo, and Diamante, for example, dramatize national history and legend in titles such as La Jornada del Rey Sebastian en Africa (King Sebastian's Day in Africa); La desgracia de Carlos V (The Misfortune of Charles V); El cerco del Penon de Velez (The Capture of the Velez' Rock); The Rebels of Flanders; and Spain's heroes: The Cid, The Grand Captain, Gonzalo Cespedes de Meneses. The latter, a legendary hero of many Spanish wars in Italy—the most important in Pavia—is treated several times during the seventeenth century. These plays may be, as Velez claimed, el espejo del mundo ("the world's mirror"), except that what they mirror changes as reality and attitudes change. Increasingly, the images of victorious soldiers and other significant figures of the age in important plays are not only blurred or cut down to size but ultimately ridiculed in the next century, when the Hapsburg dynasty has already ended and the house of Bourbon rules Spain. The portrayal of the king as El segundo gran Seneca de Espana, Felipe II, in three parts, attributed to Montalban, expresses the tone and ethos of the significant plays written during his reign. As a contrast to the stoic image, some
Introduction
11
plays draw dramatic portrayals of the next two Hapsburg kings, Philip III and Philip IV, as weak kings and licentious men; heroic virtue is often compromised and in conflict with love in plays about the loss of the military ideal and the abandonment of the principles and values that had made Spain powerful, influential, and respected in Europe. Guillen's young Cid is a hero in the making. Guillen and Rojas Zorrilla adopt Lope's dramatic system when they are at a crossroads in their writing careers. Rojas Zorrilla revives Cervantes' patriotic theme based on the historical Numancia; if not to fire up the heroic spirits, he may have done it to deliver a nostalgic comment about reality. Bances Candamo airs a real national concern during the reign of the last Hapsburg king, Philip V, which will plague and divide Spain for centuries. As Garcia-Castahon suggests, in El esclavo de los grillos de Oro and La piedra filosofal (1693), Candamo treats society and the politics of succession to the Spanish throne with contempt (4, 10). In what appears to be a streak of irony or the search for an understanding of their own era, some dramatists treat the theme of the fickleness of fortune. Ramon McCurdy is among the critics who point out that the Golden Age plays dramatize the good and bad fortune of legendary favorites. Several entries in the present volume underscore the dramatic treatment of powerful men who were privy to kings in conducting the affairs of government. The theme of privanza is found mainly in the treatment of the favorites of three different kings: D. Alvaro de Luna (13907-1453; John II of Castile), the duke of Lerma (Philip III), and Olivares (Philip IV). Their abuse of power as heads of government and their fall from grace or death by execution are deemed either justice or injustice, caused by betrayals and intrigue at the court. The good privanza is exemplified by Tirso's prudent women, which Damiani highlights. These plays will add understanding to the incomplete picture the casual reader often has of Golden Age drama. Manuel Delgado offers the opinion that Mira's tragedy based on Don Alvaro de Luna is considered "one of the best historical dramas, one of the finest tragedies of the Golden Age, and the best tragedy written in Spain on that theme," while Velez de Guevara's El espejo del mundo is, in Peale's words, "the comedia nueva's most succinct statement on the topic," a point that underlines the need to focus on lesser known but essential plays and on significant aspects of Golden Age drama. The historical context of these plays was itself dramatic. King Philip II made it his mission to defend the empire he had inherited when his father abdicated. The end of Spanish hegemony is considered 1587, one year before the military disaster against England. After the British destruction of the Armada in 1588, the dark cloud that covered the emperor's final reigning years, and was set in the Spanish soul, was to grow still darker. Everything foreign becomes suspicious and unwelcome. In England it was no different. In an effort to secure the crown, consolidate her power, and expand Protestantism, Queen Elizabeth I was equally hostile toward everything foreign and became Spain's archenemy. King Philip had sided with Mary Queen of Scots. Calderon, the best
12
Spanish Dramatists of the Golden Age
representative of the spirit of this moment in history, wrote historical plays about England's Schism {La Cisma de Inglaterra), and astute legendary queens {Semiramis). The way his comedias are designed coincide and project what is known of the brooding character and characteristics of King Philip's personality and way to govern: a preference for more organization, order, structure, less outward activity, and more internal conflicts. Military heroism is exalted but the greatest heroic victory is the dominion over the animal instinct as exemplified in Segismundo's isolation and character. King Basilio's dream of maintaining and defending the integrity of the empire is threatened by his own heir in a failed coup. Segismundo, who is depicted as a monster and speaks the best lines, shows how events influence writers and artistic expression. Like Lope, Calderon's poetic genius, in his best moments, gives drama a literary level it did not have otherwise. They and Tirso de Molina are the stellar figures of the Golden Age drama. Their predecessors, Encina, Rojas, and Rueda, introduced changes and innovations in language, form, and content that helped the dominion of the secular and the popular over the religious, and of comedy over tragedy. Torres Naharro, Juan de la Cueva, Gil Vicente, and Cervantes wrote drama in the spirit of the Renaissance and advanced the popular national theater. They refined the cruder early attempts, invented dramatic doctrines, improved characterization and plothandling techniques, and raised drama to a position of respect among the literary genres. Their plays mix the religious and picaresque national tradition with Greco-Roman forms, themes, and stories. The dramatizations project love as true human passion, treat its effects, and offer an analysis of both. The presence of this amalgam in different dramatists' interpretations evinces their symbiotic relationship. Humanism is their common cord, but their plays project a variety of interests and mind-sets. The Renaissance provided the incentive and served as a temporary support from which these dramatists could begin to draw their own secure way. If they did not give drama its fixed denomination, they indicated clearly the direction it should take. Their exceptional significance is that they led the way into the Golden Age of Spanish drama. Since the opening of the royal theater in 1632, Lope de Vega and other outstanding dramatists of the court presented their comedias in the palace theater, adapting them later for the larger public who would see them at the corrales, or vice versa. The Spanish people's proverbial infatuation with the theater brought about a mass production of plays turned out by noblemen, adventurers, scholars, women poets and novelists, theater managers, clergymen, poor licentiates, or anyone who had the ambition to write them. The increasing high demand led to the practice of writing plays with the collaboration of two, three, and up to eight dramatists. Short runs due to the pressure of high demand and the need to provide new plays overnight eventually had a deleterious effect in artistic quality. Lope, Tirso, and Calderon had already taken the comedia to its zenith; their disciples and countless others extended its success and popularity. The opening of the Coliseo del Buen Retiro three years before Lope's death
Introduction
13
in 1635 marked the beginning of Calderon's dominion over the stage. Cosme Lotti, the famous Italian choreographer, was to collaborate with Calderon in many performances of his comedias palatinas (court mythological, historical, and musical plays), as well as in the one-act sacramental plays. The autos (for the religious celebrations at Christmas, Corpus Christi, and Holy Week) were splendid spectacles, commissioned and financed by the nobility, confraternities, brotherhoods, the civil and religious authorities, and the king himself. Their medieval, simple form and religious base remained a constant until the seventeenth century, when Calderon raised them from their humble beginnings to artistic heights. N. D. Shergold {A History . . ., 367) describes the machinery and artifacts used to produce incredible visual effects {tramoyas): the back curtain {telon de fondo) and the rotating stage {mutaciones) which made scene changes possible, no doubt a major step away from the previous simple stage, and very much as Cervantes describes it in his introduction to his plays and interludes. Calderon, Lope's most famous successor, entertains the audiences, in Lope's fashion, with extremely complicated plots in comedias that remain stage favorites today. A talented poet and dramatist like Lope, Calderon's intensification of Lope's formula constitutes a reaction. His honor tragedies attempt to subvert Lope's initial honor code prescription through exaggeration and dramatic irony, but the elliptical style, muffled signs, and subtle message were misinterpreted and misrepresented by his followers and comedia critics. Calderon's honor tragedies dramatize highly exaggerated stories of conjugal conflicts believed to have been actual cases of wives suspected and killed by their husbands on account of real or questionable adultery. A Secret Offense [calls for] a Secret Vengeance, The Physician of His Honor, and The Painter of His Own Dishonor, which Calderon wrote for the broad and heterogeneous audience of the corrales, incorporate the ingredients that gave Lope's honor plays popularity and a dramatic success, but his heir develops the story on several planes with multiplicity of meanings. The facts, the persons, and the issues call for moral awareness, moral outrage, and a critical stand toward the tragic abuses that each tragedy illustrates and against the violence that the honor code signifies. As tragedies, the wife killings on the basis of rumors, paranoia, and imagined or circumstantial evidence share elements with Shakespeare's more artistic and less sensational tragic death of Desdemona. The educated audience in the corral understands the planes of meaning of the carefully crafted and more intellectually ambitious Calderonian plays in ways that the rest of the audience perhaps does not. Both the nobility and the masses enjoy Calderon's popular and aristocratic dramatic universe, or they may derive pleasure from the vicarious experience they undergo during the play. Matthew Stroud highlights Calderon's significance in the evolution of the Spanish theater and his recognized literary and intellectual slant, as well as his mastery of dramatic style and technique. It can also be said that Calderon obtains more depth, magnitude, and universality through the historical subtext and the
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Spanish Dramatists of the Golden Age
philosophical and theological themes he develops in Life is a Dream {auto and play) and The Great Theater of the World. The latter masterpiece dramatizes Boethius' notion that all the world is a stage. The use of the theatrical metaphor that Shakespeare made famous in England led to comparative studies that made Calderon more famous and better known internationally. After he became the court poet (dramatist) in 1636, Calderon gave many lavish performances (of musical, historical, and mythological plays) for the king. To entertain his benefactor, King Philip IV and the royal court, he created a musical play (operetta) and named it after the Zarzuela theater. In the autos Sacramentales that they commissioned him to write for the Christmas and Easter celebrations, Calderon not only revived a medieval church tradition but gave it its definitive structure, developed its themes from the Calderonian (Thomist) point of view, and, in the following words, defined his one-act representation of the Eucharist as allegory: "a representational idea, poetized Sermons on matters of theology" (Sermones / puestos en verso, en idea / representable, cuestiones / de Santa Teologia) (in Praise to the Second Wife). Poetry, theology, and philosophy are aided by the latest technological advances brought in by the Italian Cosme Lotti and numerous talented theater specialists. With the autos, Calderon restores a sense of balance between the secular and the religious plays put on the stage. Their practical purpose and importance at a time when the Church's tenets are being questioned and directly attacked or opposed explain their popularity and attraction for many people. The king's support contributed to their artistic and popular success. His presence validated their importance. By 1636 Lope and Guillen and perhaps Mira de Amescua had died; Alarcon, Rojas, Velez de Guevara, and Perez de Montalban were writing; under Church orders, Tirso was not writing for the theater; Calderon was its dominant personality. One French diplomat wrote to a friend, "The best thing of all I had witnessed is the Comedy that has just now been acted at the Palace." Competent playwrights such as Bances Candamo, Claramonte, and Diamante thrived and wrote plays in collaboration with their masters or followed their structure, style, or themes. They helped satisfy the insatiable demand for new plays. The Buen Retiro Coliseum was opened to the general public in 1640. Lotti died in 1643. Among his successors was an early Gaudi. He, with other Spanish and Italian engineers and painters, only refined what already existed. In 1680, one year before his death, Calderon wrote that Hado y Divisa de Leonido y Marfisa was a machine comedy {comedia de ruido y comedia de tramoya) requiring a great deal of mechanical devices, sound and visual effects, and perspectivas (paintings as background in moving stage platforms). The play was marvelously staged at the court of Charles II. With the hyperbole, characteristic of the time, Calderon poetically wrote in his notes that what was the king's theater was turned into a forest; on one side a cliff was so artistically done that it stood as "a proud eminence"; "the forest rested firmly on the moving tide . . . large rocks covered the only opening to a cave . . . , the movement of the waves, the shadows and reflections, the rumor made by the waves hitting against
Introduction
15
the rocks, were all so marvelous, so prodigious that any one aspect would have been enough to amaze and hold the viewer's attention. As a boat on this river passed... the snake with Magena grabbed Marfisa, they flew crossing the theater so quickly that it was taken for a flash of lightning from the actual storm that was taking place that day outside the theater." Years before, in 1632, Lope, obviously impressed with what Gaudi had done for the inaugural palace performance of La selva sin Amor (The Jungle with No Love), exclaimed: "Lo que puede el arteV ("Wondrous Art!"). Unfortunately, these costly stages had an ephemeral life. Since 1640, the disciples and successors of Lope and Calderon (Juan Ruiz de Alarcon, Guillen de Castro, Antonio de Soils, Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla, Mira de Amescua, Perez de Montalban, Velez de Guevara, Claramonte, Agustin Moreto, Bances Candamo, Jeronimo de Cancer, Antonio de Coello, Diamante, Zamora, and Canizares) had their celebrated plays staged at the Retiro, as did their followers, Salucio el Poyo, Julian de Armendaris, Diego Jimenez de Encizo, Felipe Godinez, Belmonte Bermudez, Cubillo de Aragon, Matos Fragoso, and many others. Lope's and Calderon's followers, who extend the life of the comedia, continue to use Lope's basic formula and style by imitating his disciples. They also utilize Calderon's artful style and dramatic technique, or they follow the old practice and new fashion of rewriting plays. The number of people in the audiences began to decline—a sign of satiety. An exhaustion of stories, of themes, and of great talent led to stagnation of the comedia, aiding the normal process of decay. The comedia went into decline when the two essential talents in a dramatist—the creative imagination and the art of expression—were spent. Absolute artistic freedom and uncontained creativity become repetition, abuse, or exaggeration. Montalban, who is among Lope's apologists and is his first biographer, incorporates several traditions in one play: Boccaccio, Rey de Artieda, and Tirso, in The Lovers from Teruel; in La monja alferez he borrows from Lope's comedia, Diego Garcia de Paredes, and from the realism of the romancero. But if El segundo Seneca de Espana, Felipe II, in effect, was written by Montalban, the three-part play becomes a cornerstone and confirms an even earlier ' 'evolution away from the servile unit of Lope, toward Calderon," which Patricia Kenworthy points out. Among the differences that can be appreciated (in the adaptations, revivals, remakes) is an air that is at the same time ironic, skeptical, and sentimental. An entire generation that already had begun to emerge signified the arrival of a new moment in the history of the comedia. Aesthetically, the reaction was equivalent to Lope's reaction. He had been in favor of the simple versification, more lyricism, the natural rhythm of the language, and the realism of the long epic poems or the ballads. The new wave signifies a reaction toward a simpler plot, more careful structure, the characteristics of Calderon's artistic style and form. There is an attempt to restrain the lack of contention, the freedom from the dramatic principles, the complicated plot, the rhetoric of the cloak-and-dagger plays, and the forced situations on the theme of blood revenge overly used for artistic
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Spanish Dramatists of the Golden Age
convenience. Excess and bad comedia imitations helped the reaction Calderon began and Moreto exemplifies. Agustin Moreto is among the dramatists who imitate other comedies rather than create original plots. The sources of his masterpieces, Don Diego, The Fop, and Disdain against Disdain, are Guillen's Narcisus in His Opinion and three of Lope's plays: Woman's Avenger, The Ugly Beauty, and The Thankful Contempt {Desprecio agradecido). But, as Frank Casa mentions, Moreto reduces Lope's complicated plot and slows down the action. He also laughs softly at the peculiar types, habits, and common responses to sentiment in earlier comedias. His masterpieces stand as a movement toward the new dramatic trend to re-create, reinvent, caricature, or parody the preceding model(s). Moreto's well-paced and carefully crafted remakes link him closely with his contemporary Calderon de la Barca. The almost idyllic gardens and riverbanks recall the earlier bucolic countryside, and classical settings of Alarcon's plays. Or, as Casa and Ruth Kennedy indicate, Moreto's environment prefigures the next century's court of Versailles neoclassic paintings and landscapes by Watteau and Fragonard in France. Increasingly, originality yields to adaptations, reinterpretations, and remakes, called refundiciones. Since originality was not the goal or strength, the younger dramatists borrow freely and extensively from the copious material at hand. As a result, the next century condemned, for lack of originality, dramatists whose career had been highly regarded and applauded during their life and many years after their death. Some of them, in fact, directly transpose entire scenes, dialogues, concrete situations, themes, and motifs, but they do it to subvert the original and lampoon literary and dramatic rivalry. They satirize formulaic plays and each other's style or anticipate the inevitable accusations of emulation and even of plagiarism. Diamante's clear metatheatrical technique in The Defender of His Father's Honor and his artistically and dramatically successful version of The Jewess of Toledo are cases in point. Literary and political satire are important in both plays. Calderon's followers have been studied as The Calderonian Decadents (W. S. Jack, "Bances Candamo and the Calderonian Decadents," PMLA 44, 1929). They and some of the imitators of Lope's disciples are included in Dramdticos posteriores a Lope de Vega vols. 48 and 49 of the Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles. Vern Williamson's study, Minor Dramatists of the Spanish Golden Age, reinforces the growing opinion that some of them are minor only when compared with the best of Lope, Tirso, and Calderon. They deserve the attention they have been receiving. Often, their rewrites and imitations skillfully make two or more comedias into one that is artistically better than the source(s). The names most mentioned are Francisco Antonio de Bances Candamo, better known as a theoretician for his theatro de los theatros de los passados y presentes sighs, and Claramonte, Juan Bautista Diamante, and Agustin Moreto, who extend the popularity of the comedia. Claramonte has created great confusion and controversy because his handwritten name appears on favorite plays he pro-
Introduction
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duced. Christopher Weimer mentions the reattributions to Claramonte of, among others, Tirso's most celebrated plays. The arguments in favor of a higher status for the dramatist Claramonte seem to disregard the fact that he was an actor, producer, director, and owner of a theatrical company, and that it was the director's responsibility to write the script for the actors. Zamora, Canizares, Hoz de Mota, and Lanini y Sagredo are the last voices in Golden Age drama. Antonio de Zamora and Jose de Canizares keep alive the comedia tradition and continue to follow Lope's style and Calderon's technique until they make politically correct moves. Their political victories and defeats influence the dramatic production of their later years. The plays they wrote in their old age belong to the early years of the eighteenth century, a time when Spain's sensibility, value system, and taste are undergoing change; the dramatists adapt to the changes and reflect this evolution in their comedia. Plays based on Lope's models undermine the spirit of the comedia and of heroes like the Gran Capitdn. A new chapter in the neoclassic period and others shows the comedia decayed but it does not yet disappear. There was still comedia worth seeing, wrote Cotarelo, after reading the plays written since Calderon's death (1681). In his opinion the flame of the comedia has diminished, but its fire continues to burn. It flares up and throws bright sparks right on into the eighteenth century. These sporadic, successful plays confirm the importance and validity of the comedia and secure its life and the future survival of the Golden Age drama that has come to us.
JUAN RUIZ DE ALARCON Y MENDOZA (1580/81-1639)
James A. Parr
BIOGRAPHY The available data suggest that Alarcon was born in Mexico City in late 1580 or early 1581 (King 24). His parents had emigrated from Spain, but little is known about them beyond the fact that both bore illustrious family names; the father had some connection to the silver mines of Taxco, perhaps as an overseer, and the mother was known as Dona Leonor. The playwright's assumption of the title "Don" later in life derives from a claim to that birthright via the maternal line of Mendoza. At the time when Alarcon added the " D . " (for "Don") before his given name, when already a mature man and a playwright in Madrid, a cruel but witty contemporary commented that the letter served admirably to depict its bearer's half-profile (he was both pigeon-breasted and humpbacked). Because of those same physical defects, another commented that it was impossible to know, seeing Alarcon from a distance in profile, whether he was coming or going. Another called him a man made of parentheses. Others deplored his reddish hair, since popular superstition had it that this coloration indicated satanic influences or tendencies. He was also short of stature and rather less than handsome, to judge by the surviving portraits. Alarcon completed several courses in canon law at the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico by 1600, but apparently he did not graduate. On October 18 of that year, he matriculated in the Law School at the University of Salamanca. In short order, he received a bachelor's degree in canon law and immediately registered to pursue the equivalent degree in civil law, which was awarded in 1602. He spent three more years studying toward a master's degree, which he did not receive—likely owing to the considerable expense the ceremonies would have entailed. He finally did receive a licenciate (master's) degree from the University of Mexico in 1609, and during the next four years he aspired to a university chair but was unsuccessful. Meanwhile, he practiced law in various capacities. By April 24, 1614, however, he had settled again in Spain, where he would spend the remainder of his life.
Juan Ruiz de Alarcon y Mendoza
19
His legal training and experience made Alarcon unique among the coterie of playwrights then active in Spain, most of whom were, or would become, men of the church. His background served to foster a predominantly secular outlook and helps to explain the proposed legal and social reforms expressed in two plays in particular, El duefio de las estrellas and La crueldad por el honor. It also helps one understand the advocacy of reason, the characteristically concise style, and the pains taken everywhere in his work to offer logical explanations for behavior and to analyze actions and motivations. This intellectual formation and predisposition serve to explain many aspects that strike the casual reader as being "different" in his theater. That difference, or extraneza, has been attributed to other factors, among them the resentment he must have felt at being treated so ill by his fellow men of letters, by fortune, and by nature; alternatively, to his having been born and bred in Mexico and, consequently, having had to row against the tide of emigration; and, third, to his classical bent and clear affinity for Plautus, Terence, Ovid, Epicurus, the Stoics, and others. The supposed "Mexicanness" of his production has been held for naught by one distinguished Mexican critic, Antonio Alatorre, although David Darst has recently raised the question again ("La mexicanidad . . . , " 1995). Without saying so, Darst conflates "mexicanidad" and "extraneza," but is less than successful in connecting Alarcon's uniqueness and strangeness to his geographic origins. An accident of birth may be a contributing factor in the formation of one's psyche and outlook, but by no means does it explain all that needs explanation. It is too facile. Finally, Alarcon was unique among his peers in that he wrote to keep body and soul together while aspiring to other things, specifically to a civil service post for which his legal training had equipped him. Once he secured that post, in 1626, he began to abandon the theater, and he turned his back on that world definitively when he received a promotion in 1633 that allowed for a modicum of affluence. Ignoring the friendly advice of an Italian acquaintance, and in that person's words, Alarcon readily exchanged "ambrosia for chocolate."
DRAMATURGY: MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES Several laudable attempts have been made to classify Ruiz de Alarcon's relatively modest production of some two dozen titles. One relatively sound approach is through the major themes that find expression in his theater. Prominent among these are honor, love, faith, friendship, fortune, and free will. Alarcon followed Lope de Vega's advice in deploying the hackneyed theme of honor in fairly predictable fashion throughout his drama. This was apparently his way of throwing a sop to the public that frequented the corral theaters of the day, a public for which he had little use and to which he referred on occasion as "bestiafiera," that wild (and insatiable) beast. I maintain in the next section that Alarcon offers a less traditional perspective on honor in his two best-known
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works, La verdad sospechosa and Las paredes oyen, where he underscores the importance of intrinsic honor based on self-control. The theme most frequently visited, however, is love. Love lends itself to many variations, among which is the trite notion that it is blind. Love is also blinding, however, and consequently may detract from freedom of choice or free will, causing one to act in an irregular manner. If one is not acting under one's volition while under the spell of love, one cannot reasonably be held responsible for infractions of whatever sort. All must be forgiven. The author, one infers from reading these plays, would be opposed to love at first sight, based as it is on strictly physical attributes. His more enlightened heroines, such as Dona Ana of Las paredes oyen, learn to look beyond the facade and into the soul, wherein may be found true beauty and nobility. Only one play suggests a conflict between human and divine love: in La manganilla de Melilla, Alima, the female lead, has just converted to Christianity, at which point she turns her back on her former lover, Azen, saying that she now aspires only to the love of God. It is noteworthy that Alarcon's male characters invariably subordinate love to friendship. This masculine bond is inviolate. In Ganar amigos, friendship is placed even above the demands of the code of honor. The marquis, upon learning that Don Fernando has killed his brother in a duel, could be expected to take revenge. Instead, he makes the amazing statement that, even though he loved his brother more than himself, he now gladly trades the brother he has lost for the friend he has gained. In another play, Los pechos privilegiados, Rodrigo refuses to serve as a go-between for the king. This refusal signifies a breach of the code of honor, which demands that a subject perform any act demanded by his monarch, no matter how reprehensible. Rodrigo is banished from the court, but he is not disconsolate, for he knows he has obeyed a higher code, that of friendship for Count Melendo, who aspires to the affections of the same lady in whom the king was interested. Conspicuously absent from Alarcon's work is any religious sentiment. This is especially anomalous, given the fact that the historical moment in which he wrote incorporated the Counter Reformation, the Inquisition, and the forced conversion of the peoples indigenous to the Americas. There is transparent sarcasm in reflections on the religiosity of the time, as when the gracioso (fool or clown) of El semejante a si mismo observes that the women who appear to be most fervid in their practice are only playing a role in order to avoid trouble with the Inquisition. In La manganilla de Melilla, the words of the Jew, Salomon, exude an even deeper irony when he asks a passerby to untie him from the tree where "Christian cruelty" has left him. At the end of this play, Alima, a convert to Christianity, not only abandons her former lover, Azen, but turns upon him and murders him. Alarcon composed only one drama of a biblical nature, and it centers around an unlikely hero, the title character, El anticristo. It has been said that the advent of Christianity, with its plan of redemption, spelled the end of the sort of tragedy in which a character could be damned for all eternity, without hope, like Sisy-
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phus. Nevertheless, Satan and the Antichrist offer two possible subjects for such a tragedy. John Milton succeeded in creating a memorable work of art with the former; Alarcon was not quite so fortunate with the latter. The material has potential, for here is a towering figure doomed from his incestuous conception to play a certain role and to suffer a predestined fate. The possibility of writing a Christian tragedy on a larger-than-life scale and an apparent fascination with the character are likely what attracted Alarcon the dramatist. One can only wish that he had been more successful. Several characters indicate a desire to stop the turning of Fortune's wheel, but Fortune, like Cupid, is blind; her fickle nature is proverbial, and her wheel turns on inexorably. From antiquity, the blind god and goddess have been thought of together and sometimes said to accompany each other, as Beltran reminds the audience in Las paredes oyen. In treating Fortune, Alarcon looks to Seneca, first and foremost, but also to Plautus and Terence. A basic teaching of Seneca was that a Stoic indifference must be maintained toward the accidents of daily life. This position is reiterated in the represented action of both Los favor es del mundo and To do es ventura. Tello's success in Todo es ventura is owing entirely to the whims of his protector, the duke. A telling example of a reward given arbitrarily and undeservedly is the stewardship bestowed on Tello for having brought the duke good news—a thing of small moment in comparison to the years of service rendered by the three other servants who aspire to the post. Their resulting frustration and envy, leading to an attempt on Tello's life, may foreshadow what the duke himself will do in his own frustration at losing Leonor to Tello—not that he will have Tello's life, literally, but that he will have his honor, a possession often equated with life. Tello's fortune is consistently good within the boundaries of the play; there are no ups and downs. But from what we know of her inconstancy, added to the fact that the duke is being used as her minister to bestow temporary success, there is all the more reason to conclude that Tello's gains at the end are dubious and that he can expect to be disillusioned. Los favores del mundo is similar in that here also there is a powerful figure, the prince, who is very nearly as inconstant as Fortune herself and upon whose whim Garcia alternately experiences good and bad luck. Here, though, we witness the expected ups and downs, which make it a more realistic illustration of Fortune at work, yet, for all that, a less subtle and suggestive study than Todo es ventura. The last theme to be considered is free will. In Alarcon's day, the issue was exclusively a theological one. Indeed, the controversy over free will, predestination, and divine grace seems to have been continuous since the beginnings of systematic theology. Martin Luther and Desiderius Erasmus debated the question in the early sixteenth century—Luther in his De servo arbitrio (1525) and Erasmus in De libero arbitrio (1524). Just before the time of Alarcon, the topic was again warmly debated by the Dominican Domingo Banez and the Jesuit Luis
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de Molina. Banez, like John Calvin and Martin Luther, espoused predestination, whereas Molina, in the manner of Erasmus, was a proponent of free will. The primary theme of El duefio de las estrellas, as might be conjectured from the title alone, is fatalism versus free will. The astrologers have predicted that Lycurgus will die at the hands of a king or that a king will die at his. Paradoxically, Lycurgus, as king-turned-regent-in-exile, could be said to fulfill not only one but both of the possibilities given in the prophecy in his own person: he kills a king and is killed by one when he turns his sword on himself. Does he then have free will? It would appear that he does, for he makes a rational choice among six alternatives he enumerates in his final speech. The fact that he is aware of alternative courses of action and rejects five of these, while choosing one, makes clear that he enjoys at least the illusion of free will. Perhaps that is all anyone can lay claim to with any certainty. Lycurgus' decision demonstrates a moral triumph, regardless of whether or not it illustrates free will. Had he killed the king of Crete or let himself be killed by his peer and rival for the affections of Diana, he not only would have made a lesser choice, morally speaking, but also would have fulfilled the prophecy in an obvious and less than artful fashion. He becomes, at least during the moment of choice, the master of the stars. The fact that he had been a king and that he fulfills the prediction in every sense but the most technical is a twist that serves to emphasize the moral choice. Alarcon can justifiably be considered the moral philosopher among his contemporaries. This is not the same as saying—although many have done so—that he is a "moralist." It is common knowledge that Lycurgus lived around 800 B.C. and that he achieved fame as a lawgiver and social reformer in the Greek state of Sparta. Alarcon makes up the part about his having been king to serve his own dramatic ends and adds to that fabrication the further concoction that he is in self-imposed exile in Crete, having abdicated the throne in favor of an unexpected heir, born several months after that child's father's (the former king's) demise. The suicide is likewise an invention of the poet. El duefio de las estrellas may be seen, figuratively, as a composite brief filed by three collaborating attorneys. Ruiz de Alarcon, the junior member, performs the menial task of writing it; the eloquent Lycurgus pleads the case; and Seneca, once a distinguished advocate in Rome, provides much of the metaphysical background. It contains a tripartite statement about Stoic self-discipline, reservations about judicial astrology, and a subtle statement about the possibly illusory nature of free will. Its thesis would seem to parallel that of Calderon's La vida es sueno: vir sapiens dominabitur astris (The Wise Man is Master of the Stars). Alarcon's statement contains an ironic twist, however, intimating that one experiences only the illusion of free choice. In this play, the stars may indeed predispose, but, ultimately, character determines destiny.
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CRITICAL RESPONSE Alarcon's work did not meet with great favor in his own time, either from his fellow poets or from the unwashed herd (his "bestia fiera"). His "canonization' ' and elevation to a place of prominence among the top four playwrights of the day (along with Lope, Tirso, and Calderon) are a fairly recent phenomenon that would have scandalized his contemporaries. Luis Velez de Guevara, for instance, was incomparably more celebrated than Alarcon by fellow dramatists and by the general public. This apparent paradox serves to make the point that the canon is not carved in stone. It changes over time, both with regard to the genre (the comedia) as a whole and also with respect to the collected works of individuals. There is a symbiotic relationship between the select canon (those works held up as the best or most representative) and the critical canon (those works that attract the attention of critics). Each feeds off the other. A title that receives considerable critical attention (in the form of articles, books, editions) will ultimately gain access to the select canon. Similarly, works that are considered a part of the select canon tend to attract even more critical commentary, for critics love to match wits with their predecessors and with their peers. The feeding referred to does not lead to diminution, by any means, but contributes to the increase of both select and critical canons. While La verdad sospechosa and Las paredes oyen remain at the center of Alarcon's select canon, precisely because they continue to attract substantial commentary, other titles that elicit scholarship are Ganar amigos, El examen de maridos, and La cueva de Salamanca. One that has made significant strides toward that center is El duefio de las estrellas. El duefio . . . has prompted essays of substance in recent years by Augusta Foley, Edward H. Friedman, Robert L. Fiore, Deborah Dougherty, Manuel Delgado Morales, and this writer, among others. Another title attracting attention is No hay mal que por bien no venga, also known as Don Domingo de Don Bias. The attribution to Alarcon of the recently discovered second part of this play (Vega, 74), known as the Segunda Parte del Acomodado Don Domingo de Don Bias, makes it a likely prospect to receive increased scrutiny also. Don Domingo, an Epicure and scoffer at all that is politically and socially correct, is certainly one of the more bizarre—and therefore intriguing—characters of the entire Spanish comedia. Let me comment now on what is generally taken to be Alarcon's masterpiece, La verdad sospechosa. To begin, there exists another, rather curious symbiotic relationship between Alarcon and his better-known French contemporary, Pierre Corneille. The latter imitated (effectively plagiarized) a play titled El Mentiroso that he found in a collection of works attributed to Lope de Vega, avowing that he would gladly have exchanged two of his own best pieces to be the original author of Le Menteur (1643; The Liar, 1671), as he cleverly called his adaptation. Thus, Corneille is indebted to Alarcon for one of his best-known and most characteristic works, while the Hispano-Mexican owes a good portion of his
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reputation to the fact that the play now known in English as The Truth Suspected was singled out for praise, emulation, and the resulting diffusion. Carlo Goldoni's // bugiardo (1750) and Samuel Foote's The Lyar (1762) are reworkings of Corneille's text. Consequently, La verdad sospechosa (originally El Mentiroso) joins Tirso de Molina's El burlador de Sevilla and Calderon de la Barca's La vida es sueno as one of the three most widely diffused dramatic plots devised during the Golden Age of Spanish theater. It is important always to read a given work in the context of an author's total production. When we do this with La verdad sospechosa, we find that there are surprising affinities with another major title, Las paredes oyen. They are, indeed, companion pieces, and it is profitable to read them accordingly. La verdad sospechosa presents the misadventures of a young man who elevates falsehood to a fine art. Don Garcia's creative imagination and verbal dexterity deceive and amaze all with whom he comes in contact. His objective is to become famous by whatever means, and since his forte is fabrication, that will serve his purpose. Actually, it is left for the audience to decide whether he is a compulsive liar who thus rationalizes his defect or whether he is, in fact, consciously pursuing a perverted notion of fame by attempting to excel at what he does best. It is clear, in any event, that his actions are counterproductive, as his father and manservant frequently remind him. In the end, he is obliged to marry Lucrecia when he is, in fact, infatuated with Jacinta, partly as a result of mistaken identity earlier in the action but mainly because he has persisted in spinning a tissue of lies. While Don Garcia might be said to be punished in this manner, by frustration, the resolution is patently unfair to Lucrecia, and Corneille, realizing this, changed the ending to make it more palatable to the audience of Le Menteur. The ending Alarcon provides need not be taken to illustrate poetic justice, however, but may be seen merely as the continuation of a venerable tradition of comedy, that of the arbitrary pairing off at the end, signifying the reintegration of the truant(s) into polite society, while holding out the promise of the "green world" for reproduction and the continuation of the species. Las paredes oyen presents a contrasting pair of suitors of a young and comely widow, Dona Ana. There is a third suitor, but he functions only as a foil. The two who concern the audience are Don Juan de Mendoza, whose name and uninviting physical appearance suggest the author himself, and his more physically appealing, but ignoble, competitor, Don Mendo. Like Don Garcia of La verdad sospechosa, Don Mendo is pathological in his devotion to antisocial behavior, in this case, slander. He speaks ill of one and all, and he is eventually overheard by Dona Ana as he disparages her to another, thus carrying through the motif of the title, which could be rendered in English as The Walls Have Ears. She rejects him in favor of the less prepossessing, but more substantial, Don Juan de Mendoza. Like Don Garcia of La verdad sospechosa, Don Mendo persists in his counterproductive pattern of behavior, displaying thereby a singular lack of self-
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discipline—a failure to curb his tongue—which results in the negative consequences that await him. Both Don Mendo and Don Garcia lack selfmastery, as is illustrated in their compulsive behavior, and therefore both lack honor as an intrinsic quality. The works are companion pieces because they present analogous cases of excess, one of lying, the other of slander. The patterning of the two works, their commonalities and complementarity, serve to point up the fact that they should not be read as condemnations of these two common vices per se, but instead as demonstrations that excess in either, besides being counterproductive, has its source in a deplorable lack of Stoic-Christian self-mastery. The inferred author is no petty-minded moralist of the sort who would condemn an occasional prevarication or an aspersion on someone's good name. Both plays look beyond surface flaws to underscore root causes. There is greater subtlety in Alarcon's work than has sometimes been recognized. His presentation of intrinsic honor-virtue, in contrast to the more mundane and extrinsic honor-reputation, is a case in point. La verdad sospechosa and Las paredes oyen, rather than merely condemning falsehood and slander, respectively, point instead to a common cause underlying both these types of socially unacceptable behavior—a lack of Stoic-Christian self-discipline. Another example would be the conclusion of Todo es ventura, on the theme of fortune, with its implication that poetic justice is yet to be realized. Another example is the treatment of Fortune itself; in Alarcon's theater, Fortune is more aptly termed misguided than blind, for she operates through men of power and influence who more often than not reward or deprive for the wrong reasons. Likewise, the metaphysical question of free will is dealt with in El duefio de las estrellas in such a way as to insinuate that one may experience only the illusion of free choice, as opposed to its reality. Closely related to subtlety of expression are the evident ambiguity and irony. One cannot be certain, for instance, whether the inferred author approves or disapproves of Lycurgus' suicide in El duefio de las estrellas. Nor can one be certain whether Lycurgus' destiny was in the stars or in his own character. Indeed, it is not clear whether he overcomes the prophecy or ironically fulfills it—doubly—in his own person. Ruiz de Alarcon was a keen observer and critic of the customs, foibles, and eccentricities of his time. He utilized this surrounding reality in various ways to further his dramatic art. Instances of a somewhat Utopian vision occur in the series of proposed legislative and social reforms outlined in El duefio de las estrellas and La crueldad por el honor. A far more frequent posture is the more dystopian, perhaps dyspeptic, view evident in his use of social satire. His barbs are often directed against the injustices suffered by the poor and against the privilege and favor commanded by the mere possession of wealth. Such are his allusions to men who seek office through bribery rather than on their merits, typified in the sheriff's admission in El tejedor de Segovia of the corruption of his office and his comment that only the poor will ever be found guilty. The use of social satire suggests a dissatisfaction with things as they are and an
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implicit desire to improve manners and mores; thus it can be said, in the final analysis, that his Utopian and dystopian visions are complementary. Alarcon's is an eminently practical outlook concerned with helping man as a social animal to live more meaningfully—authentically, one might say—and to profit more fully from his temporal existence. He looks nostalgically to a golden age remote in time {El duefio de las estrellas; Los favores del mundo; Los pechos privilegiados) while also presenting negative examples from a sadly diminished present {La verdad sospechosa; Las paredes oyen), implying all the while that some semblance of Utopia may yet be salvaged from the mire of dystopia. Despite the ubiquitous pessimism, otherworldliness, and religious and racial hysteria of Counter Reformation Spain, the authorial image one infers from Alarcon's theater is that of an eternal optimist. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY In addition to the following—a selective, even arbitrary, listing—readers are advised to consult the annual bibliography appearing in the Bulletin of the Comediantes.
Complete Works Obras completas. 3 vols. Ed. Agustin Millares Carlo. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1957-59. Obras completas. 2 vols. Ed. Alva V. Ebersole. Valencia: Castalia, 1966.
Editions and Translations While several individual titles have merited both scholarly and student editions (e.g., Alva Ebersole's Catedra edition of La verdad sospechosa', Vern Williamsen's edition of No hay mat que por bien no venga—a revised version of which is in preparation), readers are advised to consult one of the two editions of the complete works listed in the Bibliography. I myself tend to rely on Millares Carlo. To date, only La verdad sospechosa has been translated into English, in three different versions, as Truth Suspected (1927), The Truth Suspected (1962), and The Suspected Truth (1967). There is fertile ground here for translators in search of authors and titles.
Critical Studies Alatorre, Antonio. "Para la historia de un problema: la mexicanidad de Juan Ruiz de Alarcon." Anuario de Letras 6 (1964): 161-202. Rpt. Critical Essays on the Life and Work of Ruiz de Alarcon. Ed. James A. Parr. Madrid: Dos Continentes, 1972. 11-43. Castro Leal, Antonio. Juan Ruiz de Alarcon. Su vida y su obra. Mexico City: Cuadernos Americanos, 1943. Darst, David. "La mexicanidad de Juan Ruiz de Alarcon." Revista Iberoamericana 61 (1995): 527-33.
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Delgado Morales, Manuel. "Significado politico de la moral y de la justicia en El duefio de las estrellas.'' Josep Maria Sola-Sole. Homage, homenaje, homenatge. 2 vols. Ed. Victorio Agiiera and Nathaniel Smith. Barcelona: Puvill, 1984. 2: 109-17. Dougherty, Deborah. "Alarcon's Licurgo: A Magnanimous Hero's Honorable Vengeance." Bulletin of the Comediantes 47.1 (1995): 55-71. Ebersole, Alva V. El ambiente espanol visto por Juan Ruiz de Alarcon. Madrid: Castalia, 1959. Fiore, Robert L. "Alarcon's El duefio de las estrellas: Hero and Pharmakos." Hispanic Review 61.2 (1993): 185-99. Foley, Augusta Espantoso de. Occult Arts and Doctrine in the Theater of Juan Ruiz de Alarcon. Geneva: Droz, 1972. . "The Problem of Astrology and Its Use in Ruiz de Alarcon's El duefio de las estrellas." Hispanic Review 32 (1964): 1-11. Rpt. Critical Essays on the Life and Work of Juan Ruiz de Alarcon. Ed. James A. Parr. Madrid: Dos Continentes, 1972. 213-22. Friedman, Edward H. "A View of Tragedy and Tragicomedy in Ruiz de Alarcon's El duefio de las estrellas and La crueldad por el honor.'' Kentucky Romance Quarterly 22 (1975): 429-41. Gaylord, Mary M. ' 'The Telling Lies in La verdad sospechosa.'' Modern Language Notes 103 (1988): 222-38. Jimenez Rueda, Julio. Juan Ruiz de Alarcon y su tiempo. Mexico City: Porrua, 1939. King, Willard F. Juan Ruiz de Alarcon, letrado y dramaturgo. Su mundo mexicano y espanol. Trans. Antonio Alatorre. Mexico City: El Colegio de Mexico, 1989. Madrigal, Jose Antonio. "La verdad sospechosa y su falsa soteriologia." Circulo: Revista de Cultura 17 (1988): 129-32. Parr, James A. After Its Kind: Approaches to the Comedia. Ed. Matthew D. Stroud et al. Kassel: Edition Reichenberger, 1991 (2d ed. 1993). 9-65 (re Alarcon). , ed. Critical Essays on the Life and Work of Ruiz de Alarcon. Madrid: Dos Continentes, 1972. Pasto, David J. "The Independent Heroines in Ruiz de Alarcon's Major Comedias." Bulletin of the Comediantes 40 (1988): 227-35. Poesse, Walter. Juan Ruiz de Alarcon. New York: Twayne, 1972. Reyes, Alfonso. "Tres siluetas de Ruiz de Alarcon." Obras completas VI. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1957. 88-129. . "Ruiz de Alarcon y el teatro frances." Obras completas VI. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1957. 413-25. Severin, Dorothy Sherman. "Ruiz de Alarcon's Romantic Heroines." Golden Age Spanish Literature: Studies in Honor of John Varey by His Colleagues and Pupils. Ed. Charles Davis and Alan Deyermond. London: Westfield College, 1991. 20714. Vega Garcfa-Luengos, German. "Treinta comedias desconocidas de Ruiz de Alarcon, Mira de Amescua, Velez de Guevara, Rojas Zorrilla y otros de los mejores ingenios de Espana." Criticon no. 62 (1994): 57-78. Weber, Alison. "La excentricidad y la norma en dos comedias de Ruiz de Alarcon." Actas del Sexto Congreso Internacional de Hispanistas. Ed. Alan M. Gordon and Evelyn Rugg. Toronto: University of Toronto, Paul Malak and Son, 1980. 78385.
FRANCISCO ANTONIO DE BANCES CANDAMO (1662-1704)
Santiago Garcia-Castanon
BIOGRAPHY Francisco Bances Candamo's life is even less known to the modern public than his theatrical production. He was born in Sabugo, the fishers' quarters of the Asturian town of Aviles, in April 1662, possibly April 22. He was the son of a tailor named Diego and his wife, Maria. Within a year of Francisco's birth, his father died, leaving his widow and the children Catalina and Francisco in financial difficulties. In the early 1670s, Maria decided to send her two children to Seville, where her brother Antonio was a canon at the cathedral. On December 16, 1672, the young Francisco received minor orders from the auxiliary bishop of the diocese, Msgr. Melchor Escuda. In Seville Francisco grew physically and intellectually under the auspices of his uncle and the bishop, and he soon distinguished himself, showing intelligence and a prodigious memory unusual for a boy of his age. In that Andalusian city Bances Candamo studied philosophy as well as civil and canon law, although there is no proof that he ever graduated from college, despite his saying otherwise. In addition to his fields of study, he acquired a solid knowledge of theology, poetry, and the classics. By the early 1680s it was obvious that Bances Candamo had literary ambition, and soon afterward (around 1684) he moved to Madrid. There he took part in academias, or literary gatherings, in which he shone as a gifted poet and a handsome young man. His friend and first biographer, Julian del Rio Mann, has left us the following portrait: "He was of a good disposition and art, gallant, five feet-two inches in height, stout, with a round face and black beard; very polite, generous, courteous, ingenious, witty in conversation, and generous, quick to disdain rivals and gossipmongers, strong in heart and will." 1 ("Fue bien dispuesto, de buen arte, galan, dos varas menos tres dedos de alto, grueso, redonda la cara, barbinegro, muy apacible en el trato, liberal, cortes, ingenioso, gracioso en hablar y generoso en despreciar emulos y chismosos, fuerte de corazon y de animo.") We know that his first play to be performed was Por su rey y por su dama\
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the premiere took place on November 15, 1685, in the coliseo, or great theater of the Buen Retiro Palace, with King Charles II and Queen Maria Luisa attending the event. The performance must have been a success, since from this moment Francisco Bances Candamo became a very popular figure in the court, not only as a playwright but also as a galdn. Bances Candamo reached his prime as a dramatist in the late 1680s: in 1686 he premiered the play La restauracion de Buda (November 15); in 1687, El mayor monstruo de amor (September 21) and Duelos de ingenio y fortuna (November 9) as well as the auto sacramental El primer duelo del mundo (May 29). It seems that this was also the year in which he was officially appointed court playwright by a royal decree: "Above all, I am most justly authorized by the fact that I was appointed by the King our lord by Royal Decree to write his plays, an honor that nobody has had by decree before, although there have been others that have deserved it more than I." 2 ("[S]obre todo me diera justisimo titulo el ser unicamente nombrado del Rey Nuestro Senor por su Real Decreto para escribir sus festejos, cuyo honor por decreto [aunque ha habido otros que le mereciesen mejor que yo] ninguno hasta hoy le ha tenido.") But in the middle of this meteoric career, upon the death of the young queen Maria Luisa on February 12, 1689, there was a seven-month period of mourning during which theaters were closed. So in 1689-1690 Bances Candamo devoted his time to writing the three versions of his well-known theoretical treatise Theatro de los theatros,3 in response to the Discurso theologico, a diatribe against the scenic art written by the Jesuit Ignacio de Camargo.4 In 1691 Bances Candamo premiered the play El duelo contra su dama (January 18), and he had an illegitimate child, Felix Leandro Jose, his only descendant. The next year the auto Las mesas de la fortuna was put on stage, as well as the plays El esclavo en grillos de oro and the zarzuela Como se curan los celos y Orlando furio so (December 22). In 1693 he premiered another one of his masterpieces, La piedra filosofal (January 18). Both El esclavo en grillos de oro and La piedra filosofal contain subtle political allusions and belong to the genre of "aulic and political theater."5 Perhaps because of the political content of these plays, Bances Candamo had to resign as official court playwright in 1693. He went on to accept a job as supervisor to the royal treasury in Cabra (1693-94); but he still had time to write for the theater, and the result was the performance of two more plays, Mas vale el hombre que el nombre (1696) and iCudl es afecto mayor, lealtad, sangre o amorl (1697). He then moved to Ocana, but he was subsequently dismissed by the powerful duke of MedinaSidonia in 1698. In 1699 he was again appointed to a similar job with jurisdiction in Ubeda and Baeza, a position he held until 1702. After the death of Charles II in 1700, he was commissioned by the new monarch, Philip V, to collect the royal taxes in San Clemente, which required constant travel around the area. In 1704, as he stayed in the village of Lezuza during one of his trips, he suffered a sudden seizure and died in mysterious circumstances on September 8, supposedly of poisoning, although this fact was never proved. Francisco
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Bances Candamo's only possessions at the time of his death were his papers and manuscripts, which he bequeathed to his friend and protector Don Antonio Martin de Toledo, duke of Alba and Spanish ambassador to the French court, but this valuable legacy has long been considered lost. Bances Candamo was buried in a side chapel of the church of Our Lady of the Assumption in Lezuza, and his exact burial place is now unknown. DRAMATURGY: MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES Apart from a volume of poetry6 and the theoretical treatise on theater mentioned earlier, Bances Candamo's literary production consists of some twenty-four plays and four autos sacramentales. Critics have traditionally considered El esclavo en grillos de oro and La piedra filosofal his best-constructed theatrical works. The first takes place in classical Rome and deals with the issue of the burdens of government: Camilo, a senator, attempts to overthrow the emperor Trajano, who, after learning of the rebellion, sentences Camilo to assume power and thus to experience all the hardships of government. After a few days, Camilo realizes the "slavery" of power and gives it back to its legitimate representative, the rightful Trajano. La piedra filosofal is the other cornerstone in Bances Candamo's theatrical production and contains clear references to the succession to the Spanish throne. Other plays that merit attention are Por su rey y por su dama, a comedia historial, in the words of its author. Por su rey y por su dama is set against the background of the conquest of the French city of Amiens by the Spaniards in 1597; although the play contains fictional as well as historical characters, the historical components prevail, as the play is faithful to the several extant historical treatises that describe the siege. The events unfold as follows: Hernan Tello Portocarrero is the governor of Dorian, a city he has captured from the French. He is infatuated with the young French lady Serafina, whose portrait he has obtained from a wounded French soldier, and decides to court her, even though she lives on enemy soil. In disguise, he attends a mask ball in Amiens organized by Serafina, and since both are subjects of different kings, she tells Portocarrero that their relationship can be possible only if Dorian is returned to the French or Amiens conquered by the Spaniards. In the third act Portocarrero uses a trick to fool those who defend Amiens and takes the city with a handful of men; the play concludes with the announcement of the wedding of Serafina and Portocarrero. The mythological plays constitute another solid group of his production. Among them we should mention Duelos de ingenio y fortuna and Fieras de celos y amor. We must not forget that Bances Candamo also wrote several zarzuelas, one of which, El imposible mayor en amor le vence amor, possibly written in collaboration with Jose de Canizares and with music by Sebastian Duron, has recently been staged in the town of Bances Candamo's birth with great success.
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CRITICAL RESPONSE After having enjoyed both public esteem and royal favor in his own time, the figure and works of Francisco Bances Candamo were consigned to oblivion during the nineteenth century, and his literary production has been treated disparately by critics ever since. During the last century, opinions on his writings were of a diverse tone and, in general, not very favorable.7 In the beginning of our century, the first critic to defend Bances Candamo was Cuervo-Arango, who in 1916 published a valuable study—although more descriptive than critical and now very outdated—about the life and works of our playwright.8 But it was not until 1927 that the renowned critic Gerardo Diego took interest in him and wrote the following comment, in which he extols the dramatic craftmanship of Bances Candamo: If we want tofinda true poet in the time of the last Hapsburg monarch, we must become acquainted with Bances Candamo. Of all the post-Calderonian playwrights, he is the finest; and if we can find indirect reflections of Gongora in others, in him we also find direct references.9 Five years later, Constantino Suarez wrote of Bances Candamo that "his dramatic vein is superior to the lyric. His merits are acknowledged by those who have studied him, but it is worthy of note that, because of laziness and routine, scholars—more eager to copy each other than to engage in research— are short in praising him" 10 (Muy superior a la vena lirica es la dramatica. Se reconoce por cuantos le han estudiado sus solidos meritos, pero se advierte que, por pereza y rutina, los tratadistas—mas dispuestos a copiarse que a la propia investigation—le regatean los encomios.) Suarez is correct in his assertion, since many of the critics who wrote about Bances Candamo in the nineteenth century did little but repeat what others had said before, often without mentioning the source, while compounding some previous errors and adding few or no judgments of value.11 Unfortunately, this situation continued until well into the twentieth century. An important turning point in this trend was the publication of Juan Manuel Rozas' article "La licitud del teatro y otras cuestiones literarias en Bances Candamo, escritor limite."12 This is the first serious, modern attempt to revise Bances Candamo's production in the context of his changing times. The situation finally changed in the early 1970s, when the British Hispanist Duncan Moir edited the Theatro de los theatros de los passados y presentes siglos.13 Today a number of scholars have begun to realize the importance of Bances Candamo: the late Carmen Diaz Castanon has published a useful, annotated edition of the two best-known plays by Bances.14 More recently, critics who have devoted studies to the works of Bances Candamo include Ann Mckenzie,15 Ignacio Arellano,16 Santiago GarciaCastanon,17 Maria Cristina Quintero,18 and Ana Suarez,19 among others. Once the production of Bances Candamo is the object of serious study, critics
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will agree that our dramatist was indeed a worthy successor of Calderon, a remarkable poet, a lucid theoretician, and, without a doubt, the last important figure of Spanish letters in the seventeenth century, whose popularity went beyond his own time to reach its peak in the eighteenth century, when he competed with the great names of the revered baroque masters. Moreover, he is a key figure in the transition period between the old world of the baroque and the new spirit of the Enlightenment. A testimony of his popularity throughout the centuries is given by Constantino Suarez: Beyond and above any consideration on Bances Candamo, it is unquestionable that out of his twenty-five dramatic plays, a good number of them—like El duelo contra su dama, El sastre del Campillo, El esclavo en grillos de oro, Por su ray y por su dama, and others—are still performed with general approval after centuries, which barely happens with the plays of Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina or Calderon.20
BANCES CANDAMO AS A THEORETICIAN OF THE THEATER In order to understand Bances Candamo's plays to their full extent, his theoretical treatise Theatro de los theatros is an essential reference. There, the playwright presented his ideas on the dramatic genre and judged some of his contemporaries and his predecessors, Calderon de la Barca being the model he tries to follow. He praises the master for his superior quality and admonishes Agustin Moreto for the deplorable situation of the scenic art in the last two decades of the seventeenth century, an infraction of which Bances Candamo would himself be accused in the future, mostly during the nineteenth century! Also in Theatro de los theatros Bances Candamo establishes a division of the comedia into two categories, amatorias and historiales, and the amatorias into two subcategories: "those known as cloak and dagger plays and those called construction plays"21 ("las que llaman de capa y espada y en las que llaman de fabrica"), both of which he goes on to define. Some of Bances Candamo's plays clearly reflect the political situation in Spain at the end of the seventeenth century, with a weak and sickly monarch too concerned about his lack of heir, an ambitious and depraved nobility without scruples, whose members never hesitated to conspire against each other in order to gain royal favor, an unstable economy due to unwise, lengthy, and financially devastating campaigns against France.22 Amid this chaos the life and works of Bances Candamo had the misfortune to develop and be produced.23 There is little doubt as to why his critical personality rebelled against the corrupt society of his time. Francisco Bances Candamo is thought to be an "escritor limite" to cite the useful expression coined by Juan Manuel Rozas some three decades ago in the aforementioned article, and he has come to occupy a somewhat more important position among Golden Age playwrights in recent times. After a long period of
Francisco Antonio de Bances Candamo
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neglect, most serious scholars agree that Francisco Bances Candamo is not only a worthy dramatist in his own right but also the fundamental link in the evolution between the old baroque aesthetics and the the dawn of the Enlightment. 24 NOTES 1. Julian del Rio Marin, "Introduction" to Francisco Bances Candamo's Obras lyricas (Madrid: a costa de Nicolas Rodriguez Francos, 1720 [2d ed. 1729]), 32. 2. Francisco Bances Candamo, Theatro de los theatros de los passados y presentes siglos, ed. Duncan W. Moir (London: Tamesis, 1970), 93. 3. Ibid. 4. Ignacio de Camargo, Discurso theologico sobre los teatros y comedias de este siglo (Salamanca, 1689). 5. Ignacio Arellano, "Bances Candamo, poeta aulico. Teoria y practica en el teatro cortesano del postrer Siglo de Oro," Iberoromania 27-28 (1988): 42-60. 6. Francisco Bances Candamo, Obras lyricas (Madrid: a costa de Nicolas Rodriguez Francos, 1720); there are a 2d ed. (1729) and a more recent 3d ed.—Fernando Gutierrez (Barcelona: Selecciones bibliofilas, 1949). 7. Some of the critics who share negative views of Bances Candamo include Gil de Zarate; George Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature, 3 vols. (New York: Ungar, 1965 reprint; 1st ed. 1849); Cayetano Alberto de la Barrera y Leirado, Catdlogo bibliogrdfico y biogrdfico del teatro antiguo espanol, desde sus origenes hasta mediados del siglo XVIII (Madrid: Rivadeneyra, 1860) (there is a facsimile reprint: [Madrid: Gredos, 1969]); Romualdo Alvarez Espino, Ensayo historico-critico del teatro espanol, desde sus origenes hasta nuestros dias (Cadiz: Tip. La Mercantil, 1876); Narciso Diaz de Escovar, "Poetas dramaticos del siglo XVII: Don Francisco Bances Candamo," Boletin de la Academia de la Historia 91 (1927), 105-14. 8. Francisco Cuervo-Arango y Gonzalez Carvajal, Don Francisco Antonio de Bances y Lopez Candamo. Estudio bio-bibliogrdfico y critico (Madrid: Hijos de M. G. Hernandez, 1916). 9. Gerardo Diego, Antologia poetica en honor de Gongora, desde Lope de Vega a Ruben Dario (Madrid: Ed. Revista de Occidente, 1927). I quote from the 2d ed. (Madrid: Alianza, 1979), 4 3 ^ 4 . Si quermos encontrar un verdadero poeta en la epoca del ultimo Austria, hemos de trabar conocimiento con Bances Candamo. De los autores de teatro poscalderonianos, el es el mas fino; y si en cualquiera de ellos hallamos reflejos indirectos de Gongora, recibidos de Calderon, en Bances los advertimos tambien directos. (Translation: If we wish to find a true poet from the Austrian era, we need to acquaint ourselves with Bances Candamo. Among the past Calderonian dramatists he was the most refined. And if we find echoes of Gonzara in any of them, they are acquired through Calderon. Bances takes those resonances directly.) 10. Constantino Suarez, "La vida amarga de Bances Candamo," Diario de la Marina (July 3, 1932), n.p. 11. Such is the case of N. Diaz de Escovar and P. Lasso de la Vega, Historia del teatro espanol, 2 vols. (Barcelona: Montaner y Simon, 1924). They take whole passages from Romualdo Alvarez Espino, Ensayo, without mentioning the source. 12. Juan Manuel Rozas, "La licitud del teatro y otras cuestiones literarias en Bances Candamo, escritor limite," Segismundo 1.2 (1965), 247-73.
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13. See n. 2. 14. Francisco Bances Candamo, El esclavo en grillos de oro and La piedra filosofal, ed. Carmen Diaz Castanon (Oviedo: Biblioteca Academica Asturiana, 1983); Diaz Castanon is also the author of two articles on the subject: "Bances Candamo y su teatro politico," Los Cuadernos del Norte 6 (1981), 74-82; and "£/ esclavo en grillos de oro. Acercamiento al teatro politico de Bances Candamo," Actas del Coloquio Teoria y realidad en el teatro espanol del siglo XVII (Roma: Instituto Espanol de Cultura y Literatura, 1981), 387-418. 15. Ann Mackenzie, "Dos comedias tratando de la reina Cristina de suecia: Afectos de odio y amor por Calderon y Quien es quien premia el amor por Bances Candamo," Hacia Calderon, IV Coloquio Anglogermano (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1979), 56-70. 16. Ignacio Arellano, "El Entremes de las visiones de Bances Candamo," Criticon 37 (1987), 11-35; "Teoria dramatica y practica teatral. Sobre el teatro aulico y politico de Bances Candamo," Criticon 42 (1988), 169-92; "Bances Candamo, poeta aulico. Teoria y practica en el teatro cortesano del postrer Siglo de Oro," Iberoromania 27-28 (1988), 42-60, and his ed. of Bances Candamo's Como se curan los celos y Orlando furioso (Ottawa: Dovehouse/Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, 1991). 17. Santiago Garcia-Castafion, "Corrientes maquiavelicas en una comedia inedita de Bances Candamo," Cuadernos de Asociacion de Licenciados y Doctores Espanoles en los Estados Unidos 7.1 (1991), 19-29; "La historia como pre-texto: el caso de Por su rey y por su dama, de Bances Candamo," Boletin del Real Instituto de Estudios Asturianos 141 (1993), 145-55; "Francisco Bances Candamo: nota biografica e ideas sobre el teatro," F. Bances Candamo y el teatro musical de su tiempo, ed. Jose Antonio Gomez Rodriguez and Beatriz del Fresno (Oviedo: Universidad de Oviedo-Ayuntamiento de Aviles, 1994), 59-93; "La teatralidad de la historia: sobre el episodio de la conquista de Amiens por los espanoles en 1597," Texto y espectdculo. Selected Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Golden Age Spanish Theatre Symposium, ed. Jose Luis Suarez Garcia (York, SC: Spanish Literature, 1995), 37-50, as well as his edition of Bances Candamo's Sangre, valor y fortuna (Oviedo: Instituto de Estudios Asturianos, 1991). 18. Maria Cristina Quintero, "Political Intentionality and Dramatic Convention in the 'Teatro Palaciego' of Francisco Bances Candamo," Revista de Estudios Hispdnicos 20.3 (1986), 37-53. 19. Ana Suarez, "Bances Candamo: hacia un teatro ilustrado y polemico," Revista de Literatura 55.109 (1993), 5-53. 20. C. Suarez, "La vida." Por sobre toda apreciacion de Bances Candamo, lo incuestionable es que de sus veinticinco obras teatrales, buen numero de ellas—como las comedias El duelo contra su dama, El sastre del Campillo, El esclavo en grillos de oro, Por su rey y por su dama, y otras—se siguen representando con aplauso al cabo de los siglos, lo que apenas si sucede con alguna que otra de lope de Vega, Tirso de molina y Calderon. 21. F. Bances Candamo, Theatro de los theatros, 33. 22. In June 1690, Charles II decided to join the members of the Great Alliance against France. After severe defeats in Milan, Flanders, and Catalonia, Spain, along with the Netherlands and England (but not the Austrian Empire), he was forced to sign the peace treaty of Rijswijck (September 29, 1697). Probably because he had higher goals in mind (the Spanish throne for his own grandson, Philip), Louis XIV was very generous with
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Charles II: almost all the Flemish strongholds and absolutely all the occupied territories in Catalonia were ceded to Spain. The peace treaty notwithstanding, the war against France had disastrous consequences for the Spanish treasury. See R. Trevor Davies, Spain in Decline. 1621-1700 (London: Macmillan, 1969). There is a Spanish translation: La decadencia espanola. 1621-1700 (Barcelona: Labor, 1972). 23. Adolf Schaffer considered Bances Candamo a true poet by nature who had the misfortune to live during bad times {Geschichte des spanisches Nationaldramas, vol. 2 [Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1890]), 252. 24. The current attitude of critics could be represented quite faithfully by Angel Valbuena Prat's belief that Bances Candamo is "an author of true importance that must be brought back from a completely unjustified oblivion" (un autor de verdadera importancia que hay que extraer de un olvido completamente injustificado) {Historia de la literatura espanola, 9th ed., vol. 3 [Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 1981-83]), 789.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Plays Collections Jardin ameno de varias y hermosas flores, cuyos matizes son doce comedias escogidas. Madrid, 1704. Includes by Bances Candamo: La Piedra filosofal, El duelo contra su dama, and La Xarretiera [de Inglaferra]. Comedias escogidas de los mejores ingenios de Espana. Madrid, 1652-1704. Includes by Bances Candamo: El Austria en Jerusalen, El Duelo contra su dama, Qual es afecto mayor, and Por su rey y por su dama. Poesias comicas. Obras Posthumas de D. Franciso Banzes Candamo. 2 vols. Madrid, 1722. Loose Prints El Austria en Jerusalen. Valencia: Vda. de Joseph Ortega, 1762; Seville: Lopez de Haro, n.d. iCudl es afecto mayor, lealtad o sangre o amorl Madrid, [1765]; Madrid, 1789. El duelo contra su dama. Salamanca: Imprenta de la Santa Cruz, n.d.; Salamanca: Imprenta Real, n.d.; Seville: Francisco Leefdael, n.d.; [Madrid]: Gabriel Leon, n.d.; Valencia: Orga, 1782; Madrid: Ortega, 1832. Duelos de ingenio y fortuna. Madrid: Bernardo de Villa-Diego, 1687. El esclavo en grillos de oro. Bruselas: Manuel Texera Tartar, 1704; Madrid: Libreria Cuesta, n.d.; Seville: Francisco Leefdael, n.d.; Valladolid: Alonso del Riego, n.d.; Barcelona: Escuder, 1756.; Valencia: Orga, 1782; Madrid: Ortega, 1832. La inclinacion espanola y musulmana nobleza. Seville: Diego Lopez de Haro, n.d.; Seville: Joseph Navarro y Armijo, n.d.; Seville: Joseph Padrino, n.d.; Valencia: Vda. Joseph de Orga, 1765. La piedra filosofal. n.p.: Herederos de Gabriel de Leon, n.d. Por su rey y por su dama. Valencia: n.d.; Valencia: Vda. de Joseph de Orga, 1770; Seville: Joseph Padrino, n.d.; Madrid: Ortega, 1832. Quien es quien premia al amor. Seville: Correo Viejo, n.d.
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iQuien es quien premia al amorl Ed. Bertil Maler. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International, 1977. La restauracion de Buda. Madrid: Antonio Roman, 1686; [Madrid]: Sebastian de Armendariz, n.d. El sastre del Campillo. n.p., n.d.; Valencia: Vda. de Joseph de Orga, 1765.
Theory Theatro de los theatros de los passados y presentes siglos. Partial ed. Manuel Serrano y Sanz. Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos 5 (1901), 155-60, 246-50, 485-90, 645-53, 735^2, 802-12, 927-32; 6 (1902), 73-81. Theatro de los theatros de los passados y presentes siglos. Ed. Duncan W. Moir. London: Tamesis, 1970. Teatro de los teatros. . . Partial ed. Federico Sanchez Escribano and Alberto Porqueras Mayo in Preceptiva dramdtica espanola del Renacimiento y el Barroco. 2d ed. Madrid: Gredos, 1972.
Poetry Obras Liricas. The poetry of Don Francisco Antonio de Bances Candamo, Supervisor of the Royal Tax Collection Agency in Ocana, San Clemente, Ubeda, and Baeza, etc. Published by D. Julian del Rio Mann, who dedicates them to her Excellency, Lady, the Duchess of Arco, Countess of Monte Nuevo, etc. Madrid: Nicolas Rodriguez Francos Press (in his address in 1720 Paco Street), at his expense. Poetry of Don Francisco Antonio de Bances y Candamo, Supervisor. The Tax Collection Agency . . . , published and dedicated by D. Julian del Rio Marin to His Excellency the Count of St. Stephen of Gormaz. Approved in Madrid: Francisco Martinez Abad Press, at his expense.
Critical Studies Arellano, Ignacio. "El Entremes de las visiones de Bances Candamo." Criticon 37 (1987), 11-35. . "La mojiganga para el auto sacramental El primer duelo del mundo de Bances Candamo." Varia bibliographica. Homenaje a Jose Simon Diaz. Kassel: Ed. Reichenberger, 1988. 55-66. . "Teoria dramatica y practica teatral. Sobre el teatro aulico y politico de Bances Candamo." Criticon 42 (1988), 169-93. . "Bances Candamo, poeta aulico. Teoria y practica en el teatro cortesano del postrer Siglo de Oro." Iberoromania 27-28 (1988), 42-60. Arias, Ricardo. The Spanish Sacramental Plays. Boston: Twayne, 1980. Barrera y Leirado, Cayetano Alberto de la. Catdlogo bibliogrdfico y biogrdfico del teatro antiguo espanol, desde sus origenes hasta mediados del siglo XVIII. Madrid: Rivadeneyra, 1860. Cattaneo, Maria Teresa. "La durata dell' illusione. Note a La piedra filosofal di Francisco Bances Candamo." Adas del Coloquio "Teoria y realidad en el teatro espanol del siglo XVII," no. 3. (1981), 419-29.
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Cuervo-Arango y Gonzalez Carvajal, Francisco. Don Francisco Antonio de Bances y Lopez Candamo. Estudio bio-bibliogrdfico y critico. Madrid: Impr. hijos de M. G. Hernandez, 1916. D'Agostino, Alfonso. "Per il teso della commedia La piedra filosofal di Francisco Bances Candamo." Acme 34.3 (1981), 447-65. Diaz Castanon, Carmen. "Bances Candamo y su teatro politico." Los Cuadernos del None 6 (1980): 74-82. . El esclavo en grillos de oro. Acercamiento al teatro politico de Bances Candamo. Actas del Coloquio "Teoria y realidad en el teatro espanol del siglo XVII" 3 (1981), 387-418. . Prologo. El esclavo en grillos de oro and La piedra filosofal, de Francisco Bances Candamo. Oviedo: Biblioteca Popular Asturiana, 1983. 9-116. Diaz de Escovar, Narciso. "Poetas dramaticos del siglo XVII. Don Francisco Bances Candamo." Boletin de la Academia de la Historia 91 (1927), 105-14. Diaz de Escovar, Narciso, y Francisco P. Lasso de la Vega. Historia del teatro espanol. 2 vols. Barcelona: Montaner y Simon, 1924. Foulche-Delbosc, Raymond. "Noms de famille mal accentues: Candamo." Revue Hispanique 23 (1928), 522-23. Garcia-Castanon, Santiago. "Corrientes del pensamiento maquiavelico en una comedia inedita de Bances Candamo." Cuadernos de ALDEEU1.1 (1991), 19-29. . "La historia como pre-texto: el caso de Por su rey y por su dama, de Bances Candamo." Boletin del Real Instituto de Estudios Asturianos 141 (1993), 145— 55. . "La autoridad real en el teatro de Bances Candamo." Looking at the Comedia in the Year of the Quincentennial. Ed. Barbara Mujica and Sharon D. Voros. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1993. 229-34. . "Bances Candamo: Nota biografica e ideas sobre el teatro." Bances Candamo y el teatro musical de su tiempo. Ed. Jose Antonio Martinez. Oviedo: Universidad de Oviedo-Ayuntamiento de Aviles, 1994. 59-93. . "La teatralidad de la historia: sobre el episodio de la conquista de Amiens por los espanoles en 1597." Texto y espectdculo. Selected Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Golden Age Theatre Symposium. Ed. Jose Luis Suarez Garcia. York, SC: Spanish Literature, 1995. 37-70. Gonzalez Posada, Carlos. Biblioteca asturiana, o noticia de los autores asturianos. Gijon: Monumenta Historica Asturiensia, 1980. Hempel, Wido. " Theatergeschichtsschreibung' im Siglo de Oro von Agustin de Rojas bis zu Bances Candamo." Spanische Literatur im Goldenen Zeitalter. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1973. 117-49. Huerta Calvo, Javier. "Los generos teatrales menores en el Siglo de Oro: status y prospectiva de la investigacion." En El teatro menor en Espana a partir del siglo XVI. Madrid: Anejos de Segismundo. CSIC, 1983. 23-62. Jack, W[ickersham] Shaffer. "Bances Candamo [sic] and the Calderonian Decadents." PMLA 44 (1929), 1079-89. MacKenzie, Ann L. "Dos comedias tratando de la reina Cristina de Suecia: Afectos de odio y amor por Calderon y Quien es quien premia el amor por Bances Candamo." Hacia Calderon. Cuarto coloquio anglogermano. Wolfenbiittel, 1975. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1979. 56-70. . "Das spanische Drama um Calderon (1630-1700)." En Das spanische Theater.
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Von den Anfdngen bis zum Ausgang des 19. Jahrhunderts. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1985. Mariscal de Gante, Jaime. Los Autos Sacramentales desde sus origenes hasta mediados del siglo XVIII. Madrid: Biblioteca Renacimiento, 1911. Moir, Duncan. "Bances Candamo's Garcilaso: An Introduction to El Cesar africano." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 49 (1972), 7-29. . Prologo. Theatro de los theatros de los passados y presentes siglos, de Francisco Bances Candamo. London: Tamesis Books, 1970. Miiller, Hans-Joachim. Das spanische Theater im 17. Jahrhundert, oder zwischen gottlicher Gnade und menschlicher List. West Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 1977. Mufiiz, Maria Elvira. Historia de la literatura asturiana en castellano. Salinas: Ay alga, 1978. Penzol, Pedro. "Desde Ariosto hasta Bances Candamo." Archivum 6 (1956), 321-26. . "En el cuarto centenario de Francisco Bances Candamo. Epflogo." Archivum 12 (1962), 466-69. . Escritos. Oviedo: Instituto de Estudios Asturianos, 1974. . "Francisco Bances Candamo. De la comedia a la zarzuela." Erudicion IberoUltramarina 3 (1932), 145-59. . "Un centauro en una zarzuela de Bances Candamo." Boletin del Instituto de Estudios Asturianos 46 (1962), 185-200. Perez Feliu, Jose J. Autos sacramentales de Fco. Bances Candamo. Oviedo: Instituto de Estudios Asturianos, 1975. . "La metrica en los autos sacramentales de Bances Candamo." Revista de Filologia Espanola 57 (1976), 127-58. Pollin, Alice M. "El Orlando furioso de Francisco Bances Candamo: Importante interpretation dramatico-musical del tema ariostesco." Cuadernos de Teatro Cldsico 3 (1989), 95-106. Quintero, Maria Cristina. "Political Intentionality and Dramatic Convention in the 'Teatro Palaciego' of Francisco Bances Candamo." Revista de Estudios Hispdnicos 20.3 (1986), 37-53. Rozas, Juan Manuel. "La licitud del teatro y otras cuestiones literarias en Bances Candamo, escritor limite." Segismundo 1.2 (1965), 247-73. Rubin, Anton. "Un dramaturgo y poeta asturiano en la Corte de los Austrias. Don Francisco Antonio de Bances Candamo." Archivum 12 (1962), 470-78. Sanchez Belen, Juan A. "La education del principe en el teatro de Bances Candamo: El esclavo en grillos de oro." Revista de Literatura 49.97 (1987), 73-93. Senas Encinas, F. "Bances Candamo, el malogrado, nacio en Sabugo, Aviles, en 1662." Boletin del Instituto de Estudios Asturianos 46 (1962), 165-84. Suarez, Constantino. Escritores y artistas asturianos. Indice bio-bibliogrdfico. 7 vols. Madrid: Impr. Saez Hnos., 1935-36 (vols. 1-3); Oviedo: Instituto de Estudios Asturianos, 1955-59 (vols. 4-7). Villar Castejon, C. "Valoracion historica de Francisco Antonio de Bances Candamo. El Austria en Jerusalen." Boletin del Instituto de Estudios Asturianos 33-98 (1979), 545-66. Williamsen, Vern G. The Minor Dramatists of Seventeenth-Century Spain. Boston: Twayne, 1982.
PEDRO CALDERON DE LA BARCA (1600-1681)
Matthew D. Stroud
BIOGRAPHY Don Pedro Calderon de la Barca was born on January 17, 1600, to parents of noble lineage. Although little is known of the early years of his life, it has been determined that Calderon attended the Jesuit Colegio Imperial in Madrid from about 1608 to about 1613. His mother died in 1610, after which his brother Diego left abruptly for Mexico, his sister Dorotea entered a convent, and his youngest sister Antonia went to live with her grandmother. In 1614, Pedro entered the University of Alcala, and in 1615, after the death of his father, he went to study at the University of Salamanca, where he obtained a degree in canonical law in 1620. Soon after, Pedro, with his brothers Diego and Jose, was allegedly involved in a murder case, but all three of them were let off with a fine of 600 ducats. His first play to be performed in Madrid was Amor, honor y poder in 1623. The details of his activities between 1623 and 1635 are quite sketchy, but in 1629 he was implicated in another scandal in which one of his brothers was stabbed, and Calderon, over the protests of the nuns, entered a convent where the perpetrator was alleged to be hiding. Later he would be received into the Order of Santiago and fight a war in Catalufia in 1641. The years 1630 to 1650 mark the high point of Calderon's literary output in the public theaters, or corrales, followed by his most intense production of court spectacle plays. In 1651 he was ordained a priest and moved to Toledo, returning to Madrid in 1656, living at court until his death on May 25, 1681. The literary career of the young poet was launched by the competitions from 1620 to 1622 in honor of the patron saint of Madrid, San Isidro, during which he earned the praise of the preeminent literary figure of the day, Lope de Vega. Calderon's poetry, coming as it did at the culmination of the baroque in Spain, contains all the brilliance and the difficulty of the baroque style that he inherited and refined. Reflecting the baroque ideals of accumulation and virtuosity, his work is full of plays on words and wide and insistent use of such poetic devices as metaphor, simile, oxymoron, and catachresis. His imagery is vivid and ap-
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peals to both sight and sound and uses contrasts in much the same way the painters of the day played with light and darkness in the techniques of chiaroscuro and tenebrismo. His cosmos is one of a perpetual conflict among the elements, among people, and among ideas. Although in general his philosophy is strongly scholastic, and decidely un-Cartesian, there are frequent Erasmist touches in his approach to the human condition. Calderon's principal contributions to the comedia were the philosophical and religious treatment of plot and character and the astonishing artistry of his poetry. Following the standards set by Lope de Vega, his comedias dealt typically with characters drawn from the nobility and their servants and were written in three acts and in verse, using diverse meters and rhymes. Calderon excelled at drawing individual characters even with standard types: the father, the galdn, the dama, and the gracioso. He was able to weave strong main and secondary plots together with brilliant displays of cultista and conceptista poetry, while avoiding the danger of converting the stage into a venue for declamatory poetry. He frequently used soliloquies and long narratives in order to vary the pace of the plot and to ponder philosophical questions. Perhaps because he had the luxury of writing for the court theater, many of his plays incorporated music and extravagant staging using the most modern machinery available. According to Otis Green, Calderon's theater in many ways manifests the author's response to a demanding audience no longer satisfied with mere plot, character, and elegance. They demanded more paradoxes, more spectacle, more wit, and more displays of technical virtuosity, more admiratio, especially in the plays presented at court. At the same time, Calderon sought to present more than an interesting plot; his plays frequently reveal profound insights into the human condition. Not only was he the outstanding literary figure of his day, with his works appearing in two different publications of his collected plays, but his dramas remained popular for a century after his death.
DRAMATURGY: MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES For the most part, Calderon wrote three distinctly different types of plays. For the public corrales, he wrote comedias typical of the genre: works full of intrigue dealing with the principal themes of love, honor, death, and faith. Among his most famous works of this type are three capa y espada plays, La dama duende, El alcalde de Zalamea, and El medico de su honra, along with a saint play, El principe constante. In El alcalde de Zalamea, a reworking of a previous play of the same name by Lope de Vega, the honor of the villagers of Zalamea is at stake when a military noble, a captain, enters the town and rapes the mayor's daughter. Intrigue here is played not for comic effect but for the seriousness of the attack on the human dignity of the villagers. The play has a happy ending in that the noble is condemned to death, the king approves the fate of the captain and the actions of the local residents, and harmony is restored to Zalamea. La dama duende is a comic story of misidentification in which
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Manuel, a friend of Juan, stays at the latter's house with his brother, Luis, and his sister, Ines. Ines, the sprite of the title, is not content to be kept prisoner in her own house by her brothers, who are intent on guarding her honor at all cost. Not only does she go out in disguise (and unintentionally inflame the passion of her own brother, who does not recognize her), but she discovers a secret passageway into Manuel's room, through which she enters and becomes a "phantom lady." The various serious plotlines, veering on incest and death, are resolved in the traditional comic fashion with the marriage of Manuel and Ines. El principe constante is both historical account of the invasion of Morocco by the Portuguese King Sebastian (whose defeat ultimately led to the unification of Spain and Portugal under Philip II in 1580) and a study in martyrdom that turns on their heads the ideas of honor and virtue seen in his other plays. Fernando, unlike the other nobles who bristle at the merest slight, embraces his humiliation when he is captured by the Moroccan king. As a Christian, he offers his honor and his life rather than surrender Ceuta to the infidel. The more the enemy king punishes him, the greater is his glory until he finally expires and becomes a spirit leading the Christian forces. El medico de su honra deserves a bit more attention because it represents an unusual subgenre of comedia, that of the wife-murder play. As in El pintor de su deshonra and A secreto agravio, secreta venganza, El medico de su honra depicts the death of a technically innocent wife in order to protect the husband's honor. Gutierre, the husband of Mencia, suspects that his wife is still involved with an old flame, Prince Enrique. He is quite wrong, and Mencia does everything in her power to avoid even the merest suspicion of wrongdoing, but he is so driven by his jealousy and his punctilious sense of honor that he causes his wife to be killed. The king, who knows the real story, accepts Gutierre's fiction that Mencia died through no fault of his own and weds him to Leonor, the woman whom he had previously jilted. Because of its extraordinarily uncertain internal moral compass, this play, as well as Calderon's other wife-murder plays (including A secreto agravio, secreta venganza and El pintor de su deshonra), has provoked a great deal of critical speculation over Calderon's point in writing them. Does he approve of the husband's actions, thereby allowing all the husbands to remarry at the end? Does he disapprove, as shown by the fact that all the women are technically innocent, highlighting the irony of their needless deaths? Or does he see in these ambiguous plots great dramatic potential, made even more astonishing by the murkiness of the moral lesson? The plays themselves do not allow for a final critical conclusion, which may be one of the reasons for their enduring interest. After his appointment as court dramatist, Calderon wrote plays to be performed either at the Royal Palace or at the Coliseo in Buen Retiro Palace. Unlike the public plays, all these works are based on mythological stories and make significant use of Italianate staging with perspective scenery, sumptuous costumes, and music. At least two of the plays, Celos aun del aire matan and La pupura de la rosa, were fully sung. Typical of the genre is El mayor encanto
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amor, based the story of Ulysses and Circe and the first of Calderon's plays produced in the new Coliseo del Buen Retiro. Taking full advantage of the setting of the new palace, Calderon produced a festival of music, spectacle, and poetry that opens with a storm at sea and ends with the formative eruptions of Mount Aetna. Although Circe is able to enchant his men quite easily, Ulysses is not as susceptible to her charms, thanks, in part, to the help he repeatedly receives from Juno, as well as his own greater stature as epic hero. Most of the play revolves around the love duet between Circe and Ulysses, neither of whom is willing to declare the love that they apparently feel for each other. There are numerous games, riddles, and dissimulations, including an attack by a simulated army that causes Ulysses to leave Circe in the company of his rival, Arsidas. Ulysses finally confesses his love for her in the form of a story about a hunt for herons. His men, fearing that he will stay on the island forever, place Achilles' armor next to him while he sleeps, and the strength of the Greek warrior gives Ulysses renewed resolve to get on his way back home. Circe tries to bring him back, but Ulysses, again with divine protection, escapes. Circe, forlorn and overcome, sinks herself and her island into the sea, giving rise to the formation of Mount Aetna. Typical of these court extravaganzas, the familiar plot elements take a secondary role to the artistry of the poetry and the spectacular effects of the lavish productions. The final dramatic genre in which Calderon distinguished himself was the auto sacramental, a one-act allegorical play performed on Corpus Christi day. In some cases Calderon recast his secular plays, such as La vida es sueno and El pintor de su deshonra, in the form of autos. In others, such as La cena del Rey Baltazar, he used either biblical or ideological material. In El gran teatro del mundo, Calderon's most famous auto, the characters are assigned roles by the director at the beginning of the play, and they act out the behaviors of their respective roles. At the end of the play, they return their costumes and end the play as equals. On the allegorical level, the director is God, and the characters include the world, Mundo, as well as human beings (Rey, Labrador, Pobre), human attributes (Hermosura, Discrecion), and religious doctrine (La Ley de Gracia). When God ends the play of life, each character dies equal to all the others. As in all the autos, the moral is explicit: life is short, its pleasures are illusory and fleeting, and one must always do good in order to achieve the ultimate reward in heaven. La vida es sueno Without any doubt, Calderon's most famous play is La vida es sueno, or Life is a Dream. Not only does it occupy an almost unique position within Spanish literature, but it is one of the few Spanish works to be universally included in the canon of world literature. Written for the public theaters, it is one of Calderon's most philosophical pieces, but it abandons neither the strong plotting
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and interesting intrigues nor the themes of love, honor, and death found elsewhere in his theater. Essentially, La vida es sueno is the story of two people in search of their fathers. Segismundo is the son of Basilio, the King of Poland, but he does not know that at the opening of the play. His father interpreted the omens surrounding Segismundo's birth, including the death of his mother, to mean that Segismundo would be a tyrannical ruler and that Poland would be better off without him. Basilio did not have him killed, however, but imprisoned him in a tower with a tutor, Clotaldo, who is the only human being with whom the Prince has had contact until Rosaura and her servant Clarin stumble upon his hidden prison. Rosaura has been deflowered and jilted by Astolfo, the Duke of Moscovy. Now dressed in men's clothes, she seeks her own honorable resolution to her dilemma. Her mother gave her a sword and told her to show it in Poland. Clotaldo recognizes the sword and agrees to help the young visitor. Meanwhile, Basilio has been having second thoughts about having imprisoned Segismundo. Before he cedes the throne to Estrella and Astolfo (the same man who betrayed Rosaura), he decides to test his interpretations and bring Segismundo to court. In order to give Segismundo an opportunity to rule without installing him permanently as king, Basilio orders Clotaldo to drug Segismundo and bring him to court with the admonition to be careful, because what he is experiencing might be just a dream. Act 2 takes place at the court of Poland, and Basilio's worst fears are realized. Segismundo, emboldened by his new power and status, treats others with arrogance, contempt, and violence. He sentences Clotaldo to death for having kept him imprisoned all those years, and, when a servant tries to protect Astolfo's honor, he picks him up and hurls him into the sea. Basilio is convinced that he was right in his initial interpretation. Meanwhile, Rosaura, now dressed as a lady-in-waiting named Astrea, meets Segismundo, and he recalls having seen her before. Reacting to Segismundo's threats, Basilio warns Segismundo that all that he sees may be a dream. Meanwhile, Estrella is jealous of the portrait of another woman that Astolfo is carrying in a locket around his neck. She tells Rosaura (as Astrea) to retrieve it for her so she can see who the other woman is. Rosaura confronts Astolfo and tries to retrieve the portrait, her portrait, from him. They argue and almost tear it to pieces when Estrella interrupts them and seizes the portrait. Rosaura makes up a story that the portrait in question was not the one Astolfo was wearing but just one of her own. Astolfo loves Rosaura but wants to rule Poland with Estrella; Rosaura's arrival at court can spell only trouble for him. Basilio has Segismundo drugged again and returned to his tower. Clotaldo tells the Prince that what he experienced was only a dream, and Segismundo ends the act with his famous soliloquy about dreams: life is nothing more than an illusion, a fiction, a dream, and even dreams are dreams. In Act 3, the people rise up and demand to be ruled by their rightful Prince. Soldiers come to Segismundo's tower to retrieve him and bring him back to court. Segismundo thinks that he is dreaming again, but he goes along, even
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swearing to take up arms against his father. A civil war is in the offing, and Clotaldo comes to Segismundo on his knees. This time, however, Segismundo does not order him executed, because he may be dreaming, and even in dreams, it is good to do good. Basilio recognizes that he himself brought on the disasters that he foretold. Clotaldo, now allied with Rosaura for the restoration of her honor, promises her his aid, even if it means committing the treason of rebelling against his natural lord. Segismundo once again meets Rosaura, this time dressed as both man and woman and using her own name. He has seen her in every act, and he comes to understand that neither is he dreaming now nor was he in his earlier visit to court. Instead of reverting to his previous tyrannical ways, however, Segismundo reacts with wisdom and respect, promising to restore her honor. More violence breaks out, and in the chaos, Clarin, who hides to avoid injury, is killed. Basilio and Astolfo admit defeat, and Segismundo, with great wisdom and justice, sets things right. Once the uprising has been quelled, he has one of the soldiers who aided him imprisoned as a rebel and a traitor against the crown. He accepts his father's defeat (and in the process fulfills the prophecy of his triumph over his father), but he does not gloat. He offers himself to Basilio for punishment, but Basilio now believes that he will be a good king and installs him on the throne. He arranges the marriage of Rosaura and Astolfo and promises that he will marry Estrella. The play ends with Segismundo's musing on the central lesson: life is as uncertain as a dream. CRITICAL RESPONSE La vida es sueno, like many of Calderon's plays, has been studied from an extraordinary variety of perspectives. His rich philosophical perspectives, his vibrant poetry, his interesting and provocative characters, and his intriguing plots and subplots have provided enormous possibilities for critical thought. Except for the critics of the eighteenth century, who disdained anything baroque, Calderon has always been revered as poet, playwright, and philosopher. In this century, without any doubt, the majority of the criticism followed the New Critical lead of Alexander Parker. Focusing on thematic unity leading to a coherent, didactic message based on the principle of poetic justice, the prevalent critical approach, developed by Parker, E. M. Wilson, R. D. F. Pring-Mill, William Whitby, Bruce Wardropper, and others, sought to explain all plot elements as part of a structural whole in which characters shaped their own destinies, and the play as a whole offered a unified presentation based on a close reading and an explanation of the symbols, a reading of the signs, that are to be found in the play. There was most definitely an underlying assumption that the play had an absolute meaning, upheld by the various interpretations of the symbols and actions of the plays, pointing toward a Christian lesson regarding the necessity of self-sacrifice for the good of secular society and in order for the believer to enter heaven after death. Starting with the 1980s, however, a growing body of criticism was unwilling to be satisfied with the search for a singular truth, and
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various newer theories were applied. James Maraniss has viewed the play as a moral lesson in support of a repressive political system, while Christopher and Teresa Soufas have studied the play in the light of contemporary history and ideology. Frederick de Armas has done exhaustive research into the astronomical references and the thematic repercussions of important physical phenomena of the day. Cesareo Bandera has used the ideas of Rene Girard and his notions of mimesis and the sacred, and several critics, including Parker and Julian Palley, have seen the actions of the play through Freudian psychoanalysis, especially in light of the Oedipus conflict. In the past few years, influenced by deconstructionism and other postmodern theories, there has been an attempt to turn New Criticism on its head and assert that the play reveals the impossibility of ever finding the truth. In one sense, the action of the play can be read as a metaphor of the workings of civilization and the place of the individual subject in it. Civilization promises love, happiness, order, and a sense of place and role if one will only submit. The tranquillity promised by civilization through law and order can come about only through repression and even violence. For both Rosaura and Segismundo, it is representative of the civil law and symbolic parental power (Basilio for Segismundo and Astolfo for Rosaura) that expels them from society. Since one can be part of civilization only when one knows one's name, both Rosaura and Segismundo search for their fathers. Basilio, who does not even get to know his son before he exiles him, points out the normally oppressive and tyrannical nature of civilization. Basilio's ignorance (despite the supposition of great erudition) sets in motion the events of the play. He misread the omens, which do not have any meaning other than what he gives them. Rather than merely reading signs pointing to reality, Basilio creates reality by isolating Segismundo and by not giving him his name, partly because of his own egoistic rivalry with his son. He cannot accept Segismundo as his mirror image; he is unwilling to be usurped by his son. But Basilio will not be immortal, even if he kills his son. In Rosaura's case, Astolfo, as her rightful ruler, violated the trust placed in him by deceiving and abandoning her. Clotaldo notes the contradiction between his position, which is due respect and reverence, and his actions, which are reprehensible, by first claiming that it is not possible for him to have dishonored her. Civilization likes to keep authority to itself, even at the expense of its constituents. Both of the main characters sacrifice for their community: they look for their desires in the desire of the Other. Rosaura ends the play married to a man who abandoned her and who clearly prefers another woman. Segismundo renounces his own egoistic desires and even his desire for Rosaura, opting instead for a marriage to Estrella based on duty to his symbolic responsibilities as king. In a sense, they have internalized the violence committed against them, in the process suppressing through autodominio the self-assertion so necessary for the life of the community. At the heart of the philosophical fabric of the play is a set of contradictions. Segismundo discovers that he was not dreaming in Act 2; Basilio discovers that
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the truth he divined from the omens was not the truth; Segismundo's reality is constructed by Basilio in the first two acts and by his obligations as king in the last act. In other words, dreams are not dreams, truth is not truth, reality is not reality, fiction is not fiction. Civilization always promises, but does not deliver, happiness. The best one can hope for is a tranquillity based on the acceptance of a contract at whose root is the word as metaphor. Civilization is literally metaphorical in nature, based on the linking of an image and a concept. Meaning is created by the presence of an absence, an absence that is the result of repression and suppression. The "absent" dream leads Segismundo to his realization of the "truth," and only through his "metaphorization," that is, through his self-effacement, which allows for his symbolic presence, can Segismundo reenter society. THE CALDERON DE LA BARCA PRIZE During the Franco years, the Spanish Ministerio de Informacion y Turismo created a Premio Calderon de la Barca, which was presented to playwrights from 1954 to 1972. Among the recipients were Gerardo Diego {El cerezo y la palmera, 1961), Antonio Gala {Los verdes campos de Eden, 1963, and Los buenos dias perdidos, 1972), Miguel Mihura {Ninette y un senor de Murcia, 1964), Victor Ruiz Iriarte {La muchacha del sombrerito rosa, 1967), Joaquin Calvo Sotelo {Una noche de lluvia, 1968), and Jaime Salom {Los delfines, 1969). SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Non-Dramatic Works Prose Calderon wrote no prose works of fiction, but he did author several essays that speak of his theories of artistic production. Especially noteworthy are the aprobacion written to accompany Cristobal Lozano's Soledades de la vida (1658) and his Deposicion a favor de los profesores de la pintura. Poetry In general, Calderon's poetry, apart from his plays, was minor academy pieces or occasional poems. His longer poems were more typical of the eloquence seen in his dramatic poetry. Especially important is his Psalle et sile, a meditation on the inscription of the choir-screen in the Toledo cathedral dealing with the values of religious poetry and priestly duties. Dramatic Production Calderon numbered his full-length plays at 110 (in 1681), and in 1677 he published twelve autos sacramentales. Today his works are considered to include twenty short pieces (interludes, has, and jdcaras), eighty autos sacramentales, and 120 comedias.
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Editions and Translations Collected Works in Spanish Two multivolume editions appeared in the seventeenth century. The first was published in five volumes of twelve plays each that appeared in 1636, 1637, 1664, 1672, and 1677. Calderon approved of the first four volumes of the edition and even wrote the prologue to the 1672 parte. The last volume, however, did not receive his authorization, because, he said, "the comedias in it are not mine." The Juan de Vera Tassis edition, in nine volumes, appeared posthumously from 1682 to 1691, but it was based on a list of plays that Calderon sent to the Duke of Vergara in 1681. In the nineteenth century, Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch published Calderon's plays in the Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles (Madrid: Rivadeneyra, 1848), volumes 7, 9, 12, and 14. Autos sacramentales. Ed. Angel Valbuena Prat. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1957-58. Comedias de capa y espada. Ed. Angel Valbuena-Briones. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1954. Comedias religiosas. Ed. Angel Valbuena Prat. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1953. Comedias: A Facsimile Edition. Ed. D. W. Cruickshank and J. E. Varey. 19 vols. Farnborough: Gregg International, 1973. Dramas de honor. Ed. Angel Valbuena-Briones. 3d ed. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1970. Obras completas. Ed. Angel Valbuena-Briones. 3 vols. Madrid: Aguilar, 1960-67. Teatro musical de Calderon. Barcelona: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Instituto Espanol de Musicologia, 1981. Spanish Texts with English
Translations
Celos aun del aire matan. Ed. and trans. Matthew D. Stroud. San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1981. Gudrdate de la agua mansa: la gran comedia (Beware of Still Waters). Trans. David M. Gitlitz. San Antonio, TX: Trinity University Press, 1984. Pedro Calderon de la Barca's The Fake Astrologer. Ed. and trans. Max Oppenheimer, Jr. New York: P. Lang, 1994. The Schism in England. La cisma de Inglaterra. Ed. Ann L. Mackenzie. Trans. Kenneth Muir and Ann L. Mackenzie. Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1990. English
Translations
Four Comedies by Pedro Calderon de la Barca. Trans. Kenneth Muir. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1980. Four Plays. Trans. Edwin Honig. New York: Hill and Wang, 1961. Life Is a Dream. Trans. William E. Colford. Woodbury, NY: Barron's Educational Series, 1958. Life's a Dream: A Play in Three Acts. Trans. Kathleen Raine and R. M. Nadal. London: H. Hamilton, 1968. Love Is No Laughing Matter. Trans. Don Cruickshank and Sean Page. Warminster, Wiltshire: Aris and Phillips, 1986. Six Plays. Trans. Denis Florence MacCarthy. New York: Las Americas, 1961. The Great Stage of the World: An Allegorical Auto Sacramental. Trans. George W. Brandt. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1976. Three Comedies by Pedro Calderon de la Barca. Trans. Kenneth Muir and Ann L. Mackenzie. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1985.
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Critical Studies Amadei-Pulice, Maria Alicia. Calderon y el barroco: Exaltacion y engano de los sentidos. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1990. Aycock, Wendell M., and Sydney P. Cravens, eds. Calderon de la Barca at the Tercentenary: Comparative Views. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1982. Bandera, Cesareo. Mimesis conflictiva: Ficcion literaria y violencia en Cervantes y Calderon. Madrid: Gredos, 1975. Bryans, John V. Calderon de la Barca: Imagery, Rhetoric and Drama. London: Tamesis Books, 1977. Casa, Frank P. "Honor and the Wife-Killers of Calderon." Bulletin of the Comediantes 29 (1977): 6-23. Cascardi, Anthony J. The Limits of Illusion: A Critical Study of Calderon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Cilveti, Angel L. El demonio en el teatro de Calderon. Valencia: Albatros Ediciones, 1977. Cotarelo y Mori, Emilio. Ensayo sobre la vida y obras de Calderon. Madrid: Tipografia de la "Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos," 1924. De Armas, Frederick A., ed. The Prince in the Tower: Perceptions of La vida es sueno. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1993. De Armas, Frederick A., David M. Gitlitz, and Jose A. Madrigal, eds. Critical Perspectives on Calderon de la Barca. Lincoln, NE: Society of Spanish and SpanishAmerican Studies, 1981. Dietz, Donald T. The Auto Sacramental and the Parable in Spanish Golden Age Literature. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1973. Duran, Manuel, and Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, eds. Calderon y la critica: Historia y antologia. 2 vols. Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1976. Edwards, Gwynne. The Prison and the Labyrinth: Studies in Calderonian Tragedy. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1978. El Saffar, Ruth. "Way Stations in the Errancy of the Word: A Study of Calderon's La vida es sueno." Renaissance Drama 17 (1986): 83-100. Flasche, Hans, ed. Hacia Calderon. Tercer coloquio anglogermano. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1976. . Uber Calderon: Studien aus den Jahren 1958-1980. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1980. Flasche, Hans, and Pedro Juan-Tous, eds. Hacia Calderon: Sexto Coloquio Anglogermano, Wurzburg 1981. Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1983. This is one volume in a series of publications by the Coloquio Anglogermano entitled Hacia Calderon. Fox, Dian. Kings in Calderon: A Study in Characterization and Political Theory. London: Tamesis, 1986. Frutos, Eugenio. La filosofia de Calderon en sus autos sacramentales. Zaragoza: Institucion "Fernando el Catolico" (CSIC), 1952. Garcia Lorenzo, Luciano, ed. Calderon: Actas del Congreso internacional sobre Calderon y el teatro espanol del Siglo de Oro. 3 vols. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1983. Greer, Margaret Rich. The Play of Power: Mythological Court Dramas of Calderon de la Barca. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991. Hesse, Everett. Calderon de la Barca. New York: Twayne, 1967.
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Hildner, David Jonathan. Reason and the Passions in the Comedias of Calderon. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins, 1982. Honig, Edwin. Calderon and the Seizures of Honor. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972. Kurtz, Barbara Ellen. The Play of Allegory in the Autos Sacramentales of Pedro Calderon de la Barca. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1991. Levy, Kurt, Jesus Ara, and Gethin Hughes, eds. Calderon and the Baroque Tradition. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1985. Maraniss, James E. On Calderon. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1978. McGaha, Michael D., ed. Approaches to the Theater of Calderon. Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1982. Menendez y Pelayo, Marcelino. Calderon y su teatro. Madrid: Tipografia de la "Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos," 1910. Mujica, Barbara Louise. Calderon's Characters: An Existential Point of View. Barcelona: Puvill, 1980. . Calderon's Don Lope de Almeida: A Kafkian Character. Madrid: Plaza Mayor, 1971. Navarro Gonzalez, Alberto. Calderon de la Barca de lo trdgico a lo grotesco. Salamanca; Kassel: Reichenberger Edition, 1984. Neumeister, Sebastian. Mythos und Reprasentation: Die mythologische Festspiele Calderons. Miinchen: Fink, 1978. O'Connor, Thomas Austin. Myth and Mythology in the Theater of Pedro Calderon de la Barca. San Antonio, TX: Trinity University Press, 1988. Parker, Alexander Augustine. The Allegorical Drama of Calderon: An Introduction to the Autos Sacramentales. Oxford: Dolphin Book, 1968. . "The Father-Son Conflict in the Drama of Calderon." Forum for Modern Language Studies 2 (1966): 99-113. . "Metafora y sfmbolo en la interpretation de Calderon." Actas del Primer Congreso Internacional de Hispanistas. Ed. Frank Pierce and Cyril A. Jones. Oxford: Dolphin, 1964, 141-60. . "Towards a Definition of Calderonian Tragedy." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 39 (1962): 222-37. Parker, Jack H., and Arthur M. Fox, eds. Calderon de la Barca Studies, 1951-69: A Critical Survey and Annotated Bibliography. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971. Perez Pastor, Cristobal. Documentos para la biografia de D. Pedro Calderon de la Barca. Madrid: Fortanet, 1905. Pring-Mill, R.D.F. "Los calderonistas de habla inglesa y La vida es sueno: Metodos del analisis tematico-estructural." Litterae Hispanae et Lusitanae: Festschrift zum 50 Jahrigen Bestehen des Ibero-Amerikanischen Forschungsinstituts der Universitat Hamburg. Ed. Hans Flasche. Miinchen: Hueber, 1968, 369-413. Reichenberger, Kurt, et al. Bibliographisches Handbuch der Calderon-Forschung: Manual bibliogrdfico calderoniano. Kassel: Thiele and Schwarz, 1979. Rodriguez, Evangelina, and Antonio Tordera. Calderon y la obra corta dramdtica del siglo XVII. London: Tamesis Books, 1983. Ruano de la Haza, J. M. "The Staging of Calderon's La vida es sueno and La dama duende. " Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 64 (1987): 51-63.
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Ruiz Ramon, Francisco. Calderon y la tragedia. Madrid: Alhambra, 1984. Soufas, Christopher, and Teresa Soufas. "La vida es sueno and Post-Modern Sensibilities: Towards a New 'Method of Analysis and Interpretation.' " Studies in Honor of Bruce W. Wardropper. Ed. Dian Fox, Harry Sieber, and Robert ter Horst. Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 1989, 291-303. Stein, Louise K. Songs of Mortals, Dialogues of the Gods: Music and Theatre in Seventeenth-Century Spain. Oxford: Clarendon; New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Stroud, Matthew D. The Play in the Mirror: Lacanian Perspectives on Spanish Baroque Theater. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1996. . "Some Practical Thoughts on Producing Calderon's Court Plays." Bulletin of the Comediantes 36 (1984): 33-41. Subira, Jose. "Calderon de la Barca, libretista de opera: Consideraciones literariomusicales." Anuario Musical 20 (1965): 59-73. Sullivan, Henry W. Calderon in the German Lands and the Low Countries: His Reception and Influence, 1654-1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. . "Lacan and Calderon: Spanish Classical Drama in the Light of Psychoanalytic Theory." Gestos: Teoria y Practica del Teatro Hispdnico 5, no. 10 (1990): 3955. . "Psicoanalisis paradigmatico en los autos sacramentales de Calderon." In Adas del VIII Congreso de la Asociacion Internacional de Hispanistas, ed. A. David Kossoff et al. Vol. 2. Madrid: Ediciones Istmo, 1986, 613-17. ter Horst, Robert. Calderon: The Secular Plays. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1982. Tyler, Richard W., and Sergio D. Elizondo. The Characters, Plots, and Settings of Calderon 's Comedias. Lincoln, NE: Society of Spanish and Spanish-American Studies, 1981. Valbuena-Briones, Angel. Perspectiva critica de los dramas de Calderon. Madrid: Ediciones Rialp, 1965. Valbuena Prat, Angel. Calderon: Su personalidad, su arte dramdtico, su estilo y sus obras. Barcelona: Juventud, 1941. Varey, J. E. Critical Studies of Calderon's Comedias. London: Gregg International, 1972. Wardropper, Bruce W., ed. Critical Essays on the Theatre of Calderon. New York: New York University Press, 1965. . "Calderon's Comedy and His Serious Sense of Life." In Hispanic Studies in Honor of Nicholson B. Adams, ed. J. E. Keller and K.-L. Selig. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1966, 179-93. . "El problema de la responsabilidad en la comedia de capa y espada de Calderon." In Actas del Segundo Congreso Internacional de Hispanistas, ed. Jaime Sanchez-Romeralo y Norbert Poulussen. Nijmegen: Asociacion Internacional de Hispanistas: Institute Espanol de la Universidad de Nimegen, 1967, 689-94. . "The Unconscious Mind in Calderon's El pintor de su deshonra." Hispanic Review 18 (1950): 285-301. Wilson, Edward M., and Duncan Moir. "Calderon." In A Literary History of Spain. The Golden Age: Drama 1492-1700. London: Ernest Benn; New York: Barnes and Noble, 1971, 99-119. Wilson, Edward M., and Jack Sage. Poesias liricas en las obras dramdticas de Calderon. London: Tamesis Books, 1964.
GUILLEN DE CASTRO (1569-1631)
Barbara Mujica
BIOGRAPHY Guillen de Castro y Bellvis is best known for his first play on Spain's national hero, Las mocedades del Cid, I (The Youthful Deeds of El Cid, I). His fascination with El Cid was perhaps natural, given his family background. His father was descended from Lain Calvo, a judge in medieval Castile who was reputedly Rodrigo Ruy Diaz de Vivar's grandfather. Castro's mother traced her ancestry to King John I of Aragon. The author was born in Valencia; his family was one of the most noble and cultured in Spain and included several writers. Nothing is known about Castro's early life, but extensive studies have been done of sixteenth-century Valencia, a dynamic cultural center with drama festivals and literary societies. In 1592 Castro became a member of the Academia de los Nocturnos (the Society of Night Revelers) and, as was the custom of the time, took a nickname, Secreto, under which he wrote twenty-five poems and four prose works as contributions to the group. Apparently considering himself quite a ladies' man, Castro once read a poem entitled Como han de granjearse las damas (How to Win over Women) at a meeting of the society. Two of his relatives were also members, Francisco de Castro and Guillen de Bellvisa, who used the names Lluvia (Rain) and Consejo (Counsel), respectively. Celebrated local playwrights such as Rey de Artieda and Cristobal de Virues contributed to the cultural life of the city, and plays from all over the Iberian Peninsula were performed regularly in Valencia. Lope de Vega lived there between 1595 and 1597, having been banished from Madrid as the result of a duel. It is possible that Castro met Lope then, since the young Valencian was already active in literary affairs, frequently participating in poetic contests. Like many young men of his time, Castro combined arms and letters and was in the king's service for more than twenty years. In 1593 he became an officer in the mounted coast guard, which protected Valencia from raids by Moslem pirates. He married Elena Fenollar, Marquise Giron de Rebolledo in 1595, but she died a few years later, probably before 1600. The couple had one daughter,
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who died in childhood, although there is no record of the date. Critics have suggested that the marriage was an unhappy one, since in several plays Castro refers to conjugal life as slavery. Some of his plays on this subject are Eos mal casados de Valencia, Alia van leyes do quieren Reyes, and El renegado arrepentido. In 1601, Castro was named general procurator of Don Carlos de Borja, Duke of Gandia, and the following year won a prize in Valencia for a poem he had written for a competition in honor of Saint Raimundo de Penafort. During the Golden Age Spain maintained close cultural and political ties with Italy. Spain ruled Naples and Sicily jointly through viceroys from 1504 to 1707, and in 1607 Guillen de Castro was named Governor of Scigliano by the Count of Benavente, Viceroy of the Kingdom of Naples. However, he had not abandoned the literary life. In 1608 two of his plays, El caballero bobo (The Foolish Gentleman) and El amor constante (Constant Love), appeared in a collection of twelve plays by four Valencian dramatists. The following year Castro received a leave of absence to return to Spain and participate in an expedition to transfer certain Moriscos (converted Moors), who were suspected of duplicity in matters of religion and of maintaining ties with Moslems abroad, from Valencia to North Africa. Castro did not return to Naples when the mission was accomplished, however, probably due to illness. Not until about 1613 did he reappear in Italy, where he remained until 1616. The Academia de los Nocturnos had lasted only until 1594, but once back in Valencia, Castro founded a new literary society, the short-lived Academia de los montaneses de Parnaso (Society of the Denizens of Mount Parnasus). The fact that he was elected president was perhaps an indication of his growing reputation. In 1618, two years after the creation of the Academia, he published his first Parte (volume) of twelve plays in Valencia. This collection contains Castro's best-known play, Las mocedades del Cid, I. Around the same time, he moved to Madrid, where Juan Tellez Giron, son of the powerful Duke of Osuna, became his patron and granted him a parcel of land. Records of unpaid bills and loans from this period indicate that Castro arrived in Madrid with very little money. His biographers portray the playwright as an impulsive, unsettled nonconformist who muddled his financial affairs and was always short of cash. Castro participated in several poetic competitions, including one conducted in 1620 in honor of the patron saint of the city and another the following year, which took place in the Theater of the Congregation of the Imperial College, where the Jesuits were celebrating the canonization of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Saint Francis Xavier. In 1622 Castro participated in still another notable competition, this one in honor of the canonization of Saint Isidro. In Madrid Castro joined a prestigious literary society, the Academia Poetica, which counted among its members some of Spain's most renowned authors— Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Ruiz de Alarcon, Gongora, Quevedo, and Calderon. Lope and Guillen de Castro apparently became close friends. When Castro's first Parte was reissued in Valencia in 1621, he dedicated it to Marcela, one of Lope's daughters. He also made flattering remarks about Lope in several
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of his plays. Lope, in turn, praised Castro in Laurel de Apolo (Laurel of Apollo) and dedicated Las almenas de Toro (The Merlons of Toro) to him. Having mortgaged the property given to him by Tellez Giron, the playwright returned to Valencia in 1623. The following year he became embroiled in a legal battle when he was accused of bribing a criminal to kill a nobleman. By this time, Guillen de Castro was a highly respected playwright under the protection of the Marquis of Penafiel. Undoubtedly due to the author's prestige and connections, Phillip IV ordered utmost discretion in the investigation of Castro's case, which was dropped due to insufficient evidence. In 1625 Castro published his second Parte of twelve plays, which he dedicated to his niece, Ana Figueroa y de Castro. On June 28, 1628, Guillen de Castro married a second time. His new wife, Angela Salgado, was lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of Osuna and mother of the Marquis de Penafiel, and the marriage not only cemented Castro's bond with Penafiel but also solved his financial problems. After his marriage, Castro stopped writing for the theater. He was sixty-two years old when he died in Madrid. DRAMATURGY: MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES As in the case of most Golden Age playwrights, we do not know for certain how many plays Guillen de Castro actually wrote. Estimates range from twentyfour to forty-five. In addition to the twenty-four included in the two Partes, at least three more have been attributed to him with reasonable certainty, although eight others are of doubtful authorship. In addition, Castro collaborated with other dramatists on two plays.1 Like his contemporaries, Guillen de Castro was highly influenced by Lope de Vega. Centuries before film and television, Lope understood the importance of creating art for the masses. He sought themes and techniques that would please the general public, often basing his plays on popular ballads, folk stories, or legends. Sometimes he found inspiration in the national chronicles, which narrated exciting events in Spanish history. Two of his favorite themes were honor and love, which he knew were sure to stir audiences. Like Lope, Guillen de Castro delved into Spanish history and literature for subject matter. He was the first dramatist to adapt Cervantes' works for the stage. His play La fuerza de la sangre (Kinship's Powerful Call) is based on one of Cervantes' Novelas ejemplares (exemplary novels) of the same name, and El curioso impertinente (Dangerous Curiosity) is based on a novela intercalada (intercalated novel) from Don Quijote. Castro also wrote a play called Don Quijote de la Mancha, based on Chapters 23 through 36 of the first part of Cervantes' famous novel, which recounts the story of Dorotea and Fernando. In the novel, Cardenio, of noble lineage, is in love with Luscinda, whom he believes he has lost to Fernando, his treacherous friend. Cardenio seeks refuge in the Sierra Morena, where Dorotea, a victim of Fernando's unfaithfulness, lives among the shepherds. The priest and the barber, who are trying to lure Don Quijote home, find him in the Sierra Morena, and the whole group stops
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at a local inn, where the priest reads the story of the Curioso Impertinente. When Fernando and Luscinda happen into the inn, all intervene to convince Fernando that he should marry Dorotea, which he agrees to do, leaving Luscinda free to marry Cardenio. Castro follows the general story line but makes some significant changes. Cardenio and Luscinda are in love, but he is the son of a peasant, and she is a young noblewoman. A treacherous marquis, with whom Cardenio has been raised, seduces and abandons Dorotea, the daughter of a shepherd. He then pursues Luscinda, whose father orders her to marry him. However, just before the wedding, Luscinda escapes. Meanwhile, Cardenio, believing her married, loses his mind and takes to the wilderness, where he meets Don Quijote, whom the priest and the barber are trying to bring home. The situation is resolved when it turns out that the marquis is really the son of a peasant, whose mother switched him with Cardenio at birth. Since Cardenio is the real marquis and therefore of noble rank, he can now marry Luscinda. The false marquis marries Dorotea, and Don Quijote is carried home in a cage. Castro found a fecund source in Spain's great epics and wrote two works based on El Cid. Las mocedades del Cid, I deals with the youth of Spain's national hero, in particular, his victories over the Moors, his defense of Castile, and his relations with Jimena. It appeared in the first Parte, although it was probably written prior to 1609. This means that Castro must have based his play on one of the many ballads on the Cid that were then in circulation. He may have known some of the episodes of the life of Ruy Diaz de Vivar through pliegos sueltos (individual folios) or through the Romancero general (general ballad collection), or he may have heard about them in ballads and poems that were passed down through oral tradition. William E. Wilson shows close parallels between the two Cid plays and several Spanish ballads {Castro, 62-77). Castro did not use the medieval cantar as the source, since that work was not retrieved until the eighteenth century; in fact, Castro's proud, honor-obsessed hero has little to do with the Cid of the original cantar. Nor is it likely that he used Juan de Escobar's Romancero del Cid (Ballads of the Cid), which did not appear until 1612. Like Lope, Castro understood that love and honor were potent themes that kindled strong emotions in Spanish audiences. Both are at issue in Las mocedades del Cid. At a state meeting, Count Lozano, Jimena's father, slaps Diego Lainez, Rodrigo's father. Feeling deeply dishonored but too old to avenge himself, Lainez tests his three sons to see which will be capable of defending the family name. Rodrigo's two brothers clearly do not have the mettle, but the young Cid shows himself to be tough and proud. When Diego reveals his situation to Rodrigo, the young man feels perplexed. Filial duty demands that he kill Count Lozano, but by doing so, he will alienate Jimena, the woman he loves. Naturally, honor prevails, and Rodrigo accepts the challenge. After rebuking Count Lozano for insulting his father, he draws his sword and kills him. In Act 2, Jimena appears before the king and demands justice for her father's
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death. Lainez recognizes his responsibility for his son's deed and offers to die for it. Rodrigo hands Jimena a dagger and asks her to kill him in order to avenge Count Lozano's murder. Confused, the young woman admits that she loves Rodrigo but must nevertheless persecute him out of honor. Diego Lainez organizes an army, which his son will lead into battle against the Moors. As Rodrigo approaches the queen's summer home with his soldiers, Dona Urraca, who is in love with the young knight, calls to him. She suggests that in spite of their difference in social rank, they are suited to one another. She then gives him her blessing as he goes into battle. A shepherd describes the fight, telling how one Spanish soldier stands out because of his valor, strength, and skill. Five hundred Christians combat 6,000 Moors, yet Rodrigo captures four Moorish kings. Back at the palace, one of those kings praises Rodrigo's deftness on the battlefield to King Fernando. When Rodrigo enters, the Moor addresses him as Mio Cide (My Lord), and Fernando proclaims that from then on he shall be known as El Cid. Dona Jimena, in mourning, reminds the king that her father has been dead for three months, and his murder still has not been avenged. Although he feels affection for the young Cid, the king banishes him in order to assuage Jimena. In an aside, she expresses the anguish she feels; she is in love with Rodrigo yet must demand his death. At the beginning of Act 3, the king considers the problem of Calahorra, a territory disputed by Castile and Aragon. The matter will be decided by a duel between a knight from each kingdom. Jimena interrupts the discussion, reiterating her claim against Rodrigo. Suspecting that she is in love with the man she professes to want dead, the king arranges to have a servant announce that Rodrigo has been killed by the Moors, which causes Jimena to swoon. Furious when she learns that the king has tricked her, she vows to marry any nobleman who brings her Rodrigo's head or to bestow half her fortune on any commoner who accomplishes the deed. On a pilgrimage to Santiago, the Cid shows himself to be a perfect Christian knight. He shuns all vices and speaks of the many roads to Heaven. When a leper who has fallen into a quagmire calls for help, Rodrigo's companions turn away, but the Cid shows compassion, pulling the man to his feet and covering him with his cloak, then sharing a meal from the same plate. When Rodrigo falls asleep, the leper awakens him and identifies himself as Saint Lazarus. He promises Rodrigo that he will be an invincible conqueror and tells him that whenever he experiences the feeling of warmth in his chest, this is a sign that he is under the saint's protection, and he can undertake any great deed in confidence. He then tells him that the king needs him. King Fernando fears he will be unable to find a Castilian knight capable of defeating Martin Gonzalez, the arrogant champion of the Aragonese. While he is discussing the matter, Gonzalez and Rodrigo arrive and offer to duel, the Aragonese knight heaping insults on the Castilian champion. Jimena, who now realizes she made a grave error when she offered to marry any nobleman who
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vanquished Rodrigo, is mortified when she receives a letter from Gonzalez telling her to prepare for her wedding. Nevertheless, she appears at court in all her finery, pretending to await her marriage to Martin eagerly. A messenger announces that a gentleman is bringing Rodrigo's head to her. Overcome with grief, Jimena admits her love for Rodrigo. At that moment, the Cid arrives, saying he has brought Rodrigo's head to Jimena, who had failed to specify whether or not it had to be that of a dead man. Delighted, she accepts Rodrigo's marriage proposal, which the king approves, and the wedding is set for that evening. Las mocedades del Cid, I occupies an important place not only in Spanish, but also in French, literature. The play inspired Le Cid (1636) by French playwright Pierre Corneille, which is considered one of the great theatrical works of seventeenth-century France. Las mocedades del Cid II, also known as Las hazanas del Cid, begins after King Fernando's death. His son Sancho, who in the first play had threatened to deprive his bothers and sisters of their inheritance, now goes to war to accomplish that goal. Having crushed his brother Garcia, King of Galicia, and his sister Elivira, he moves against his older brother Alonso, who has inherited the kingdom of Leon. The Cid fights on the side of Sancho, turning the tide of the battle and freeing the king, who had been captured by Alonso. When Sancho expresses the wish to pursue Alonso and his troops, the Cid points out that such conduct is inappropriate, which greatly angers the king. Rodrigo also reminds Sancho that on his deathbed King Fernando bequeathed Zamora to Urraca, casting a curse on anyone who should try to take it from her. Nevertheless, Sancho engages in battle to wrest the territory from his sister. When the ghost of his father, carrying a bloody javelin, appears, Sancho retreats but does not abandon his goal. Urraca grants Bellido Dolfos, a well-known scoundrel, permission to implement a plan to free the city. Having provoked a conflict with Arias Gonzalo, Urraca's counselor, which forces him to flee the city, Dolfos goes to Sancho's encampment, where he swears loyalty to the king and promises to help him capture Zamora. Sancho hears a voice warning him to beware but fails to heed it. Rodrigo also cautions Sancho about Dolfos, but the king becomes indignant and banishes the Cid for a year. Diaz de Vivar responds by banishing himself for four. However, Sancho soon realizes he made a mistake by sending Rodrigo away and calls him back, a command that honor requires the Cid to obey. Dolfos lures the king away from his encampment, then attacks him with his own sword and flees back to Zamora. Rodrigo pursues the villain unsuccessfully. When he reaches the walls of Zamora, Urraca chides him for being haughty and rash and for rejecting her for Jimena, the daughter of a vassal. Diego Ordonez de Lara carries in the mortally wounded king, who confesses his wrongdoings, begs forgiveness of his brothers and sisters, pardons Dolfos, and dies. Urraca has Dolfos imprisoned. From the ramparts Sancho's spectacular funeral procession is viewed; the king's bloody body appears with his sword protruding from his chest and his crown at his feet. Diego Ordonez de Lara, in mourning, accuses
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the inhabitants of Zamora of complicity in the king's death and issues a reto, or challenge, in which he curses the entire city. He must now meet in battle five champions of Zamora and defeat them one by one. In Toledo, Alonso has taken refuge in the court of the Moorish king Alimaimon and has fallen in love with Zaida, the king's niece, who returns his affection. While he and Zaida are in the garden speaking of love, they are surprised by the appearance of the king and two hermits. Alonso dissimulates by pretending to be asleep. The hermits, unaware of his presence, tell the king that according to a prophecy, the city will fall after a long siege obstructs the arrival of provisions. When the hermits suddenly see Alonso, they become convinced that he has heard them and urge the king to kill the young man. Alonso's hair rises at their words, and when the king presses it down, it rises again— which the king takes as a sign that Alonso will someday rule Toledo. Alimaimon decides that Alonso is indeed a threat and must be killed, but Zaida stays her father's arm. When news arrives of Sancho's death, Alonso knows he must leave for Castile. Urraca is distraught to learn that Arias Gonzalo and his five sons are preparing to defend the honor of their city and reminds her counselor that he promised her father never to abandon her. Arias Gonzalo agrees to respect Urraca's wishes; he will send his sons to fight for Zamora. Diego Ordonez de Lara places five stakes in the ground in order to keep track of his victims. He kills two of Arias Gonzalo's sons, but the third, having received a mortal blow, flails about, injuring Ordonez's horse and cutting its reins. The animal takes off, carrying Ordonez out of Zamora, while Gonzalo's dying son remains within the city. The judges decide that the town of Zamora is innocent of treason, but Bellido Dolfos is sentenced to be tied to four horses and torn to pieces. Alonso (now King Alfonso) arrives with Zaida. He asks Spaniards to swear allegiance to him, but the Cid refuses to do so on the grounds that there are rumors that Alfonso was involved in Sancho's death. He asks Alfonso to take an oath declaring his innocence and then, administering the oath himself, prays that Alfonso be slain by peasants carrying coarse weapons if he is lying. Enraged at Rodrigo's insolence, the king banishes him, but the two are reconciled shortly afterward. Alfonso is crowned and marries Zaida, who, having become a Christian, changes her name to Maria. In addition to ballads and works of Spanish literature, classical mythology was an important source of inspiration for Guillen de Castro. Progne y Filomena is based on the tragic story of two sisters, the best-known version of which appears in Ovid's Metamorphoses. In the Greek myth, Procne and Tereus, King of Thrace, have a son, Itys. Procne misses her sister, Philomela, who is in Athens, and sends Tereus to fetch her. On the way home, the king is so overcome with desire for Philomela that he rapes her and then, in order to prevent her from talking, cuts off her tongue. He tells his wife Philomela is dead, but Procne learns the truth and, in an act of vengeance, kills Itys, cooks him, and serves him to his father. In order to protect the sisters from Tereus' wrath, the gods change them into birds. Luciano Garcia Lorenzo points out that Guillen
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may have known the myth through Perez de Moya's Filosofia secreta or a tragicomedy on the subject written by Timoneda, although the humanistic formation of Golden Age authors was such that Castro would certainly have been familiar with the story of Procne and Philomela {Teatro, 169). Castro introduces some important changes in the story. Tereo (Tereus) wants to marry Filomena (Philomela) but, because of some confusion involving portraits of the sisters, winds up marrying Progne (Procne). After Tereo slashes the tongue of his victim, she manages to inform her sister of the assault, then vows never to speak again and seeks refuge in the wilderness, where she lives with her son Driante. Progne kills Itis (Itys), then cooks his heart and serves it to Tereo. Because a civil war is going on, Progne escapes and seeks refuge in Filomena's cave. Tereo and his brother Teosindo, who is betrothed to Filomena, appear, and Filomena breaks her vow of silence in order to save Teosindo's life. The play ends on a note of reconciliation, a detail that led critics to ponder on Castro's attitude toward the tyrant Tereo. Castro's Dido y Eneas is based largely on Virgil's Aeneid, which recounts the fall of Troy and the passion of Dido, queen of Cartage, for Venus' son Aeneas. Castro also found source material in two Spanish ballads. Although the dramatist introduces some new episodes, the play follows the sources closely. Lope de Vega used a variety of metric forms and had specified the function of many of them in his Arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo. Like Lope, Castro employed diverse Spanish strophes, in particular the redondilla, romance, decima, and quintilla. However, while Lope displays a considerable sensitivity to the complexities of human psychology, Castro rarely does. Lope's greatest characters are profoundly human, natural, and convincing; more often than not, Castro's are monolithic and histrionic. While Lope combines tragedy and comedy in an attempt to imitate life, Castro tends toward the melodramatic and sensationalistic. Bloody duels, grotesque deaths, and carnage abound in his plays. Several critics have commented on his lack of humor. CRITICAL RESPONSE Guillen de Castro has attracted less scholarly attention than the greatest Golden Age dramatists, Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, and Pedro Calderon de la Barca. Some modern critics object to his taste for the lurid and gruesome, while others find his characters artificial and his language bombastic. Much Castro criticism focuses on Las mocedades del Cid. Several studies have been done on Castro's use of ballads in the Cid plays. G. W. Umphrey remarks that Castro is not always successful in adapting his source ballads to the stage. For example, in the scene of Cid, I in which Jimena complains to the king that three months after her father's death he still has not punished Rodrigo, Umphrey finds the distribution of voices clumsy and unnatural (Introduction). William E. Wilson remarks that while Castro incorporated ballads effectively into some of his plays, in those in which he divides the ballad among several actors, he was often less successful {Guillen de Castro, 86-87). Studies of Cas-
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tro's use of ballads in other plays include Janet Falk's article on El nacimiento de Montecinos. Several critics examine the concept of honor in Castro's plays. With regard to the plot of Las mocedades del Cid, I, Wilson points out that Jimena's insistence on vengeance may seem nonsensical to a modern reader, since Jimena's father provoked Diego Lainez and therefore "got what was coming to him." Furthermore, Rodrigo did not kill Count Lozano in a cowardly or underhanded manner but in a fair fight. However, Wilson argues that, given the honor code that governed the nobility, Jimena could adopt no other course of action. Castro's characters are "caught in the web of the honor code"; if either Jimena or Rodrigo had not attempted to avenge their father's death, they would have lost caste. Jimena's heroism is demonstrated by her willingness to sacrifice; Rodrigo's, by his willingness to submit to her demands {Guillen de Castro, 76-77; "Guillen de Castro and the Codification of Honor"). However, in a discussion of the honor code in Golden Age Spain, C. A. Jones (1965) points out that honor was a catalyst that forced characters to act and that it cannot be assumed that the behavior depicted on stage reflected necessarily the realities of Golden Age society. Several critics have studied questions involving power and its abuse in the plays of Guillen de Castro. Plays such as Progne y Filomena and Las hazarias del Cid portray tyrants and their subjects' reactions. Eduardo Julia Martinez believes that Guillen's depiction of tyranny is motivated by purely theatrical considerations. In contrast, Manuel Delgado concludes that Castro was guided by philosophical and political ideals. In Delgado's view, Castro conceives society as a community formed by the prince and his subjects; the monarch's power responds to his subjects' spiritual and material needs, and herein lies the limits of his power. Although power originates in God, not in the people, as portadores or "sustainers" of the monarch's power, they have the right to rebel if the monarch becomes a tyrant. According to Delgado, Castro's ideal is the Christian state, in which people and prince form a kind of "mystical body." The Christian prince is diametrically opposed to Machiavelli's model; he governs as a servant of God, and if he breaks his pact with the people by acting out of self-interest or whim, he automatically becomes a tyrant subject to the people's justice. James Caprotta focuses on kings as a source of moral and social disorder in Castro's plays. Caprotta argues that Castro calls into question "the legitimacy of a social code that places personal honor and submission to the king above reason, morality and the welfare of the Christian state" {Kingship and Tyranny, 179). Caprotta argues that Guillen is not a mere follower of Lope but an independent thinker with a clear, personal vision of kingship and honor and that even when he adopts elements of Lope's dramatic system, with its exaltation of the monarchy and the honor code, he treats them in a deliberately ambiguous fashion. In his analysis of El amor constante and El perfecto caballero, Luciano Garcia Lorenzo examines the ambiguity in these two plays {Teatro, 62-71). Other studies deal with Castro's philosophical outlook. For example, Russell
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P. Sebold sees Castro's Cid as a distinctly Counter Reformational character, a warrior in the universal striving for salvation. Marjorie Ratcliffe brings a feminist approach to Castro studies in her analysis of female empowerment in both of the Cid plays. Castro's mythological plays have attracted some critical attention. Luciano Garcia Lorenzo studies Progne y Filomena and Dido y Eneas with respect to their origins and Castro's innovations. Rina Walthaus analyzes Castro's symbolism in Dido y Eneas. Edward Friedman examines the dramatic structure with relationship to tragedy in Progne y Filomena, and Ted E. McVay, Jr., applies a Lacanian approach to this same play. Some modern critics have dealt with the plays inspired by Cervantes. Alberto Navarro Gonzalez applauds Castro for being the first to bring the spirit of Don Quijote to the stage. Christiane Faliu-Lacourt analyzes the burlesque elements in Don Quijote de la Mancha and their relationship with Cervantes' novel, and John G. Weiger studies references to Lope de Vega in El curioso impertinente. Questions of authorship have long interested Castro scholars. Courtney Bruerton made a major contribution to Golden Age theater studies by determining the dates and authenticity of plays attributed to the dramatist. William E. Wilson contributed additional data that largely corroborate Bruerton's findings ("A Note on Fifteen Plays"). J. H. Arjona presented evidence that Donde no estd su duefio is by Castro, while El cerco de Tremecen probably is not. Fausta Antonucci has dealt specifically with the authenticity of El nieto de su padre. NOTE 1. See Obras de don Guillen de Castro y Bellvis, ed. Eduardo Julia Martinez, 3 vols. (Madrid: Imprenta de la "Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos," 1925-27). See also Courtney Bruerton, "The Chronology of the Comedias de Guillen de Castro," Hispanic Review 12 (1944), 89-151 and William E. Wilson, "A Note on Fifteen Plays Attributed to Guillen de Castro," Modern Language Quarterly 8 (1947), 393^00. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Editions and Translations Obras de don Guillen de Castro y Bellvis. Ed. Eduardo Julia Martinez. 3 vols. Madrid: Imprenta de la Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos, 1925-27. El curioso impertinente. Ed. Christiane Faliu-Lacourt. Kassel: Reichenberger, 1991. Don Quijote de la Mancha. Ed. Luciano Garcia Lorenzo. Salamanca: Anaya, 1971. Las hazanas del Cid. Ed. John G Weiger. Barcelona: Puvill, 1980. Los mat casados de Valencia. Ed. Luciano Garcia Lorenzo. Madrid: Castalia, 1976. Las mocedades del Cid. Ed. Stefano Arata. Barcelona: Critica, 1996. Las mocedades del Cid. Ed. Christiane Faliu-Lacourt. Madrid: Taurus, 1988. Las mocedades del Cid. Ed. Luciano Garcia Lorenzo. Madrid: Catedra, 1978. Las mocedades del Cid. Ed. Victor Said Armesto. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1968.
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Las mocedades del Cid. Ed. George W. Umphrey. New York: Henry Holt, 1939. Las mocedades del Cid. In Spanish Drama of the Golden Age. Ed. Raymond R. MacCurdy. New York: Irvington, 1979. 207-61. The Youthful Deeds of the Cid, I and II. Trans. Robert R. La Du, Luis Soto-Ruiz, and Giles A. Daeger. Intro. John G. Weiger. New York: Exposition, 1969.
Critical Studies Antonucci, Fausta. "Algunas notas sobre la autoria de El nieto de su padre." Criticon 51 (1991), 7-20. Arjona, J. H. "Two Plays Attributed to Lope de Vega and Guillen de Castro." Hispanic Review 33 (1965), 387-94. Bruerton, Courtney. "The Chronology of the Comedias de Guillen de Castro." Hispanic Review 12 (1944), 89-151. Casa, Frank P. "The Self-Realization of the Cid." Folio: Essays on Foreign Language and Literature 12 (June 1980), 1-11. Caprotta, James. Kingship and Tyranny in the Theater of Guillen de Castro. London: Tamesis, 1984. Delgado, Manuel. "Guillen de Castro y las teorias politicas sobre el tiranicidio y el derecho de resistencia." Bulletin Hispanique 85.1-2 (1983), 65-82. . Tirania y derecho de resistencia en el teatro de Guillen de Castro. Barcelona: Puvill, 1984. Faliu-Lacourt, Christiane. "Un precursor de la comedia burlesca: Guillen de Castro." Didlogos Hispdnicos de Amsterdam 8.2 (1989), 453-66. Falk, Janet. "The Romancero and Guillen de Castro's Nacimiento de Montecinos." Bulletin of the Comediantes 38.2 (Winter 1986), 177-92. Friedman, Edward. "Guillen de Castro's Progne y Filomena: Between the Classic and the Comedia." Neophilologus 72.2 (Apr. 1988), 213-17. Galanes, Adriana Lewis. "Las mocedades del Cid de Guillen de Castro: Corteza y meollo." Hispanofila 44 (1972), 13-31. Garcia Lorenzo, Luciano. El teatro de Guillen de Castro. Barcelona: Planeta, 1976. Jones, C. A. "Honor in Spanish Golden-Age Drama: Its Relation to Real Life and to Morals." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 35 (1958), 199-210. . "Spanish Honor as Historical Phenomenon." Hispanic Review 33 (1965), 3239. Julia Martinez, E. "La metrica en las producciones dramaticas de Guillen de Castro." Anales de la Universidad de Madrid. Letras 3 (1934), 62-71. . "Sobre El amor constante de Guillen de Castro." Revista de Filologia Espanola 30(1946), 118-23. Kennedy, Ruth Lee. "Moretiana." Hispanic Review 1 (1939), 225-36. La Du, Robert D. "The Dramatic Tradition of Bellido Dolfos." Hispania 46 (1963), 693-99. . "Honor and the King in the Comedias de Guillen de Castro." Hispania 45 (1962), 211-17. Leavitt, Sturgis E. "Una comedia sin paralelo: Las hazarias del Cid." Homenaje a William L. Fichter. Estudios sobre el teatro antiguo hispdnico y otros ensayos. Madrid: Castalia, 1971. 429-38. . "Divine Justice in Las hazarias del Cid." Hispania 12 (1929), 141-46.
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McBride, Charles A. "Los objetos materiales como objetos significativos en Las mocedades del Cid." Nueva Revista de Filologia Hispdnica (1961), 448-58. McCrary, William C. "Guillen de Castro and the Mocedades de Rodrigo: A Study of Tradition and Innovation." Romance Studies in Memory of Edward Billings Ham. Hayward: California State College Press, 1967. 89-102. McVay, Ted E. Jr. "Loss, Language and Politics in Two Golden Age Works: The 'Progne and Filomena' Plays of Guillen de Castro and Francisco Rojas Zorrilla." In Looking at the Comedia in the Year of the Quincentennial. Ed. Barbara Mujica and Sharon Voros. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1993. 141-47. Montaner Frutos, Alberto. Politica, historia y drama en "El cerco de Zamora:" La comedia segunda de "Las mocedades del Cid." Zaragoza: University of Zaragoza, 1989. Navarro Gonzalez, Alberto. "Dos Estudios. I. El ingenioso don Quijote en la Espana del siglo XVII." Anales Cervantinos 4 (1957). Ratcliffe, Marjorie. "Powerlessness or Empowered? Women in Guillen de Castro's Las mocedades del Cid and Las hazarias del Cid.'' Bulletin of the Comediantes 44.2 (Winter 1992), 261-67. Roca Franquesa, Jose Maria. "Un dramaturgo de la Edad de Oro. Guillen de Castro." Revista de Filologia Espanola 28 (1944), 378-427. Salinas, Pedro. "La espada y los tiempos de la vida en Las mocedades del Cid." Ensayos de la literatura hispdnica del Cantar de Mio Cid a Garcia Lorca. Madrid: Aguilar, 1967. 151-57. Sebold, Russell P. "Un David espanol, o 'Galan divino': el Cid Contrarreformista de Guillen de Castro." Homage to John M. Hill. In Memoriam. Ed. Walter Poesse. Madrid: Castalia, 1968. 217-42. Walthaus, Rina. "Imagenes y simbolismo en Dido y Eneas de Guillen de Castro." Neophilologus 69.1 (Jan. 1985), 75-89. Weiger, John G. "Another Look at the Biography of Guillen de Castro." Bulletin of the Comediantes 10 (Spring 1958), 3-5. . "Forced Marriage in Castro's Theater." Bulletin of the Comediantes 15 (Fall 1963), 1-4. . "Matrimony in the Theater of Guillen de Castro." Bulletin of the Comediantes 10 (Fall 1958), 1-3. . " 'Monstruo de naturaleza': Castro's Ironic Use of Cervantes' Epithet for Lope de Vega." Hispania 65.1 (Mar. 1982), 39-44. . "Los silencios de Las mocedades del Cid." Hispanofila 23 (1965), 1-7. . "Sobre la originalidad e independencia de Guillen de Castro." Hispanofila 31 (1967), 1-5. Wilson, William E. Guillen de Castro. New York: Twayne, 1973. . "Guillen de Castro and the Codification of Honor." Bulletin of the Comediantes 14 (Spring 1967), 24-27. . "The Orthoepy of Certain Words in the Plays of Guillen de Castro." Hispanic Review 21 (1953), 146-50. . "A Note on Fifteen Plays Attributed to Guillen de Castro." Modern Language Quarterly 8 (1947), 393-400. . "Two Notes on Guillen de Castro." Hispanic Review 18 (1950), 63-66. . "Two Recurring Themes in Castro's Plays." Bulletin of the Comediantes 9 (Fall 1957), 25-27.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA (1547-1616)
Edward H. Friedman
BIOGRAPHY Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra is best known as the creator of Don Quixote, but he was also the author of a number of theatrical works, both full-length plays {comedias) and interludes {entremeses). Although he did not achieve success as a playwright, his dramatic production is noteworthy in its own right and is particularly interesting when compared with his novels and with the popular theater of his day. Cervantes claims to have written twenty or thirty plays during his early writing career, but only two of those plays are extant. In 1615 he published eight plays and eight interludes, which carry the qualifier "never performed." While Cervantes wrote no dramatic treatises as such, he provides information about his views on the theater in Don Quixote; in an addendum to his survey of the literary artists of his day, the Viaje del Parnaso (Journey to Parnassus); in the prologue to his published plays; and in the plays themselves. Cervantes was born in Alcala de Henares, near Madrid, the son of a less than well-to-do surgeon. There are gaps in his biography, but the family seems to have lived in different parts of Spain, including periods in Seville and Madrid. Cervantes recalls having seen the pasos, or one-act plays, of Lope de Rueda in Seville at a very tender age. The extent of his education is not known, but scholars often suggest a humanist background, perhaps under the guidance of the Erasmian Juan Lopez de Hoyos. It seems likely that the youthful Cervantes was involved in some type of skirmish in which a man was wounded. To escape punishment, Cervantes embarked for Italy, where he enlisted as a soldier. His proudest moment came when he served under Don Juan de Austria in the Battle of Lepanto (1571), when he participated in this monumental Christian victory over the Moslems. Cervantes was seriously wounded in the battle, however, and he lost the use of his left hand. After a lengthy recuperation, he boarded a ship bound for Spain, with letters of recommendation from the highest sources. The ship was attacked by Berber pirates, and all aboard, including his brother, were taken prisoner. Cervantes spent the years from 1575 to 1580 in Algiers, until
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his eventual ransom by Trinitarian monks. When he returned, his letters of recommendation were old and no longer valid, and he was never to find the prominent professional employment to which he aspired, having to settle instead for a series of public positions lacking in prestige. It is probable that he was jailed in Seville for financial discrepancies that developed during his tenure as a grain collector. Neither was Cervantes entirely lucky in love. He married Dona Catalina de Salazar y Palacios, nineteen years his junior, and the two lived apart for much of the time. Cervantes resided for a time in Valladolid with his two sisters and, according to some accounts, with an illegitimate daughter. A public scandal involving the family probably helped to motivate a move to Madrid, the new capital, where Cervantes spent the last decade of his life heavily engaged in writing. DRAMATURGY: MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES Cervantes' initial narrative venture was the pastoral novel Galatea (1585), and his final undertaking, Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (The Trials of Persiles and Sigismunda), published posthumously in 1617, was an attempt to write a prose epic. His literary fame rests on the twelve Exemplary Novels (1613), which explore various facets of narrative realism and idealism, and, of course, on Don Quixote, published in two parts (1605, 1615). Ostensibly a satire of the romances of chivalry, Don Quixote examines the devices of storytelling and questions of truth, history, perspective, madness, the imagination, representation, and the relation of life and art. Don Quixote has a double plot; the novel recounts the adventures of the anachronistic knight-errant and the process of composition itself. Cervantes demonstrates the confrontation of the new print culture with oral tradition, exemplified, in part, in the dialogues of Don Quixote with his illiterate, but crafty, squire, Sancho Panza. A major achievement of Don Quixote is the mixture of comic action with reflection on ways of perceiving the world and of expressing one's observations. Characters develop and change, and so does the document that records their exploits. Key characters in Part II have read Part I, and Don Quixote himself leafs through a spurious sequel published under the pseudonym of Alonso Fernandez de Avellaneda in 1614. In Don Quixote, Cervantes complicates the role of the narrator(s). At one point, he cuts off the story, only to introduce an Arab historian whose manuscript, translated and edited, resumes the account. Frequently cited as the first modern novel, Don Quixote continues to entertain, to fascinate, and to confound readers. In the self-consciousness of the presentation and in the treatment of literary issues, Don Quixote anticipates current theoretical debates. When Cervantes drafted his first dramatic works, Spain did not have a national drama as such. The sixteenth century saw isolated attempts at tragedy, inspired by Seneca and other writers of classical antiquity, and some evolution of popular drama throughout the country, but it was not until Lope de Vega (1562-1635) established his formula for the comedia that the varying trends coalesced. The
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extremely prolific Lope began to compose dramas for the stage in the later years of the century, and his model for play writing, as outlined in the Arte nuevo de hacer comedias (The New Art of Writing Plays), remained in force to the end of the following century. The great dramatists of the Spanish Golden Age— Tirso de Molina, Juan Ruiz de Alarcon, Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla, and Agustin Moreto—produced variations of Lope's formula. The plays, regularly in the tragicomic mode, consisted of three acts (exposition, complication, denouement) in different types of verse, in order to reflect changing dramatic situations. Lope adhered to the principle of unity of action, but he disregarded the unities of time and place. His primary goal, as he emphasized in his personal poetics, was to please the public, el vulgo, and he offered numerous conventions and strategies designed for that purpose. Years before the publication of the Arte nuevo in 1609, Lope had achieved tremendous fame as a playwright. There is no question that Lope's triumph affected the course of dramatic history in Spain. Cervantes, whose early theatrical works move in a different direction, found himself at a difficult crossroad. Cervantes most emphatically dramatizes this circumstance not in the plays but in Don Quixote (I, 48), in which the canon from Toledo praises works by Lupercio Leonardo de Argensola, Gaspar de Aguilar, Francisco Tarrega, and Cervantes, all of whom observe the rules of art. The canon then enters into a tirade against those plays that flout dramatic protocol, namely, the comedias of Lope de Vega and his followers. Although he lauds Lope's prodigiousness, the canon shudders at the abuses of time, place, and decorum currently found on the Spanish stage. He reproaches playwrights and producers who cater to the tastes of the lowest common denominator, the rabble. (More than likely, this condemnation of the comedia prompted the author of the "false" Quixote, an obvious admirer of Lope, to write the sequel.) In the prologue to the later plays, Cervantes credits himself, perhaps too generously, with reducing the classical five-act structure to three, and he contends that he was the first to bring deep thought, imagination, and moral figures to the stage. Nonetheless, in the prologue and in the "Adjunta al Parnaso," Cervantes seems resigned to the artistic and economic realities of the day. He is most gracious in his admiration of Lope's accomplishments and hopeful that publication will redeem his own plays. If the canon echoes the defenders of classical form, Cervantes seems to recognize the need to update dramatic theory and practice. This is most apparent in the speech of the personified Comedia in the opening of the second act of El rufidn dichoso (The Fortunate Scoundrel). The message is that times change, and art can reflect and build upon these changes. Art is, thus, a synthesis of old and new, and progress need not be seen as a negative factor. One can identify a reality principle at work in this concession to modernity, but more significant, arguably, is the fact that Cervantes' full-length plays of the second period are clearly influenced by Lope's model. The extant early plays are El cerco de Numancia (The Siege of Numantia) and Los tratos de Argel (Commerce in Algiers). The Ocho comedias y ocho
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entremeses include, respectively, El gallardo espanol (The Gallant Spaniard), La casa de los celos (The Abode of Jealousy), Los banos de Argel (The Algerian Prisons), El rufidn dichoso, La gran sultana (The Great Sultana), El laberinto de amor (The Labyrinth of Love), La entretenida (The Entertaining Play), and Pedro de Urdemalas', and "El juez de los divorcios" (The Divorce Judge), "El rufian viudo" (The Widower Scoundrel), "La eleccion de los alcaldes de Daganzo" (The Election of the Daganzo Town Council), "La guarda cuidadosa" (The Watchful Guard), "El vizcaino fingido" (The False Biscayan), "El retablo de las maravillas" (The Show of Marvels), "La cueva de Salamanca" (The Cave of Salamanca), and "El viejo celoso" (The Jealous Old Man). The most studied of the plays is Numancia, which portrays the resistance of the inhabitants of Numantia to Roman troops under Scipio Africanus. After years of struggle, the Romans besiege the town. Incapable of sustaining themselves yet unwilling to surrender, the Numantines devise a means by which to deny their enemies a victory: they will set fire to the town and kill themselves. Numancia is about a spiritual triumph, made more patriotic through the association of the Numantines with their Spanish Catholic successors. The play foregrounds six personified figures that represent Spain, the Duero River, War, Hunger, Sickness, and Fame. By pointing forward to imperial glory, Cervantes incorporates the unified Spain of Philip II into the dramatic structure. He depends heavily on irony, through the motif of victory in defeat and through the historical self-consciousness of the Numantines. Fate, which brings the prospect of destruction, is counterbalanced by the nobility of the sacrifice and by the historical present. The Numantines give up their lives to gain immortality. The language of Numancia expresses the struggle through the dominant figure of antithesis, which implies a balance ultimately broken by the ironies of the plot. Cervantes creates strong characters among the Numantines, characters who demonstrate dignity and spirituality. The climax of the play is the decision by the last living Numantine, a young boy, to jump to his death rather than to allow the Romans to prevail. Numancia is, in general, a more sophisticated work than the sixteenth-century Spanish tragedies. The episodes fit together within a tightly fashioned conceptual scheme. The poetic discourse is appropriate, at times eloquent, and always respectful of both sides. A difficulty of the four-act structure of Numancia is the constant shift in setting from the Roman camp to the besieged Numantia, which would mean that both groups probably would have to be on stage together. While scholars have discussed the play at length, it has been staged relatively little in the four centuries since its composition. Four of Cervantes's plays—Los tratos de Argel, Los banos de Argel, La gran sultana, and El gallardo espanol—deal with the conflict between Christians and Moslems, a topic that relates to the author's captivity in North Africa. The first of these plays belongs to the early period, while the second, built around a similar theme, shows the influence of Lope's comedia on the dramaturgy of Cervantes. Both plays contain a double love plot, with language that highlights the motif of captivity, but Los tratos de Argel is a more static, or literary, drama,
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replete with lengthy soliloquies, the recounting of events, and symbolic or figurative episodes. Los banos de Argel converts words into action. Shifting from four acts to three, the revised version eliminates the intervention of the devil and the allegorical figures, thereby strengthening the internal logic of the play. Most decisively, the play projects a sense of vitality, of stage action for its own sake, that represents a transitional point in Cervantes' dramatic style. While retaining an episodic structure framed by a central theme, Cervantes increases the frequency of onstage action. There remains a difference between Lope's concept of the unity of action and Cervantes' method of unifying elements around an idea or motif. El gallardo espanol and La gran sultana display a similar blend of exoticism and conflicts of religion and love. The latter presents a female protagonist, Dona Catalina de Oviedo, forced to marry a sultan but unswerving in her faith, and also features cross-dressing, courtly intrigue, invented scenarios, and ironic subplots. In the Argel plays, Cervantes uses a common focus, the dichotomy of freedom and captivity (applied metaphorically to love as well as to the historical reality), to define the structure of the works. The episodes become analogues of a thematic center rather than intrusions on the main plot. The same is true of Pedro de Urdemalas, one of the better-known plays. Questions of identity occupy the conceptual center of the play, as Pedro de Urdemalas searches for a role in society at the same time that the gypsy Belica seeks confirmation of the noble status that she intuitively believes is hers by blood. Pedro is a protean character whose metamorphoses within the play culminate in his choice to be an actor. Belica, in turn, proves to be Isabel, the niece of the queen, and she abandons the itinerant life to shine at court. Although the two plots do not intersect as conspicuously as in the plays that follow Lope's model, they are linked by the theme of identity and by numerous references to life as a stage. Pedro and Belica/Isabel find themselves, and, as the play ends, they are poised to undertake their new roles. Performance, adaptability, and mutability inform and define the movement of Pedro de Urdemalas. Pedro's life increasingly imitates art, and Belica's fantasy becomes a reality, in a manner that emulates idealistic fiction or romance. The play offers a synthesis, an ambience of interdependence, rather than a tension between the levels of reality and the imagination. The plays that show the strongest impact of Lope's comedia are El rufidn dichoso, El laberinto de amor, and La entretenida. El rufidn dichoso records a progression from sinner to saint. Cristobal de Lugo, a gambler and miscreant, swears that if he wins a bet, he will entrust himself to God. In the course of the dramatic action, he advances from a man who appears to be devout to a true martyr. He passes a number of spiritual tests, including a challenge by Lucifer and two of his agents, on the road to sainthood. Cervantes uses Act 1 to depict the worldly, degenerate Cristobal de Lugo, who converts at the end of the act. In Act 2, Fray Cristobal de la Cruz enters in a Dominican habit, theoretically transformed but unproven in his faith. In Act 3, he throws himself into the most serious of religious battles, to emerge triumphant. Here, the identity motif that
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marks Pedro de Urdemalas extends to the highest level. The social order may be inflexible and inconsistent, but the eternal life—to be won on earth—promises absolute goodness and joy. El rufidn dichoso respects the unity of action and the relation of plot and subplot that form part of Lope's drama. The story of Dona Ana Trevino, for example, is not a separate episode but a means by which Fray Cristobal's righteousness can move from the abstract to the concrete plane. The play is not as much about character development as about the potential for redemption that all human beings possess. The abruptness of Cristobal de Lugo's decision to dedicate himself to God suggests that the testing of his faith seems more significant from a theological perspective than from a psychological perspective. El rufidn dichoso is both a saint's play and a parable on the topic of inner strength and devotion. In Lope's model for love intrigue {la comedia de capa y espada), it is customary for pairs of lovers and often their servants to unite in matrimony at the conclusion. In comic plays, the threat of dishonor lurks in the background, but happy endings are standard. Given that comedy can stray from reality, the plays grant female characters a freedom and an opportunity for assertiveness that society denies them. Women are often in control of the dramatic situations, fabricators of plots conceived to win a partner in marriage. The three female protagonists of El laberinto de amor invent stratagems to win the men they love. The calculated effort entails role-play, disguise, cross-dressing, and misrepresentation. The women narrowly escape dishonor, and one is imprisoned in a tower. Although each of the male protagonists loves the same woman, Rosamira, two concede to their amorous destiny by marrying her accomplices. The world of El laberinto de amor is not only labyrinthine but highly theatricalized. The play emphasizes social interaction, the here and now of personal attraction and passion. The conventionalized plot underscores the "world as stage" motif as a dramatic ploy and as a commentary on behavioral norms. Up to the final scene, the characters are never themselves, recast as they are as actors, directors, and scriptwriters. Their goals are immediate and tangible. In certain ways, the play becomes the antithesis of El rufidn dichoso, which constantly points upward. More evident, however, is the ironic and antithetical connection between El laberinto de amor and La entretenida, in which all characters fail in their attempts to marry. The main character of La entretenida is Cristina, a kitchen maid who hopes to move up the social ladder. Cristina rejects a lackey to pursue a page, while also being wooed by a rogue. Rejected by the page, she decides to return the favor of the lackey, who is no longer interested, and the rogue is implicated in a hoax. By the same token, the other female protagonists, both named Marcela, cannot reconcile problems with their suitors, and they too are left without a match. Cervantes seems interested not only in imitating but in parodying Lope's comedia. He chooses a focal character from the lower classes, and Cristina's endeavor is inflected by her social rank and by her comic quest for upward mobility. The two Marcelas are dramatically subordinate to the maid, and their
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machinations miscarry despite aggressive pursuit. One can discern a moral message in La entretenida, which warns of the penalties for excessive role-play. Theatrical devices become markers of illusion, unauthenticity, and selfdeception. Even more pronounced, perhaps, is the undoing of the multiplemarriage denouement, which dates from Greek New Comedy and which becomes a staple of the Spanish comedia. Cervantes reproduces the structure of his model while deviating from expected endings, and the motif of frustration functions on several planes. This recourse permits Cervantes simultaneously to acknowledge and to satirize his literary adversaries. La casa de los celos is an unusual play, episodic in structure and drawing from the chivalric and other modes. The amorphous quality of the dramatic structure may imply an early date of composition. The plot presents a love triangle involving the epic heroes Roldan and Reinaldos and the beautiful Angelica, against a backdrop that includes Charlemagne's court and Arden forest. The Spanish hero Bernardo del Carpio, the magician Merlin, Venus, Cupid, pastoral characters, and a gallery of allegorical figures intercede, as well, in the elaborate series of events. The play changes directions at several junctures, shifting the momentum from the chivalric, to the pastoral, to the mythological, to the historical, to the patriotic, and at one point in Act 2 the various genres seem to converge upon each other. The motif of jealousy is not sustained throughout the drama. The love triangle, the apparent nucleus, is never resolved, and at the play's end the personified Castilla calls Bernardo del Carpio to her aid. The generic mix of the play and the multiple plotlines could lead one to see La casa de los celos as a potpourri of literary fragments that seem to accentuate variety for its own sake. Another option would be to view the text as a literary macrocosm in which the diversity of the world finds an analogue in literature, with the stage as locus. There exists an air of pageantry about the proceedings and points of contact with the play of genres in Don Quixote. The entremeses belong to a tradition of short plays, el genero chico, which extends to the present. The short pieces of Juan del Encina and Gil Vicente and, notably, the short comedies, or pasos, of Lope de Rueda stand out among the early forms of this genre. In the theater of the seventeenth century, two entremeses were presented between the acts of a comedia. Luis Quinones de Benavente is, with Cervantes, the most recognized writer of entremeses, but the major dramatists of the Golden Age also penned interludes. Humor, irony, stylistic vigor, and social satire mark Cervantes' interludes, generally considered more profound and more biting than those of his contemporaries. The most renowned of the entremeses are El retablo de las maravillas and El viejo celoso. The first is a parody on Spain's obsession with blood purity, and the second is a variation on the theme of May-December romance. El retablo de las maravillas is an especially ambitious work, in which Cervantes uses fear and gullibility to expose the hypocrisy and prejudices of society. Borrowing from Don Juan Manuel's El conde Lucanor and the tradition of "The Emperor's New Clothes," he shows how, in the unified Spain of his day, the distinction between Old Christians and
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New Christians (those with "clean" blood versus those descended from Jews and Moslems) leads to subterfuge, self-doubt, and absurd behavior. As a consequence of the reigning paranoia, a team of tricksters can manipulate the speech and the actions of their victims. Cervantes introduces an air of didacticism, as well as a strong dose of pessimism, to the entremes. He explores the basest human instincts, and, in an age of censorship and persecution, he dares to stress the duplicity inherent in social laws. La eleccion de los alcaldes de Daganzo and El juez de los divorcios accentuate shallowness in matters that should be profound and anything but a spiritual attitude toward the sacrament of matrimony. If there is a unifying theme to the interludes, it would be supreme disenchantment with respect to love, marriage, and regard for one's neighbor. Characters include rogues, prostitutes, unfaithful wives, and unenlightened husbands. Taking its lead from the Italian novelle, El viejo celoso offers scenes from the marriage of a young girl and her elderly, exaggeratedly jealous husband. As in the case of El retablo de las maravillas and other works, Cervantes illustrates the confusion of appearance and reality, truth and falsehood, loyalty and betrayal, good and evil. The dramatic discourse is doubly meaningful, as a vehicle of humor and as an example of the power of words. The dialogue of the interludes reveals and exemplifies the nature of artifice. Language can create and deform reality. It can guide people to incorrect conclusions, and, through the devices of rhetoric, it can convey lies masked as truths. The lower-class characters in the entremeses convey, within a frame of entertainment, the relative judgments and the relative values of society. Men and women are disposed to deceive, to cheat, and to demean others. As with Spanish picaresque narrative, the satire derives from the socially disfranchised, who are both the target of the satire and the means through which those above them are called to task. CRITICAL RESPONSE By publishing his unperformed plays, Cervantes left the final judgment to posterity. The revered status of Don Quixote notwithstanding, posterity has not been especially kind to the plays. The reason has been the same as in Cervantes' time: Lope de Vega and those who follow him predominate in the evaluation of Golden Age drama. Critics from Leandro Fernandez de Moratin in the first part of the nineteenth century, to contemporary scholars have called attention to the episodic quality of the plays, which lack the unity and the polish of the theater of Lope, Tirso, and Calderon. The first sustained critical study of Cervantes' dramatic works, El teatro de Cervantes (1915) by Armando Cotarelo y Valledor, restates this argument, and there is a dismissive tone in references to the plays in subsequent years. Joaquin Casalduero's Sentido y forma del teatro de Cervantes (1967) seeks to define Cervantes' theater in its own terms, and scholars such as Bruce W. Wardropper, Robert Marrast, Jean Canavaggio, Stanislav Zimic, Carroll B. Johnson, Nicholas Spadaccini and Jenaro Talens, and
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Frederick A. de Armas, among others, follow suit. The strong critical preoccupation with Don Quixote (and, to a lesser extent, with the Exemplary Novels) and with Golden Age drama has helped to promote interest in the plays of Cervantes. The current range of theoretical models, in turn, has fostered new approaches to the plays. Although there is not a large body of commentary on the entremeses, readers and critics are almost unanimous in their praise of the dramatic interludes. In the "Adjunta al Parnaso," Cervantes (as a participant in the dialogue), remarks that the producers of plays did not seek him out, nor did he pursue them. Unable to attain even moderate success in the theater, Cervantes relies on readers and on future audiences to appreciate his skills in the field of drama. Thanks, in great part, to scholarly interest in Don Quixote, the plays continue to merit attention, and the interludes are recognized as high points of the genero chico. The full-length dramas manifest a creative mind during a moment of transition in the theater and, ultimately, an aspiring playwright at odds with mainstream dramatists and with the public. His own conception of the stage enters into a new dialectic; it is not history, but the present, that provides tension. The adversary cannot be written out of the picture. Just as Alonso Fernandez de Avellaneda affects the second part of Don Quixote, Lope de Vega intrudes upon Cervantes' comedias, which exhibit their own range and history. Paradoxically, critics have frequently signaled the theatrical qualities of Don Quixote and the Exemplary Novels while disparaging the plays themselves. The particular structure of the comedias, often classified as overly digressive or episodic, seems to indicate Cervantes' wish to refine epic and classical dramatic traditions. The shift in form verifies that the triumphs of his opponent could not go unanswered in his own writing for the stage. Though on a lesser scale than the plays of the dramatic triumvirate of the Golden Age (Lope, Tirso, Calderon), the dramas of Cervantes continue to engage scholars and, on rare occasions, theatrical audiences.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Editions Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. Comedia famosa de Pedro de Urdemalas. Ed. Edward Nagy. New York: Las Americas, 1965. . Comedias y entremeses. Ed. Rodolfo Schevill and Adolfo Bonilla. 6 vols. Madrid: Imprenta de Bernardo Rodriguez, 1915. . La destruicion de Numancia. Ed. Alfredo Hermenegildo. Madrid: Castalia, 1994. . Entremeses. Ed. Eugenio Asensio. Madrid: Castalia, 1970. . Entremeses. Ed. Jean Canavaggio. Madrid: Taurus, 1982. . Entremeses. Ed. Nicholas Spadaccini. Madrid: Catedra, 1982. . Obras de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, II., Obras dramdticas. Ed. Francisco Yndurain. Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles, 156. Madrid: Atlas, 1962.
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Spanish Dramatists of the Golden Age -. Ocho comedias y ocho entremeses nunca representados. Compuestos por Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Edicion facsimil de la primera edicion. Madrid: Real Academia Espanola, 1984. -. El rufidn dichoso. Ed. Edward Nagy. Madrid: Catedra, 1975. -. Teatro completo. Ed. Florencio Sevilla Arroyo and Antonio Rey Hazas. Barcelona: Planeta, 1987. -. Viage del Parnaso y poesias varias. Ed. Elias L. Rivers. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1991. -.Viaje del Parnaso. Ed. Miguel Herrero Garcia. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Instituto "Miguel de Cervantes," 1983.
Translations Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. Interludes. Trans. Edwin Honig. New York: New American Library, 1964. . The Interludes of Cervantes. Trans. S. Griswold Morley. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1948; New York: Greenwood Press, 1969. . Miguel de Cervantes' Interludes/Entremeses. Trans. Randall W. Listerman. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1991. . Numancia. The Commerce of Algiers, Voyage to Parnassus. Trans. Gordon W. J. Gyll. London: Murray, 1870. . The Siege of Numantia. Trans. Roy Campbell. In The Classic Theatre, ed. Eric Bentley. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959. 97-160.
Biographies Byron, William. Cervantes: A Biography. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978. Canavaggio, Jean. Cervantes. Trans. J. R. Jones. New York: W. W. Norton, 1990. McKendrick, Melveena. Cervantes. Boston: Little, Brown, 1980. Trapiello, Andres. Las vidas de Cervantes. Barcelona: Planeta, 1993.
Critical Studies Agostini de Del Rio, Amelia B. "El teatro comico de Cervantes." Boletin de la Real Academia Espanola 44 (1964): 223-307, 475-539; 45 (1965): 64-116. Arboleda, Carlos Arturo. Teoria y formas del metateatro en Cervantes. Salamanca: University of Salamanca, 1991. Asensio, Eugenio. "Entremeses." In Suma cervantina, ed. J. B. Avalle-Arce and E. C. Riley. London: Tamesis, 1973. 171-97. Avalle-Arce, Juan Bautista. "Poesia, historia, imperialismo: La Numancia." Anuario de Letras 2 (1962): 55-75. Canavaggio, Jean. Cervantes dramaturge: Un theatre a naitre. Presses Universitaires de France, 1977. Casalduero, Joaquin. Sentido y forma del teatro de Cervantes. Madrid: Gredos, 1967. Cervantes y el teatro. Cuadernos de Teatro Clasico, 7. Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, 1992.
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Correa, Gustavo. "El concepto de la fama en el teatro de Cervantes." Hispanic Review 27 (1959): 280-302. Cotarelo y Valledor, Armando. El teatro de Cervantes. Madrid: Tip. de "Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos," 1915. Criado de Val, Manuel, ed. Cervantes: su obra y su mundo. Madrid: EDI-6, 1981. De Armas, Frederick A. "Classical Tragedy and Cervantes' La Numancia." Neophilologus 58 (1974): 34-40. Diez Borque, Jose Maria. "Teatro dentro del teatro, novela de la novela en Miguel de Cervantes." Anales Cervantinos 11 (1972): 33-57. Flecniakoska, Jean-Louis. "Quelque propos sur la Comedia famosa de La entretenida." Anales Cervantinos 11 (1972): 17-32. Friedman, Edward H. "Female Presence, Male Prescience: The Creation of the Subject in La gran sultana." In Estudios en homenaje a Enrique Ruiz-Fornells, ed. Juan Fernandez Jimenez, Jose J. Labrador Herraiz, and L. Teresa Valdivieso. Erie, PA: ALDEEU, 1990. 218-25. . The Unifying Concept: Approaches to the Structure of Cervantes's Comedias. York, SC: Spanish Literature, 1981. Gaylord, Mary. "La poesia y los poetas en los entremeses de Cervantes." Anales Cervantinos 20 (1982): 173-203. Gerli, E. Michael. ilEl retablo de las maravillas: Cervantes' 'Arte nuevo de deshacer comedias.' " Hispanic Review 51A (1989): 477-92. Hermenegildo, Alfredo. La "Numancia" de Cervantes. Madrid: Sociedad General Espanola de Libreria, 1976. . La tragedia en el Renacimiento espanol. Barcelona: Planeta, 1973. Johnson, Carroll B. "Structures and Social Structures in El vizcaino fingido." Bulletin of the Comediantes 41.1 (1989): 7-20. Julia Martinez, Eduardo. "Estudio y tecnica de las comedias de Cervantes." Revista de Filologia Espanola 32 (1948): 339-65. MacCurdy, Raymond R. "The Numantia Plays of Cervantes and Rojas Zorrilla: The Shift from Collective to Personal Tragedy." Symposium 14 (1960): 100-120. Marrast, Robert. Miguel de Cervantes, dramaturge. Paris: L'Arche, 1957. Moir, Duncan. ' 'The Classical Tradition in Spanish Dramatic Theory and Practice in the Seventeenth Century." In Classical Drama and Its Influence: Essays Presented to H D. F. Kitto, ed. M. J. Anderson. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1965. 193227. Molho, Mauricio. Cervantes: raices folkloricas. Madrid: Gredos, 1976. Reed, Cory A. The Novelist as Playwright: Cervantes and the Entremes nuevo. New York: Peter Lang, 1993. Reichenberger, Kurt. Cervantes: Estudios en la vispera de su centenario. Vol. 2. Kassel: Reichenberger, 1994. Sanchez, Alberto. "Los rufianes en el teatro de Cervantes." In Teatro del Siglo de Oro: Homenaje a Alberto Navarro Gonzalez, ed. Victor Garcia de la Concha et al. Kassel: Reichenberger, 1990. 597-616. Schuessler, Michael Karl. "The Textualization of Tradition: El vizcaino fingido and the Development of the Entremes as a Literary Genre." Bulletin of the Comediantes 44.2 (1992): 231-41. Shivers, George. "La historicidad de El cerco de Numancia." Hispanofila 39 (1970): 114.
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Spadaccini, Nicholas. "Writing for Reading: Cervantes's Aesthetics of Reception in the Entremeses." In Critical Essays on Cervantes, ed. Ruth El Saffar. Boston: G K. Hall, 1986. 162-75. Spadaccini, Nicholas, and Jenaro Talens. Through the Shattering Glass: Cervantes and the Self-Made World. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. Stagg, Geoffrey. "The Date and Form of El trato de Argel." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 30 (1953): 181-92. Urbina, Eduardo. "Hacia El viejo celoso de Cervantes." Nueva Revista de Filologia Hispdnica 38.2 (1990): 733^2. Vitse, Marc. "Burla e ideologia en los entremeses." In Los generos menores en el teatro espanol del Siglo de Oro, ed. Luciano Garcia Lorenzo. Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, 1988. 163-76. Wardropper, Bruce W. "Comedias." In Suma cervantina, ed. J. B. Avalle-Arce and E. C. Riley. London: Tamesis, 1973. 147-69. Zimic, Stanislav. El teatro de Cervantes. Madrid: Castalia, 1992.
ANDRES DE CLARAMONTE Y CORROY (15807-1626)
Christopher B. Weimer
BIOGRAPHY Lope de Vega Carpio, Tirso de Molina, and Pedro Calderon de la Barca: these are the names that most often leap to mind when considering the drama of Spain's Golden Age. Despite these writers' importance, however, the Spanish theater of their era enjoyed a popularity and prosperity that enabled countless playwrights to thrive, thanks to the audience's virtually inexhaustible demand for new works. Among these often-neglected "minor dramatists," the term Vern Williamsen uses in his book devoted to them, was Andres de Claramonte y Corroy. Most commonly considered, at best, a second- or third-rate comediante and, at worst, a shameless plagiarist, Claramonte has in recent years stridden forth from the literary margins to which he had long been banished in order to lay posthumous claim to a critical reevaluation. Unlike Lope, Tirso, Calderon, and many other authors who have overshadowed him, Claramonte's role in the theater of his day consisted of more than playwriting; in addition, he acted with various companies of some prestige and later became an impresario/director (or autor, a term sometimes misleading to modern readers), leading troupes of his own. He was a pragmatic and successful man of the stage whose firsthand knowledge of theatrical practice shapes his comedias, autos, and loas. Some of the most intriguing questions surrounding Andres de Claramonte, however, concern not those works acknowledged as his but rather those that perhaps should be so acknowledged: Hispanists led by Alfredo Rodriguez Lopez-Vazquez and Fernando Cantalapiedra have proposed Claramonte's authorship of revered and canonized plays traditionally attributed to other comediantes, including El Rey don Pedro en Madrid, La estrella de Sevilla, and El burlador de Sevilla. As is often the case with Spanish Golden Age literary figures, our knowledge of Andres de Claramonte's life and of the chronology of his works must rely upon less-than-complete data.1 Although no records of Claramonte's birth or baptism have been found, a surviving declaration of his legal majority in 1605 suggests that he was born sometime prior to December 5, 1580, very likely in
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Murcia. His artistic ambitions appear to have manifested themselves quite early in life; he himself claimed to have produced by age twelve many of the verses he would later publish in his Letania moral. Nondramatic poetry, however, was to play less of a role in Claramonte's career than his work in the theater, to which he would devote most of his time and energy. By 1603 he had successfully embarked upon a professional acting career, appearing with Mateo de Salcedo's troupe, and as a playwright had attained a sufficient reputation to be listed among other comediantes in Agustin de Rojas' Viaje entretenido; in 1604 he married Beatriz de Castro y Virues. Among the better-known works attributed to this early period in his career are El nuevo rey Gallinato and El secreto en la mujer. Claramonte must have been at least a competent actor, for he seems to have found work easily. After performing with Salcedo's company, he later joined those of Baltasar de Pinedo, Alonso de Heredia, and Antonio Granados before forming a troupe in 1607 in partnership with Alonso de Olmedo y Torino. In March 1609, Claramonte established his own company, but the troupe's engagements in various cities were interrupted by the death of Queen Margarita in the autumn of 1611, an event that closed the country's theaters. During the period of national mourning, Claramonte took part in a Madrid literary academy whose patron was the Count of Saldaha, the Duke of Lerma's second son, and whose other participants included Lope, Gongora, and Quevedo. In 1612, Claramonte enjoyed what is believed to be his first publication, a sequence of three romances entitled Relacion del nacimiento del nuevo Infante, y de la muerte de la Reyna nuestra senora, and in 1613 he published another volume of poetry, the Letania moral. The year 1612 also brought the reopening of Spain's theaters and Claramonte's return to the stage with a new company performing in Seville and later in Cordoba. He was to prosper as an impresario, in the year 1615 enjoying the honor of a royal decree that designated him "impresario of comedias recognized by His Majesty" ("autor de comedias de los nombrados de su magestad") (Ganelin, 22). His works from this period most likely include La catolica princesa Leopolda. At some point between 1615 and 1617, Claramonte abandoned acting and entrepreneurship in order to devote himself entirely to writing. Settling in Seville, in the years that followed he published more volumes of poetry, including the Fracmento a la Purisima Concepcion in 1617 and a book of villancicos, now lost, in 1621. Claramonte's primary allegiance was still to the stage, however, and he produced a significant number of comedias, autos sacramentales, and loas for which he was well paid and which we know to have been staged; his El infante de Aragon even received a palace performance in 1622. Notable among the comedias probably written during this last phase of his career are La infelice Dorotea and El ataud para el vivo y el tdlamo para el muerto, while the autos commissioned from him include El horno de Constantinopla. By 1623 Claramonte had relocated to Madrid, and it is there that he died on September 19, 1626.
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DRAMATURGY: MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES The uncertainties and debates surrounding which works, in fact, constitute Andres de Claramonte's theatrical output make any discussion of his dramaturgy problematic at best. Persuasive evidence does suggest, for example, at least a strong possibility that the Murcian wrote La Estrella de Sevilla and El rey don Pedro en Madrid, while his authorship of El burlador de Sevilla remains a matter more open to question.2 Rather than enter into these disputes, this discussion focuses on four representative works commonly acknowledged to be Claramonte's. Claramonte based El secreto en la mujer on Lope's El halcon de Federico, which the latter playwright had himself adapted from an episode in Boccaccio. The play begins with the competition between three galanes—Lelio, Ursino, and Antonio—for the hand of Clavela; she favors Ursino's suit and intends to elope with him. When she tells Lelio that she does not love him, the disappointed lover makes arrangements to leave Milan and dutifully listens to his father's Polonius-like advice never to trust a woman with any secret, never to treat as a son any youth whom he did not father, and never to accept a nobleman's patronage. That night, however, Clavela's plans to elope go awry when she mistakes Lelio for Ursino in the darkness. Only after spending the night with Lelio does she realize his identity, but she grows to reciprocate his love, and their marriage initially flourishes. The happiness they discover together while benefiting from the duke of Florence's favor suggests to Lelio that his father's warnings were unfounded, but their good fortune proves short-lived. The thwarted Ursino joins forces with Aurelia, to whom he has promised marriage in return for her assistance in destroying Lelio and Clavela. The conspirators insinuate themselves into Lelio's household by adopting disguises, Aurelia as a boy to whom the couple offers a home and Ursino as a servant. Aurelia encourages Clavela's jealousy of the duchess' interest in Lelio, while the latter is goaded into offering an extravagant proof of his love to Clavela: serving to her for dinner the duke's prize falcon, a deed that would cost him his head if the duke, angered by the bird's disappearance, were to learn of it. When Lelio reveals his transgression to Clavela as an avowal of devotion, her jealousy prompts her to betray him to their patron. Although Lelio's execution is averted by the news that another bird was substituted for the falcon in the meal without his knowledge, Clavela is banished to a convent, and the couple's happiness has been shattered. Deste agua no bebere is a striking piece of dramaturgy, especially for the atmosphere of sexual tension and foreboding with which Claramonte infuses much of this comedia. The leading characters are King Pedro I, paradoxically known to history as both El cruel and El justiciero, Don Gutierre Alfonso and his wife, Mencia, and the courtier Don Diego Tenorio and his sister Juana.3 As the play opens, King Pedro is en route to Seville when he encounters first a farmer and then a peasant girl, both of whom foretell his future and magically
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disappear, leaving behind a shroud and a bloody dagger, respectively, before they can be apprehended for further questioning. The king, discovering himself close to Don Gutierre's castle, decides to rest there; when Dona Mencia comes to greet the monarch in her husband's absence, she invites him to spend the night. When the sexually predatory Pedro enters Mencia's bedroom later that night, she rejects both his advances and his offer to bring about Gutierre's death in battle so that she might become queen. An opportunity for revenge soon presents itself to the angry, thwarted monarch: Diego Tenorio, having been falsely told by his sister Juana that Gutierre had seduced and abandoned her prior to marrying Mencia, demands justice from Pedro, who complies by commanding Gutierre to kill his wife. When Gutierre discovers the king's true motives from Mencia, he defies the royal death sentence. Diego Tenorio then orders the courtier Don Gil to slay her, but Gil takes pity on her plight and secretly allows her to escape instead. In the meantime, Diego has arrested Gutierre for his refusal to marry Juana once Mencia is dead and has taken the protesting nobleman to face the king's judgment. By now Pedro has other concerns, namely, his brother Enrique's attempt to usurp his throne and another apparition prophesying his death. Gutierre steadfastly denies Juana's allegations and triumphs in a trial by battle. When Juana confesses her perjury the king finds an acceptable husband for her and reunites Gutierre and Mencia. El ataud para el vivo, y el tdlamo para el muerto was most likely Claramonte's final comedia. It is a dark play of murderous intrigue and triumphant, bloody revenge, elements that Claramonte's theatrical experience permitted him to manipulate in a particularly arresting fashion. As the action begins in Lisbon, Jorge de Atayde's upcoming marriage to his beloved Brianda encounters an unexpected obstacle: her former suitor Nuno de Ferreira, who has just returned from an African exile. Nufio's sudden elevation to the post of privado at court permits him to exploit the king's favor for his unscrupulous ends and to secure Atayde's appointment as Portuguese viceroy in (very distant) India. Atayde, who has recently experienced premonitions of approaching misfortune, cannot refuse the royal command and departs for India, vowing not to cut his beard in his absence. In the six years that follow, Nuno woos Brianda as Atayde successfully carries out his mission. The false reports of the latter's death in India set the stage for the play's supremely theatrical final scenes, in which Atayde returns to Lisbon to learn that Nuno has coerced Brianda's consent to their marriage and that the ritual is soon to take place. Atayde, whose beard conceals his identity, gains entrance to Brianda's house by delivering a coffin there that allegedly contains his own remains. After a scene in which Nuno experiences a number of omens while preparing for the ceremony, Atayde reveals himself in front of the king and the assembled guests, exposes Nufio's machinations and the monarch's complicity in them, then slays Nuno to claim Brianda at last. These three plays span Claramonte's career as a dramatist and contain many of the elements that distinguish his works. First, the playwright—unsurprisingly in light of his stage experience—demonstrates a flair for devising plotlines that
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are novel, although not always flawlessly constructed, for imbuing his works with atmosphere, and for conceiving striking or spectacular coups de theatre', his comedias are rarely conventional in either their conception or their execution. As Frederick A. de Armas points out, El secreto en la mujer "begins in the manner of a comedia de capa y espada but soon becomes a serious and even tragic meditation on love, jealousy, and parental disobedience" (1994, 60). This manipulation and reversal of audience expectations have an impact even on the written page, as indicated by Leavitt's comment: "The play would seem to be concluded in Act I but such is not the case" (66). Indeed, El secreto erodes traditional distinctions between comedia subgenres by depicting in the same play first the comic means by which Lelio and Clavela reach the altar, presumably to live happily ever after, and then the tragic aftermath of that union. Likewise, King Pedro's sexual aggression and willingness to abuse his authority in Deste agua leave little initial doubt that the work is concerned with Pedro the Cruel rather than Pedro the Just, yet by the work's conclusion it is precisely this latter historical archetype that the monarch comes to embody. Nor does El ataiid lack for inventiveness, as Claramonte throws one Byzantine obstacle after another onto the path of Atayde's love for Brianda; especially effective, as Leavitt discerns, is the manner in which Claramonte delays Atayde's inevitable and muchanticipated vengeance against Nuno in order to heighten suspense. Many other examples of this knack for fresh and striking plot devices can be found throughout the playwright's works, including his use of a heroic black protagonist in El valiente negro en Flandes. Claramonte's plots make frequent use of omens, premonitions, and warnings in order to generate dramatic atmosphere. A sense of foreboding gradually develops in El secreto as Lelio ignores each of his father's strictures in defiance of the misfortune the older man had foretold should Lelio not adhere to them; the three transgressions lead him inexorably to his destruction. Deste agua is replete with both supernatural prophesies and portents, while omens and premonitions are essential to El ataud's effect. Claramonte's plays also offer directors many opportunities to generate visual excitement onstage, as we can imagine from King Pedro's spectral visitations and from Atayde's spectacular disruption of Nuno and Brianda's wedding; a list of such moments in his other works would certainly include a plethora of miraculous happenings, which he directs be fully staged.4 Claramonte's approach to characterization is also worthy of note. Like virtually all Golden Age playwrights, he resorts at times to the use of generic "types," yet often transcends them and nearly always—perhaps as a result of his own acting experience—maintains his major characters' psychological coherence and integrates characterization with plot quite effectively. While Lelio's initially appealing impetuosity might seem unimaginatively typical of impoverished and poetic comedia galanes, for example, this trait ultimately spurs him to the imprudent acts that destroy the marriage he had so ardently sought earlier in the work. King Pedro's evolution in Deste agua from amoral self-indulgence to moral responsibility combines with Gutierre's agony when faced with the
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royal command to slay Mencia to make this comedia an incredibly rich one in psychological terms, while Atayde and Nuno in El ataiid present distinct, yet at times uncomfortably akin, images of obsessive behavior. The ambivalence with which Claramonte depicts King Pedro is, in fact, characteristic of the monarchs in many of his plays, nearly all of whom are flawed, weak, or even corrupt men who do dubious honor to the crown they wear; the king in El ataud certainly behaves in a less than exemplary fashion. Claramonte's portrayals of women might occasionally raise uncomfortable questions for contemporary readers; it would be difficult to deny, for instance, that El secreto en la mujer is a misogynist work in its eponymous moral and in its capricious and unsympathetic characterization of Clavela. Dona Juana Tenorio's duplicitous behavior in Deste agua renders her equally unpalatable, while the conniving Lesbia in Claramonte's hagiographic comedia about Santa Teodora, Pusoseme el sol, saliome la luna, emerges as still more repugnant in the work's religious context. In contrast, however, Deste aguds Dona Mencia demonstrates both virtue and resourcefulness, just as the Penelope-like Brianda of El ataud agrees to marry Nuno only under extreme duress. Many other laudatory female characters can be found in Claramonte's works as well. Still more significantly, even the least appealing of the Murcian's women demonstrate the same psychological consistency and coherence with which he endows his male characters. In addition to the attractions offered by Claramonte's comedias on the levels of plot, staging, and characterization, these works reward inquiries on the symbolic and metaphoric levels as well. Frederick A. de Armas writes: "My own perusal of these comedias has led me to single out the opposition of poison/ remedy as central to Claramonte's dramaturgy. Indeed, in at least ten of his thirteen plays, this conceptual pair serves as a key image that reveals and elucidates a central conflict" (1994, 59). Those readers familiar with Derrida's analysis of Plato's pharmakon will be unsurprised to discover that the poison/ remedy opposition manifests itself in the form of writing in many of Claramonte' s works, including the three explored thus far in this study.5 In El secreto en la mujer, Lelio's optimistic misreading of Clavela's note dismissing him in Act 1 paves the way for the tragedy to follow, while her misinterpretation of a letter she believes he received from the duchess triggers her betrayal of him (De Armas 1994). When King Pedro in Deste agua no bebere commands Gutierre to kill his wife, the monarch does not do so orally, but in a document. Written royal edicts are also central to the action of El ataud, in which Atayde's unwanted appointment as viceroy is conveyed to him in writing and in which other papers bearing the king's signature serve as Atayde's self-vindicating evidence at the play's conclusion. Nearly all of these distinguishing characteristics of Claramonte's theater are to be found in La infelice Dorotea, one of his best-known comedias and one that offers us persuasive evidence of his considerable dramaturgical skill. The play, set during the reign of Alfonso VIII, depicts the intertwined tragic fates of three individuals at court: the royal favorite Garcinunez; his betrothed, Dor-
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otea; and the Aragonese nobleman Fernando, who has taken refuge in Toledo from his enemies at home. In Act 1 we learn of Garcinunez's trials in both the personal and political spheres. His desire to marry Dorotea has been disturbed by a Moor's occult prophecy that her husband will slay her, a prospect that horrifies Garcinunez, while his enemies at court plot his assassination. When Fernando overhears the conspirators, he warns Garcinunez and gains the latter's friendship. Garcinunez, who is soon to leave for Aragon in order to arrange a political marriage for Alfonso's sister Leonor, promises to repay Fernando by interceding on his behalf once he reaches the Aragonese court. Fernando agrees to look after Dorotea in Garcinunez's absence, despite her irrational fear that he (Fernando) will be her murderer, and the act ends suspensefully: the ambitious courtier Nuno conceives a new plan to destroy Garcinunez even as Leonor, who secretly loves the royal favorite, plots to abort his marriage to Dorotea so that she can be his wife. In Act 2, these two very different plotters take advantage of Garcinunez's absence to put their respective plans into action. Leonor accuses him of having seduced her under the promise of marriage, and Nuno forges documents in order to make it appear that Garcinunez has treasonously allied himself with Alfonso's Turkish enemies. The king decides to punish his nowfallen favorite by decreeing the marriage of Dorotea to Fernando, a decision to which Dorotea bows upon hearing of Garcinunez's alleged commitment to Leonor. When the nobleman returns from his mission in Aragon, he is greeted with accusations of betrayal and with imprisonment. Only after Nuno regrets his behavior and confesses the truth is Garcinunez vindicated and freed in Act 3, but Dorotea continues to experience premonitions of disaster. These come to pass when Fernando's enemy Lamberto attempts to kill him, and in the struggle that ensues Fernando accidentally slays his wife and fulfills the Moor's prophecy. Garcinunez, although cleared of all suspicions and offered Leonor's hand, insists that she honor the marriage he arranged for her to the king of Aragon, while Fernando begs Alfonso for an expiatory death. Dorotea, as previously noted, displays nearly all the distinguishing characteristics of Claramonte's dramaturgy and few of its customary weaknesses. Though the plot derives many essential elements from other plays, including Lope's La corona merecida and Guillen de Castro's La humildad soberbia (Ganelin, 32-36), de Armas praises Claramonte's "strong sense of the dramatic, the ease with which he fashions surprising reversals and a conceptual framework that unites the different threads of his complex plots" (1995, 10); Ganelin similarly asserts in his introduction to this play: "Claramonte has not sewn a patchwork quilt; rather, he has woven a tapestry of well-blended threads" (36). Worthy of particular attention is the climax of Act 3 and of the entire play, the scene in which Fernando kills Dorotea while defending himself from an assassin's unexpected assault. This constitutes one of those supremely theatrical moments for which Claramonte had such a flair, and its effectiveness is all the greater due to the playwright's resourceful manipulation of omens, premonitions, and prophecies. The play's opening lines first establish a sense of foreboding,
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as the mysterious old man Sancho warns Dorotea of the misfortune he senses will ultimately befall her; this unspecified menace to the heroine takes on greater shape and prominence when Garcinunez relates the Moor's threatening divination. Premonitions and omens accumulate until the assassin's attempt on Fernando's life results in Dorotea's death, a startling and tragic turn of events that unexpectedly fulfills the Moorish seer's prediction. The characterization in this comedia is detailed and sensitive; indeed, Ganelin asserts that the play ' 'owes its strength to the primacy of character over plot'' (40). According to this critic, all the work's major characters confront vital choices in the course of the action, and subsequent events ensue from the decisions they make at those turning points in the plot. Garcinunez's noble behavior in times of hardship and prosperity alike defines him, and he ultimately triumphs over the tendency toward imprudence that manifests itself in both his superstitious fear of the Moor's prophecy and his failure to guard against envy at court, the force that proved fatal to so many historic and fictitious royal favorites. Fernando, in contrast, never masters his own imprudence, from which result not only his political misfortune but also his accidental murder of Dorotea. Dorotea herself acts imprudently in her consistent renunciation of free will and her melancholic submission to the external forces that ultimately destroy her (Ganelin, 40-62). Finally, La infelice Dorotea offers the attentive reader a wealth of symbol and metaphor, including the opposition between life and death, remedy and poison—the Platonic and Derridean pharmakon—which de Armas considers central to Claramonte's theater, especially when it manifests itself in writing. It is significant that the Moor foretold Dorotea's fate not by any vision of the event but rather through the appearance of magical words upon a wall (verses 231^15). Garcinunez's reading of these words makes him reconsider the prospect of marrying Dorotea. Though he does ultimately choose to disregard the prophecy, the time lost forces the ceremony to be postponed until after his return from Aragon—by which time Dorotea will have married Fernando, her future murderer. Thus, the Moor's occult script seems to promise a way to save Dorotea's life, yet it ultimately brings about her death. Writing paradoxically contains both aspects of the opposition between the tonic and the toxic, as it so often does in Claramonte's stage works. De Armas has also illuminated another conceptual foundation of Dorotea, discerning in the text's use of astrology the guiding and unifying presence of a Renaissance emblem featuring Saturn (1995). CRITICAL RESPONSE Andres de Claramonte's twentieth-century emergence as a controversial and potentially central figure in comedia studies would mostly likely have astounded many among both his contemporaries and subsequent generations of Hispanists. No doubt exists that he enjoyed commercial success during his lifetime, as the performances of his works attest. El valiente negro en Flandes, for example,
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"was performed well into the eighteenth century and enjoyed numerous printings in suelta form" (Ganelin, 24). Nevertheless, as a playwright he has been consistently scorned, reviled, and brushed aside. In 1623 Alonso de Salas Barbadillo mocked Ruiz de Alarcon as a plagiarist with the following lines: "The second Claramonte, / To fill the cup more quickly, / Went not to Parnassus / For water, but rather to Belmonte" (El segundo Claramonte, / Por llenar mas presto el vaso, / No fue al monte del Parnasso / Por agua, sino a Belmonte) (quoted in Ganelin, 24). Likewise, Velez de Guevara satirizes Claramonte in his 1641 El diablo cojuelo (Ganelin, 25). Closer to our own time, Menendez Pelayo dismissed the question of Claramonte's literary value by labelling him a "vulgar and common playwright" (dramaturgo vulgar y adocenado) whose creative inadequacies forced him to dedicate himself "to literary piracy" (a la pirateria literaria) (78). Despite occasional instances of faint praise for the playwright since that time, for many decades few scholars deviated significantly from this verdict. Even Vern Williamsen's assessment in his The Minor Dramatists of Seventeenth-Century Spain (1982), while more objective than that of Menendez Pelayo, does little to encourage a reassessment of the Murcian's talents: "Although Claramonte's works as a whole seem to be lacking in intrinsic literary value, and in spite of the obviously bad taste (for any age) in which they were written, they are interesting as a compendium of the devices that could be and were used on the Spanish stage of the seventeenth century" (47). This apparent consensus, however, has been far from unanimous, as Sturgis E. Leavitt demonstrated in 1931, when, in a controversial book, he proposed Claramonte as author of La Estrella de Sevilla. Leavitt, though by no means uncritical, nevertheless finds much to appreciate in Claramonte and defends several of his plays "that are noteworthy for their unusual situations, movement of plot, and the diversity and strength of the characterization" (92). Despite the inescapable fact that "his work in general is very uneven," Leavitt expresses admiration for Claramonte's variety of subjects, the excitement and popular appeal his stagecraft forges, his use of foreshadowing, and his talent for originality of plot and incident (83-88). Leavitt bestows particular praise on La infelice Dorotea, singling out the role played by omens in the text (86), along with its structure (92), as worthy of note. He is not alone among twentiethcentury scholars in such a favorable assessment of this comedia. Charles Ganelin, in his critical edition of Dorotea, likewise calls attention to the play's construction and character psychology (36), while de Armas also compliments the work's "adept character development" and ranks this play among Claramonte's "gripping tragedies" (1995, 10). Nor is La infelice Dorotea the only work by Claramonte to elicit fresh respect from modern scholars. El valiente negro en Flandes has been studied by Alva Ebersole and Juan Barcelo Jimenez in essays dating from the 1970s and more recently by Baltasar Fra Molinero, who devotes a chapter of his 1995 book, La imagen de los negros en el teatro del siglo de oro, to this play. All three critics concentrate primarily on the figure of the racially alienated protagonist. Ebersole
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has also studied Deste agua no bebere, concluding his essay with praise for the maestria with which Claramonte develops not only the plot of this comedia but also the metaphors and imagery that contribute to its power (132). Frederick A. de Armas, who calls Claramonte ' 'perhaps the most maligned dramatist of the period" (1994, 58), has published two articles on Deste agua in addition to other essays illuminating the thematic subtlety and depth to be found in many of the playwright's works; de Armas' contribution to modern appreciation for Claramonte's output is significant and valuable. Charles Ganelin, Maria del Carmen Hernandez Valcarcel, and Alfredo Rodriguez Lopez-Vazquez have, in a very real sense, made Andres de Claramonte's contemporary renaissance possible with their critical editions of his works, a task that Rodriguez LopezVazquez has also undertaken with other comedias that this scholar seeks to attribute definitively to the Murcian. These latter disputed texts include La Estrella de Sevilla, which Rodriguez Lopez-Vazquez has published under Claramonte's name, and El burlador de Sevilla, which he has published under the heading "Attributed to Tirso de Molina" ("Atribuida a Tirso de Molina") with a lengthy introduction advocating Claramonte's paternity. Although Rodriguez Lopez-Vazquez's arguments may not convince all readers, his textual analysis is perceptive, thorough, and indispensable. NOTES 1. The biographical facts summarized here derive primarily from Charles Ganelin's introduction to La infelice Dorotea and to Alfredo Rodriguez Lopez-Vazquez's introduction to Deste agua no bebere. Despite the ongoing investigations of claramontistas, however, the reliable dating of Claramonte's various works is still largely impossible. 2. Consult Rodriguez Lopez-Vazquez's editions of Estrella and Burlador for the data supporting these attributions, along with his other publications and those of Cantalapiedra treating such questions of authorship. 3. Williamsen points out that this play is based on a different version of the Gutierre and Mencia legend utilized by Calderon for El medico de su honra (44). 4. See Leavitt, 83-86, and Williamsen, A6-A1, for more examples. 5. Readers interested in the writing-as-pharmakon theme in the comedia should consult Charles Oriel's Writing and Inscription in Golden Age Drama. Although Oriel's chapter on La Estrella de Sevilla does not address questions of attribution, it will nevertheless be of special interest to those convinced of Claramonte's responsibility for the play. Likewise, my own article on El rey don Pedro en Madrid attributes that work to Claramonte and explores a slightly different use of pharmakon imagery in the text. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Editions Maria del Carmen Hernandez Valcarcel, ed. Andres de Claramonte. Comedias. (Deste agua no bebere, El horno de Constantinopla, El nuevo rey Gallinato.) Murcia: Academia Alfonso X el Sabio, 1983.
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El ataiid para el vivo y el tdlamo para el muerto. Ed. Alfredo Rodriguez Lopez-Vazquez. London: Tamesis, 1993. De lo vivo a lo pintado. Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles. Ed. Ramon Mesonero Romanos. Vol. 43. Madrid: Ediciones Atlas, 1951. 529-47. Deste agua no bebere. Ed. Alfredo Rodriguez Lopez-Vazquez. Kassel: Reichenberger, 1984. La Estrella de Sevilla. Ed. Alfredo Rodriguez Lopez-Vazquez. Madrid: Catedra, 1991. La infelice Dorotea. Ed. Charles Ganelin. London: Tamesis, 1987. Pusoseme el sol, saliome la luna. Ed. Alfredo Rodriguez Lopez-Vazquez. Kassel: Reichenberger, 1985. El secreto en la mujer. Ed. Alfredo Rodriguez Lopez-Vazquez. London: Tamesis, 1991. El valiente negro en Flandes. Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles. Ed. Ramon Mesonero Romanos. Vol. 43. Madrid: Ediciones Atlas, 1951. 491-509.
Critical Studies Barcelo Jimenez, Juan. "Andres de Claramonte y Juan de Merida (notas a la comedia El valiente negro en Flandes." Libro-Homenaje a Antonio Perez Gomez." Vol. 1. Cieza: "la fonte que mana y corre," 1978. 55-63. Cantalapiedra, Fernando. "El infanzdn de Illescas" y las comedias de Claramonte. Kassel: Reichenberger, 1990. . El teatro de Claramonte y "La Estrella de Sevilla." Kassel: Reichenberger, 1993. Czarnocka, Halina. "La figura del rey don Pedro el Cruel en Deste agua no bebere de Andres de Claramonte." Romance Language Annual 4 (1993): 415-22. De Armas, Frederick A. "Balthasar's Doom: Letters That Heal/Kill in Claramonte's El secreto en la mujer." The Golden Age Comedia: Text, Theory, and Performance. Ed. Charles Ganelin and Howard Mancing. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1994. . "Diomedes' Horses: Mythical Foregrounding and Reversal in Claramonte's Deste agua no bebere." Gestos 1 (1989): 47-63. . "Fashioning a New World: Lope de Vega and Claramonte's El nuevo rey Gallinato.'' Critical Essays on the Literatures of Spain and Spanish America. Ed. Luis T. Gonzalez del Valle and Julio Baena. Boulder, CO: Society of Spanish and Spanish American Studies, 1991. 1-10. . " 'A King Is He . . . ': Seneca, Covarrubias and Claramonte's Deste agua no bebere." Neophilologus 74 (1990): 374-82. . "Poison in a Golden Cup: A Senecan Image in Claramonte's Comedias." Critica Hispdnica 10 (1988): 3-19. . "Pursuing the Daughter of Time: Planetary Poisons in Claramonte's La infelice Dorotea. " Texto y espectdculo: Proceedings of the Thirteenth Golden Age Spanish Theatre Symposium (March 17-20, 1993) at the University of Texas, El Paso. Ed. Jose Luis Suarez Garcia. York, SC: Spanish Literature, 1995. 9-18. . "Saturn and the Enchantress: Lope's La desdichada Estefania and Claramonte's La infelice Dorotea." Romance Languages Annual 1 (1990): 417-23. Ebersole, Alva V. " 'Black Is Beautiful' in Seventeenth-Century Spain." Romance Notes 12 (1970-71): 387-91.
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. "Simbolismo en Deste agua no bebere de Andres de Claramonte." Perspectivas de la comedia, ed. Alva V. Ebersole. Valencia: Albatros-Hispanofila, 1978. 11932. Fra Molinero, Baltasar. La imagen de los negros en el teatro del siglo de oro. Madrid: Siglo Veintiuno, 1995. Ganelin, Charles. Introduction. La infelice Dorotea. London: Tamesis, 1987. 13-73. Leavitt, Sturgis E. The Estrella de Sevilla and Claramonte. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1931. Menendez Pelayo, Marcelino. Estudios y discursos de critica historica y literaria. Vol. 3. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1941. Oriel, Charles. Writing and Inscription in Golden Age Drama. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1992. Rodriguez Lopez-Vazquez, Alfredo. Andres de Claramonte y "El burlador de Sevilla." Kassel: Reichenberger, 1987. . "La Estrella de Sevilla y Deste agua no bebere: ^un mismo autor?" Bulletin of the Comediantes 36 (1984): 83-100. . Introduction. El burlador de Sevilla. Atribuida a Tirso de Molina. Ed. Rodriguez Lopez-Vazquez. 5th ed. Madrid: Catedra, 1992. 9-95. Weimer, Christopher B. "Invisibility as Pharmakon: Derrida and Claramonte's El rey don Pedro en Madrid." Romance Languages Annual 4 (1993): 641^-5. Williamsen, Vern. The Minor Dramatists of Seventeenth-Century Spain. Boston: Twayne, 1982.
JUAN DE LA CUEVA (1543-1612) David G. Burton BIOGRAPHY Juan de la Cueva was born in the early fall of 1543 to an aristocratic family in Seville (Reyes Cano, 58). Although many dates and events in his life are unknown, Cueva tells about himself and his family in his genealogical poem Historia y sucesion de la Cueva (1604) and in bits of information scattered throughout his poetry. Juan de la Cueva grew up in Seville, was acquainted with such leading intellectual figures of the day as Juan de Mai Lara and Fernando de Herrera, and participated in the literary academy at the Casa de Pilatos, home of its patrons the Enriquez de Ribera. It appears that Cueva never married, although many of his love poems in the Petrarchan mode bear dedication to a certain Felipa de la Paz. Between 1574 and 1577 Cueva accompanied his younger brother, Claudio, a cleric and later inquisitor, to Guadalajara, Mexico. Just prior to the return of the elder Cueva to Seville in 1577, there appeared in Mexico an anthology of poets then living in New Spain. The collection includes some thirty poems written by Juan de la Cueva. Cueva returned to Seville, where, between 1579 and 1581, he wrote and had staged his fourteen plays. After 1610 it appears that Cueva spent some time in Cuenca. He died in Granada in 1612 (Reyes Cano, 58). Juan de la Cueva is best known today as a dramatist and as an immediate precursor of Lope de Vega in the emerging Spanish national theater of the seventeenth century. Critics consider Juan de la Cueva an important latesixteenth-century playwright because of several advances he made in the construction of plays. Cueva is credited with the introduction of national themes derived from medieval legends into the Spanish theater. For the first time in the Spanish drama, he used polimetric verse forms to indicate mood and tone. While the Sevillian did not follow the unities of time and place, he did advocate, to an extent, the use of decorum in characterizations, that is, language and actions consistent with social class. Studies of Cueva's dramatic output took a giant step forward in 1917, when
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Francisco A. de Icaza published all fourteen of Cueva's extant plays. Icaza based his texts on the second edition of 1588. At about the same time, Adalbert Hamel discovered, in the Austrian National Library in Vienna, the sole surviving copy of the princeps (1583). In 1924 Icaza issued El infamador, Los siete Infantes de Lara, and the Ejemplar poetico in Espasa-Calpe's series Clasicos castellanos. Icaza's edition continues to be the standard available text of these three works. El infamador remains Cueva's best-known play. The only other plays that have been edited are the Siete infantes and Bernardo del Carpio.
DRAMATURGY: MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES Juan de la Cueva wrote fourteen plays, all of which were presented between 1579 and 1581 in the three public theaters in Seville. Cueva gave the title "comedy" to those plays that end on a happy note. Tragedies contain the death of at least one of the principal characters. The plays fit neatly into three categories based on plot: the plays that dramatize events from Spanish legend and history, those that treat stories from classical antiquity, and those of Cueva's own invention. The four historical plays are Comedia de la muerte del rey don Sancho y reto de Zamora por don Diego Ordonez (Comedy about the Death of King Sancho and the Challenge of Zamora by Don Diego Ordonez), Comedia del saco de Roma y muerte de Borbon y coronacion de nuestro invicto emperador Carlos Quinto (Comedy about the Sack of Rome and Death of Bourbon and the Coronation of Our Unconquered Emperor Charles V), Tragedia de los siete Infantes de Lara (Tragedy about the Seven Princes of Lara), and Comedia de la libertad de Espana por Bernardo del Carpio (Comedy about the Liberation of Spain by Bernardo del Carpio). The Reto de Zamora dramatizes the murder of King Sancho by Vellido Dolfos and the freeing of the city of Zamora from that monarch's siege. The Saco de Roma deals with events in the 1527 Sack of Rome by German imperial troops under the leadership of the duke of Bourbon. The Siete Infantes treats the medieval Spanish legend of the revenge of Mudarra for the murder of his seven half brothers. Bernardo del Carpio tells of the Spanish defeat of Charlemagne's forces at the Battle of Roncesvalles. The three plays about classical antiquity are Tragedia de la muerte de Ayaz Telamon sobre las armas de Aquiles (Tragedy about the Death of Ajax over Achilles' Armor), Tragedia de la muerte de Virigina y Appio Claudio (Tragedy about the Deaths of Virigina and Appius Claudius), and Comedia de la libertad de Roma por Mucio Cevola (Comedy about the Liberation of Rome by Mucius Scaevola). The Ay ax recounts the dispute between Ajax and Ulysses over which would inherit the armor of the dead Achilles. The Virginia tells of the passion of the Roman official Appius Claudius for the virtuous Virginia and the deaths of both. The Libertad de Roma treats the expulsion of the Tarquinii from Rome and the liberation of the city from Etruscan control. The remaining seven plays with plots conceived by Cueva are Comedia del degollado (Comedy about the Beheaded Man), Comedia del tutor (Comedy
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about the Tutor), Comedia de la constancia de Arcelina (Comedy about Arcelina's Constancy), Comedia del principe tirano (Comedy about the Tyrant Prince), Tragedia del principe tirano (Tragedy about the Tyrant Prince), Comedia del viejo enamorado (Comedy about the Old Man in Love), and Comedia del infamador (Comedy about the Defamer). The Degollado concerns the thwarted efforts of a Moor to woo a Christian woman from her beloved. The Tutor narrates the love between a student and a young woman and the ensuing complications when both her elder guardian and another student try to win her love. The Arcelina is a complex story about a young woman who saves her beloved from execution by confessing to a murder that she committed but for which he has been blamed. The two Principe tirano plays form a unit that depicts the rise to, and subsequent fall from, power by a cruel, deceitful prince. The Viejo enamorado demonstrates an old man's lustful schemes to steal a young woman away from her beloved. The Infamador narrates the ineffectual attempts of a man to gain the love of a woman who does not love him in return. CRITICAL RESPONSE A review of the scholarly material that deals with the life and works of Juan de la Cueva reveals considerable variety. Since 1980, two Spaniards, Jose Reyes Cano and Jose Cebrian Garcia, have shed much light on the biography and on the nondramatic poetry of Juan de la Cueva. Students of Cueva are indebted to the work of Reyes Cano, who uncovered the all-important baptismal document and Cueva's will. More recently, Cebrian Garcia has edited some of the narrative poems and has studied Cueva the lyric poet. Cueva the dramatist has been the subject of three doctoral dissertations: Edwin S. Morby (California, 1936), John W. Battle (Duke, 1970), and David G. Burton (Kentucky, 1983). Only Burton's was published (1988). Morby's is a general study of all fourteen plays. Battle studies dramatic unity in selected plays. Burton studies only one play, the Bernardo del Carpio. Most of the studies tend to fall into two divisions. The critics either deal with a theme or motif that runs through the dramatic works or discuss Cueva's treatment of a medieval legend as compared to that of a seventeenth-century dramatist. The plays most often studied are the three based on Spanish medieval heroes and El infamador. If one considers book-length studies about Cueva, those by Watson (1971) and Glenn (1973) are indispensable. Watson studies the problem of the Portuguese succession after the death of King Sebastian at the Battle of Alcazar-Kebir in 1578. Watson believes that in ten of the plays Cueva was making a political statement to Phillip II that Spain should not intervene in the selection of a new ruler for Portugal. Glenn summarizes Cueva's life and works, both dramatic and poetic. The work provides the reader with a basic, overall survey of the Sevillian's artistic endeavors. The aforementioned studies by Reyes Cano and Cebrian Garcia update the biography.
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Bruce Wardropper, in 1955, called for a reassessment of the intrinsic merit of Juan de la Cueva as a dramatist. Wardropper studies the Reto de Zamora in light of Cueva's humanistic training. He sees in this play the fusion of the humanistic (high-blown language) and the traditional (incorporation of popular ballads) as a representation of the Spanish Renaissance. Harry Sieber, in 1973, took up Wardropper's call in a study of the Siete infantes de Lara. Sieber believes that Cueva conceived the play as a symmetrical work unified in its action (praxis). As such the praxis moves from treachery to vengeance, from false religion to true religion, and from separation to union. David Burton (1983, 1986, 1988) studies the Bernardo del Carpio play. He believes that Cueva followed a moral calling to show through example that good must prevail over evil. Jose Cebrian Garcia (1991) summarizes the criticism and studies Comedia del tutor. Cebrian believes that this funny play is directed to a popular audience, which would enjoy it for its own sake. If one takes into account Cueva's total dramatic output, with special regard to the preface to the plays, one comes away with an appreciation of the Sevillian's dramatic art. In that prologue, the "Dedicatory Epistle to Momus" (Epfstola dedicatoria a Momo), Cueva writes: For Comedy is the imitation of human life, a mirror of customs, a portrait of the truth in which we are presented with ideas which we should shun or those which we should embrace, with clear and evident examples, anyone of them powerful enough to confuse faulty intentions.1 Herein Cueva provides an insight into the comprehension and motivating principle that guides his plays, a principle that is moral in nature. Since the theater presents vignettes that imitate life, mirror customs, and portray truth, the audience must deduce from the entertainment that it should shun vice and cling to virtue. Cueva follows that tenet in the Comedia del infamador. He sets before the audience the "clear and evident example" of Leucino, the defamer {el infamador). The dramatist underscores the vice of bearing false witness through the technique of dramatic irony. Cueva sets forth the conflict from the beginning of Act 1. Leucino shows himself to be a wealthy, arrogant, egocentric man who believes that wealth alone determines a person's character. In his logic, a wealthy person naturally possesses honor and nobility. Moreover, wealth, not social standing, attracts women. A servant must remind Leucino that quite a few women, Eliodora among them, have rejected him. Leucino has not forgotten. At this very moment the bawd Teodora is pleading his case with the young woman. Unable to comprehend her refusal of his love, Leucino is obstinately driven to possess her at all costs. He does not heed the advice of his servants, who constantly tell him to forget Eliodora.
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Leucino resorts to Celestinesque characters who plead his cause with Eliodora here and again in Act 3. Unlike Celestina, however, Teodora does not possess the natural ability to persuade. Her attempt to gain entrance for Leucino ends in a brutal, if not comic, beating by the women servants of Eliodora. Leucino's reaction to the humiliation of his agent is to swear vengeance on Eliodora. As the young woman and her maid Felicina stroll along the banks of the River Betis in an attempt to forget Teodora's unpleasant visit, Leucino appears. Love, he declares, has led him to her. Eliodora counters that he is wasting his time. Leucino will not accept this refusal. He is determined either to die, to kill her, or to fulfill his libidinous desire. Eliodora's appeal to gods and goddesses brings Nemesis, goddess of vengeance, who orders Leucino to change his ways or to expect a horrible end. Leucino scoffs at the warning, going so far as to accuse Eliodora of conjuring the illusion in order to escape. To further his plans for her downfall, Leucino calls together his go-betweens, who will intercede on his behalf. In Act 2 Cueva focuses on those characters who hope to mollify Eliodora's iron-willed determination. Venus, infuriated that the woman holds her in such poor esteem, joins Leucino's camp. While Felicina sleeps, Venus takes her form in order to help the go-betweens (alcahuetas) in their efforts to change Eliodora's mind. Venus reflects Leucino's arrogance and egocentricity. Like him, she cannot accept refusal. She resorts to magic in order to vindicate the affront to her divinity. In her mind, rejection calls for harsh measures. Leucino summons his three go-betweens (Teodora, Terecinda, and Porcero) to a council. He burns with desire and seeks a remedy for his malady. The cautious Terecinda reminds Teodora of her recent altercation with Eliodora. Teodora is resolute, and the three agree to do their utmost to cause Eliodora to yield to Leucino's demands. The two women invoke spirits of darkness in an incantation that they hope will reveal the outcome of Leucino's plan. Two signs appear: death and a crown. Teodora interprets them as favorable to Leucino. When the crown suddenly disappears, Leucino becomes disconsolate. Terecinda, however, assures him not to worry, for he will soon realize his goal. Leucino puts his plan of vengeance into motion in Act 3. Porcero hopes that his efforts to deliver Eliodora will result in increased wealth. When he joins her, Venus has already assumed the disguise of Felicina. Eliodora says that she spent the previous night reading the works of the Arcipreste de Talavera and of Cristobal de Castillejo. She comments that reading such antifeminist literature has tired her. She adds, "To speak ill of women is neither wise nor discreet" ("que decir mal de mujeres / no es saber ni es discretion") (3: 91-92). Icaza notes this a curious reference (curiosa mencion) (Cueva, 39). The reference, however, is far from "curiosa." By naming these two writers known for their misogynistic writings, Cueva establishes a clear link between them and Leucino. Near the end of the act Leucino will prove himself to be neither wise nor discreet when his vengeful, false accusations cause Eliodora to be imprisoned.
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Venus (Felicina) announces the arrival of Teodora. Eliodora does not want to admit her, but Porcero urges her to forgive the bawd. Teodora asks that Eliodora listen to a new request. Now, like Celestina, Teodora worms her way into Eliodora's good graces and then announces her mission on behalf of Leucino. Eliodora reacts violently, but the wily Teodora continues her praise of Leucino. Porcero adds his commendation. Venus and Terecinda urge her to accept the imminent marriage proposal. The mention of marriage and children causes Eliodora to exclaim, "Venus has no power over me, and therefore I wish to renounce her pleasure and its fruit" ("Venus no tiene en mi parte, / y asi quiero carecer / de su fruto y su placer") (3: 249-51). Eliodora orders all to leave. Venus, angered by this outcry and dropping her disguise, determines to use all her powers to help Leucino achieve his vengeance. Leucino learns of the failure to convince Eliodora and decides to take stronger measures. He tells her that she must choose death or give herself to him. True to herself, Eliodora refuses. When a servant tries to carry her off, she kills him and threatens Leucino with menacing words: "You will meet your end with a knife through your chest!" ("i veras el fin con ver tu pecho abierto!") (3: 380). Her unfeminine reaction is justified, for, like a cornered animal, she must fight to protect herself. Eliodora confesses the murder to a justice of the peace. The opportunity to get revenge presents itself to Leucino, and he defames Eliodora: she killed the servant without cause. He continues to impugn the lady: they fell in love; they slept together; she harbored a secret lust for the servant; Leucino learned of her desire, and he left her; she became irate; she murdered the servant to get revenge. The act ends as both Eliodora and Leucino are taken to jail. Act 4 opens as Hircano, Eliodora's father, prepares a poison for his daughter. He has believed Leucino's wild accusations, evidently thinking his daughter capable of such outrageous behavior. He has decided to kill her rather than let both her and his honor suffer the humiliation of a public execution. Felicina delivers the poisoned confection, which magically turns into a bouquet of flowers. A notary and a justice try to enter Eliodora's cell, but savage men, representatives of Diana, goddess of chastity, stop them. Diana upbraids Hircano for his disbelief and places a crown upon Eliodora's head. Leucino confesses his lie: "I determined to avenge myself by defaming her, because she fled from my love" ("determine vengarme / con disfamalla, pues huia de amarme") (4: 395396). Diana insists that Leucino pay for his crime and demands that he have a weight bound around his neck and that he be thrown into the River Betis. When the river protests the profanation of his waters, Diana relents. She then commands him to be buried alive. The remaining characters enter Hispalis rejoicing in the triumph of Eliodora. Cueva's moral purpose in Comedia del infamador is quite clear: vice is punished, and virtue is rewarded. As one studies this and other plays by Cueva, however, the dramatist comes across as somewhat better than a writer of what
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many critics have called dull, moralistic drama. In this play it is his use of dramatic irony that sets him apart. Things do not work out as Leucino plans or as some of the signs would have him believe. In fact, they work against him. Leucino receives admonitions time and again to control his passion for one who does not, and will not, love him. Each time he disregards the advice. Even when the fearful presence of Nemesis threatens him with punishment, his reaction is that she is an illusion conjured by Eliodora. Leucino's refusal to heed the warnings results in a bad end. The beating that Teodora receives from Eliodora's maids is also a signal to Leucino. He, however, cannot grasp that she is refusing to be a candidate for his affections and that nothing good will come of his attempts to sway her. Instead, he believes that he must resort to magic arts and deceit to win her over. The magic and deceit work to his detriment. The conjuring of spirits in Act 2 results in failure for Leucino. Venus believes that her magic can convince Eliodora to soften her stand toward Love in general and Leucino in particular. For as much as she tries, Venus' magic has no positive results. Eliodora cannot be moved. The visions that appear to Teodora and Terecinda in response to their incantation—death and a crown—are ambiguous enough. The two, partisans of Leucino, interpret the signs as favorable to their patron. Their interpretation of victory becomes, ironically, defeat. Eliodora receives the crown as a reward for her virtue; Leucino's prize is death. If magic works to defeat Leucino, it vindicates Eliodora. The poisoned cake that Hircano mixes turns into flowers in her hands. Diana intervenes to defend her devotee. Her appearance as a dea ex machina assures a felicitous denouement for Eliodora. Cueva the moralist cannot permit vice to win. The tables turn on the would-be defamer. By the use of dramatic irony he arranges for the triumph of virtue in the exoneration of Eliodora and the punishment of Leucino. NOTE 1. Cueva, Comedias (1917), 6-7. Pues la Comeida es imitacion de la vida humana, espejo de las costumbres, retrato de la verdad en que se nos representan las cosas que devemos huir o las que nos conviene elegir, con claros y evidentes exemplos poderoso cualquiera dellos confundir las cavilosas intenciones . . .
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Editions For the various editions prepared in the nineteenth and in the twentieth centuries prior to 1973, consult the bibliography in Glenn.
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Cueva, Juan de la. Bernardo del Carpio. Ed. Anthony Watson. Exeter, England: University Printing Unit, 1974. . Comedia de la libertad de Espaha por Bernardo del Carpio. Teatro renacentista. Ed. M. A. Perez Priego. Barcelona: Plaza and Janes, 1986. . Comedia del saco de Roma. Barcelona: Sebastian de Cormellas, 1603. . Comedias i tragedias. Seville: Andrea Pescioni, 1583. . Comedias y tragedias. Seville: Juan de Leon, 1588. . Comedias y tragedias de Juan de la Cueva. Ed. Francisco A. de Icaza. 2 vols. Madrid: Sociedad de BiblionTos Espanoles, 1917. . El infamador. Los siete infantes de Lara. Ejemplar poetico. Ed. Francisco A. de Icaza. Clasicos Castellanos 60. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1924. . El infamador. Los siete infantes de Lara. Ed. Jose Cebrian. Coleccion Austral 252. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1991.
Critical Studies Barrett, Linton I. "The Supernatural in Juan de la Cueva's Drama." Studies in Philology 36 (1939): 147-68. Bataillon, Marcel. "Simples reflexions sur Juan de la Cueva." Bulletin Hispanique 37 (1935): 329-36. . "Unas reflexiones sobre Juan de la Cueva." Varia leccion de clasicos espanoles. Madrid: Gredos, 1964. 206-13. Battle, John W. "Dramatic Unity in the Plays of Juan de la Cueva." Diss., Duke University, 1970. Burton, David G. "The Historical Dramas of Juan de la Cueva." Critica Hispdnica 12 (1990): 1-2, 5-13. . "Juan de la Cueva's Dramatization of the Legend of Bernardo del Carpio." Diss., University of Kentucky, 1983. . The Legend of Bernardo del Carpio. From Chronicle to Drama. Potomac: Scripta Humanistica, 1988. . "Virtue Triumphant in Cueva's La libertad de Espana por Bernardo del Carpio." Bulletin of the Comediantes 38 (1986): 219-29. Carvalho, Susan de. "The Legend of the Siete infantes de Lara and Its Theatrical Representation by Cueva and Lope." Bulletin of the Comediantes 40 (1988): 85-102. Caso Gonzalez, Jose. ' 'La muerte del rey don Sancho de Juan de la Cueva y sus fuentes tradicionales." Archivum 15 (1965): 126-41. . "Las obras de tema contemporaneo en el teatro de Juan de la Cueva." Archivum 19 (1969): 127^7. Cebrian Garcia, Jose. "Unas reflexiones sobre teoria y praxis dramatica." Estudios sobre Juan de la Cueva. Seville: Secretariado de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Sevilla, 1991. 125-38. Ciavarelli, Maria Elisa. El tema de la fuerza de la sang re. Madrid: Porrua Turanzas, 1980. Crawford, J. P. Wickersham. "The 1603 Edition of Cuevas's Comedia del saco de Roma." Modern Language Notes 44 (1929): 389. . "A Sixteenth-Century Analogue of Measure for Measure." Modern Language Notes 35 (1920): 330-34.
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Criado de Val, Manuel. Lope de Vega y los origenes del teatro espanol. Actas del I Congreso Internacional sobre Lope de Vega. Madrid: EDI-6, 1981. Gillet, Joseph E. "Cueva's Comedia del Infamador and the Don Juan Legend." Modern Language Notes 37 (1922): 206-12. Glenn, Richard F. Juan de la Cueva. New York: Twayne, 1973. Guerrieri Crocetti, Camillo. Juan de la Cueva e le origini del teatro nazionale spagnuolo. Turin: Gambino, 1936. Hamel, Adelbert. Der Cid im spanischen Drama des XVI und XVII Jahrhunderts. Halle: Niemeyer, 1910. . "Juan de la Cueva und die Erstausgabe siener Comedias y Tragedias." Zeitschrift fur Romanische Philologie 43 (1923): 134-53. . "Sobre la primera edicion de las obras dramaticas de Juan de la Cueva." Revista de Filologia Espanola 10 (1923): 182-83. Icaza, Francisco A. de. "Juan de la Cueva." Boletin de la Real Academia Espanola 4 (1917): 469-83, 612-26. Laurer, A. Robert. ' The Use and Abuse of History in the Spanish Theater of the Golden Age: The Regicide of Sancho II as Treated by Juan de la Cueva, Guillen de Castro, and Lope de Vega." Hispanic Review 56 (1988): 17-37. Lihani, John. "La tecnica de recapitulation autentica en el teatro del siglo XVI." Lope de Vega y los origenes del teatro espanol. Comp. Manuel Criado de Val. Madrid: EDI-6, 1981. 303-9. Ly, Nadine. "El lenguaje del horror en el teatro de Juan de la Cueva." Criticon 23 (1983): 65-85. Morby, Edwin S. "The Influence of Senecan Tragedy in the Plays of Juan de la Cueva." Studies in Philology 34 (1937): 383-91. . "Notes on Juan de la Cueva: Versification and Dramatic Theory." Hispanic Review 8 (1940): 213-18. . "The Plays of Juan de la Cueva." Diss., University of California, 1936. Pfandl, Ludwig. "Studien zu Juan de la Cueva." Archiv fur das Studium der neueren Sprachen 159 (1931): 231-53. Reyes Cano, Jose Maria. La poesia lirica de Juan de la Cueva. Seville: Excelentfsima. Disputation Provincial de Sevilla, 1980. Shergold, N. D. "Juan de la Cueva and the Early Theatres of Seville." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 32 (1955): 1-7. . "Juan de la Cueva y los primeros teatros de Sevilla." Archivo Hispalense 75 (1956): 57-64. Sieber, Harry. "Unity of Action in Juan de la Cueva's Los siete infantes de Lara." Modern Language Notes 88 (1973): 215-32. Silveira y Montes de Oca, Jorge A. "El 'romancero' y el teatro nacional espanol: de Juan de la Cueva a Lope de Vega." Lope de Vega y los origenes del teatro espanol. Comp. Manuel Criado de Val. Madrid: EDI-6, 1981. 73-81. Sperandeo, G. "Some Aspects of Juan de la Cueva's Dramatic Art." M.A. thesis, University of North Carolina, 1931. Wardropper, Bruce W. "Juan de la Cueva y el drama historico." Nueva Revista de Filologia Hispdnica 9 (1955): 149-56. Watson, Anthony I. Juan de la Cueva and the Portuguese Succession. London: Tamesis, 1971.
JUAN DEL ENCINA (OR ENZINA) (1468-1529)
Stanislav Zimic
BIOGRAPHY From references in his works, it is surmised that Juan del Encina was born in 1468 in the vicinity of Zamora or Salamanca or in Salamanca. He was one of several sons of Juan de Fermoselle, a shoemaker. For unknown reasons, in 1490 he changed his name to Encina. Was he a converted Jew? This possibility could explain many perplexing ambiguities and ironies in his works. Between 1488 and 1492, Encina studied law and obtained ordenes menores. Latin and rhetoric were his special interests, which he studied, probably, with the great humanist and grammarian Antonio de Nebrija. Another important influence on Encina was his brother Diego, a music professor at the university. From 1484 on, Juan was a choir boy, and in 1490 he became choir chaplain in the Cathedral. In his youth, he acquired a vast, profound, and polished education in classical, medieval, and contemporary cultures, which also determined his future artistic creativity. His amorous and occasionally crassly licentious verses lead one to suspect that during his student years in Salamanca Encina was engaged intensely also with Eros: "mis cinco sentidos andavan sin freno siguiendo la sensualidad" [My five senses pursued sensuality relentlessly]. During these years, Encina was also a page to D. Gutierrez de Toledo, brother of the Duke of Alba, a circumstance that very likely is connected to his eventual employ at the palace of Alba de Tormes. Here, his main duties were to entertain his patrons, by organizing spectacles of all sorts, to which he also contributed with his own poetry, plays, and music. During this time the first edition of his Cancionero was published (1496). In 1498, Encina aspired to the post of cantor mayor in the Cathedral, but the Duke of Alba did not back him. He was very embittered by this failure, which he attributed to his "detractores y maldicientes" in the ducal palace, about whom he complains frequently and almost obsessively in his works. The death of Prince Juan (1497), whose patronage he had hoped to gain, and the apparent indifference of the Catholic sovereigns to all his artistic activities were other great disappointments, which, in effect,
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prompted him to leave Spain: "mas quiero entre ajenos morir" [I prefer to die among strangers]. Did he first go to Portugal ("Estremo")? One can imagine the significance of such a visit for Gil Vicente and the Portuguese theater. At the end of 1499 Encina arrived in Rome. Probably due to excellent recommendations from previous patrons as well as to his polished courtly personality, Encina gained immediate admittance to the papal court. Alexander VI and later his successors, Julius II and Leon X, granted him favors and benefices. His duties and activities were essentially the same as those performed at the Duke of Alba's palace. In Rome, did he meet Torres Naharro, also a protege of Leon X? The silence on this account on the part of both playwrights is most intriguing. Encina immersed himself in all the hedonistic pleasures of pagan Rome, partly because of the corrupting society in which he lived but mostly, no doubt, because of his own sensual propensities, clearly manifested already in his Salamancan days. Some of the papal benefices that he gained in Rome forced him to travel to Spain to obtain them, which entangled him repeatedly in nasty legal disputes with various Spanish ecclesiastical authorities. In 1519, Encina went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to say his first mass and, supposedly, to amend his sinful ways, to renounce his sensualidad. Perhaps his spiritual contrition was sincere, at least momentarily, but his entire account of that trip, Viaje a Jerusalem (1521), creates a strong skepticism in the reader. At one point, revealingly, he states: "a los cincuenta anos cumplidos . . . el vicio ya pierde su fuerza'' [as the fifty years came to an end. . . vice had finally lost its force]. In spite of his strong desire to reside in Rome, where "le placia el v/v/r" [it pleased him to live], in 1521 he suddenly left for Leon to take possession of the cathedral's priorship, which he had obtained from Leon X before his trip to Jerusalem. Pope Adrian VI's very austere court was probably an important reason for Encina's departure. Upon his return to Spain, he was deeply afflicted by the terrible suffering that he saw everywhere, caused by the fratricidal wars of the Comunidades: "hambre, pestilencia, guerra, toda Espana en gran conflicto . . . gente muerta tanta . . . fuego y sangre . . . discordias de mill artes" [hunger, pestilence, war, all of Spain caught in a huge conflict. . . many people dead . . . fire and blood . . . a thousand kinds of discord]. Except for a brief absence in 1525, Encina remained in Leon until his death, probably at the end of 1529. Five years afterward, in accordance with his wish, his remains were taken to the cathedral of Salamanca, where he had sung as a choir boy and where he had wanted, perhaps more than anything else in his life, to be the cantor mayor. Had his wish been fulfilled, the history of Spanish literature, drama, and music of that time would, doubtless, have been quite different. DRAMATURGY: MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES Our knowledge of Encina's works derives from his Cancionero (Princeps edition, 1496; Seville, 1501; Burgos, 1505; Salamanca, 1507, 1509; Zaragoza, 1516) and from some sueltas1 of his dramatic, poetic, and musical compositions.
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About sixty additional musical compositions are included in the Cancionero musical de palacio of Asenjo Barbieri, which are of crucial importance for the study of Encina's musical career. The villancicos2 in Encina's Eglogas were accompanied by dance and music; unfortunately, very few of these musical compositions remain. In addition to the theoretical treatise Arte de poesia castellana, which is considered the most important codification of Spanish fifteenth-century versification, the Cancionero (with additions in each successive edition) contains original religious poetry and paraphrases and translations of hymns, psalms, and prayers, impressive for their theological, biblical erudition but, with few exceptions, rather prosaic and unfelt, perhaps because they were commissioned, occasional pieces. Worthier of attention are a few moral-philosophical poems, somewhat reminiscent of Jorge Manrique's Coplas. The Bucolicas, dedicated to the Catholic monarchs, have attracted considerable critical attention, mostly disapproving, because of their peculiar adoption of Virgil's bucolic poetry. Triunfo de fama, Tragedia trobada a la dolorosa muerte del Principe D. Juan, written in a pompous and cold arte mayor, and the Petrarchan Triunfo de amor, in arte menor,3 are generally considered works that are ostentatiously erudite, pedantic, and disproportionate in both content and form, although in all of them one can find, occasionally, felicitous verses. A considerable number of poems in the Cancionero are based on the conventional concept of courtly love; nevertheless, some of them deserve, for their extraordinary beauty, to be included in any good anthology of Spanish lyric poetry. Some other poems of this group suggest a parodic intent with respect to the conventional rhetoric of this genre. Encina's villancicos are universally admired. Menendez Pelayo calls them ' 'espiritus alados" [fluttering or winged spirits], adding that "en la estructura de los versos cortos, ningun trovador del siglo XV excedio a Encina'' [in the short verses, no poet of the fifteenth century was better than Encina]. With them, as well as with some canciones and romances, Encina demonstrates his genius for harmonizing the spirit of traditional popular poetry with the sophisticated aspirations of courtly literature, thus creating "la poesia mas delicada escrita en Espana en aquella epoca" [the most delicate poetry written in Spain in that epoch] (Menendez Pelayo, "Juan del Enzina," 256, 263, 265, 266, 268). In the last part of the Cancionero of 1496, there are eight plays, which are listed here, with hypothetical dates of composition in parenthesis: 1. Egloga representada en la noche de la Natividad de nuestro Salvador ( . . . ) (1492; 1495). 2. Egloga representada en la mesma noche de Natividad ( . . . ) (1492; 1495). 3. Representacion a la muy bendita passion y muerte de nuestro precioso Redentor ( . . . ) (1493; 1495). 4. Representacion a la santissima Resureccion de Cristo ( . . . ) (1493; 1496). 5. Egloga representada en la noche postrera de Carnal ( . . . ) (1494; 1496).
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6. Egloga representada en la mesma noche de Antruejo o Carnestolendas ( . . . ) (1494; 1496). 7. Egloga representada en reqiiesta de unos amores ( . . . ) (1494; 1495). 8. Egloga representada por las mesmas personas ( . . . ) (1495; 1496).
In the Cancionero of 1507, there are two new plays: 1. Egloga trobada por Juan del Enzina, representada la noche de Navidad ( . . . ) , known also as Eglogas de las grandes lluvias (1498). 2. Representacion por Juan del Enzina ante el muy esclarescido y muy illustre principe don Juan. ( . . . ) , known also as Representacion de amor (1497).
The Cancionero of 1509 includes two new plays as well: 1. Aucto del repelon ( . . . ) (Before 1496, before 1499 or 1500; between 1507 and 1509). 2. Egloga trobada por Juan del Enzina, en la qual se introduzen tres pastores; Fileno, Zambardo y Cardonio ( . . . ) (Before 1497; between 1507 and 1509).
The remaining three plays appeared as undated "sueltas": 1. Egloga nuevamente trobada por Juan del Enzina, adonde se introduze un pastor que con otro se aeonseja ( . . . ) , known also as La egloga de Cristino y Febea (Before 1497; between 1500 and 1509). 2. Egloga nuevamente trobada por Juan del Enzina, en la qual se introduzen dos enamorados Pldcida y Vitoriano ( . . . ) (Probably staged in 1513, in Rome). 3. Egloga interlocutoria ( . . . ) (1496; 1497). (Encina's authorship strongly doubted).
In his theater, Encina utilizes autobiographical, religious, social, and love themes. At times, they are combined in a very complex manner, some even serving as subtle pretexts or disguises for others. Thus, in the first two Christmas plays, the conversations among the shepherds about the birth of Christ constitute, simultaneously, a dialogue between the author and his patrons and others about mundane, personal matters. Because of such concerns expressed by the dialogues, these two Eglogas can be considered the beginning of the Spanish secular theater. Due to the subtle, ironic interplay of the secular with the religious, which affects structure, characterization, style, and diction, these plays are, in some aspects, even more complex than Encina's later "grandes" "Eglogas." In the Egloga de las grandes lluvias, the Christmas theme is likewise exploited for venting a veiled personal reproach to the Duke of Alba, who failed to support the author's aspiration to become the cantador in the Igreja mayor. Representacion a la muy bendita passion . . . and Representacion a la santisima Resurreccion are generally viewed as plays of very scant dramatic value, mainly because the famous sacred episodes are merely "narrated." However, Encina demonstrates, especially in the first Representacion, an extraordinary
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skill in using the word, unaided by external action, as a powerful instrument for dramatic, theatrical effect. Egloga representada en la noche postrera de carnal is read by some as a prologue, or loa, of the following Egloga representada en la mesma noche de Antruejo o Carnestolendas, in which all the characters indulge in carnival rejoicing, as an uninhibited expression of pleasure with the nuevas de paz [news of peace] that reach them, after being afflicted by a threat of war in the preceding egloga. Rather than a satire of sensual excesses, as it is sometimes understood, the Egloga. . . de Antruejo impresses us as a comical representation of carpe diem, which is supported also by the playful description of the battle between "Carnal" and "Cuaresma" [non-Lenten period and Lent]. The two works offer also an interesting early case of a play within a play. CRITICAL RESPONSE Doubts have been expressed frequently with respect to the authorship of the famous Auto de repelon, but not with sufficiently strong arguments to deny it to Encina. The agile comic action and dialogue, the ingenious satirical characterization, and the subtle irony of the situations with which the author represents the pointless, ridiculous scrap between some peasants and students—two groups of "ignorant," "vulgar" people that Encina strongly disliked—remind the reader of Cervantes' Entremeses. As in other Encinian plays, the rustic express themselves in a dialect known as sayagues, which imitated the regional speech of Galicia. Some scholars believe that it was a real dialect, while others think that it was invented as a theatrical language. The important thing is that Encina succeeded in making this language totally identifiable with theatrical characters. It is possible that Representacion de amor was written with the principal intention of offering emotional solidarity to Prince D. Juan, pathologically lovesick for his wife, Margarita of Austria. In all his other "love" plays, Encina poses profound and provoking questions concerning the universally proclaimed human helplessness and irrationality in any encounter with love. Is the loss of reason inevitable in a person in love? Does happiness in love depend entirely on the whims of blind Fortune? Isn't the cause of disappointment in love often to be found in one's improper approach to it? Can one's proclaimed passion always be identified as love? How can genuine love, whose ends are harmony, fulfillment, and happiness, ever be the cause of discord, frustration, pain, and destruction? Such questions already animate the two last plays in the Cancionero of 1496, in which Encina exalts a relationship based on a profound and mutual caring, respect, admiration, and trust and an unconditional willingness to sacrifice all, if necessary, to maintain and cultivate it. All manifestations of true love are personified in the Escudero and Pascuala, who, like D. Juan and Preciosa in Cervantes' La gitanilla, must overcome the formidable obstacle of their different social classes. The transcendental implication of these two works— connected intimately as two acts of the same play—has not been yet truly ap-
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predated, as have, on the other hand, their poetic, musical charm and their agile dramatic structure and technique. The thought that the pursuit of true love is natural, reasonable, desirable, and sublime also inspires Encina's three "grandes" Eglogas. In the Eglogas de los tres pastores, it is dramatized in the relationship of Cardonio and Oriana, harmonious, idyllic, "de fuerte cimiento," because it is based on mutual love, respect, admiration, and the personal virtue and discretion of both lovers. By contrast, Fileno's pursuit of Zefira is motivated by an irrational, obsessive whim and a desire for selfish, narcissistic gratification. He accuses her of haughtiness, ingratitude, dishonesty, hypocrisy, and treachery, although, like Marcela of the Quijote, Zefira never promised love to Fileno. What really torments the latter is the fact that Zefira favors someone else. His vanity is hurt to the point that he commits suicide, a rancorous revenge against her. Both his obsession and his death are seen as grotesquely senseless: "pobre de seso . . . tu mismo causas tus propias fatigas!" [fool. . . you are the cause of your difficulties!]. The famous "muerte post errorem" that Castro applied to some cervantine cases is completely pertinent for this episode, which, like so many other examples in Encina's works, reveals his Neoplatonic concept of love. It is quite likely that Fileno's ridiculous behavior represents also a parody of some literary conventions of courtly love. Very suggestive in this respect is even the final epitaph to his death, recited by the mentally dull Zambardo, worthy representative of the "vulgo," ever the enthusiastic mythifier of the superficially sensational. Metrical scheme: eighty-eight "coplas," consisting of eight verses of twelve syllables ("de arte mayor"); rhyme: acca, abbacdcd, ababcdcd. In the Egloga de Cristino y Febea, Cristino suddenly decides to become a hermit, "para darse a servir a Dios" [in order to serve God], he claims. However, the real reason for this is his determination to avoid the "dolores y amores" [suffering and love] that afflicted him in the past. Because he knows that Cristino's motivation is improper and that his nature is not inclined to the religious profession, Justino, his friend, tries to dissuade him from such a rash decision. In this attempt he extols many worldly pleasures, which do not constitute a hedonistic ideal, as it is sometimes argued but, rather, a rewarding experience of natural, healthy, simple, and honest living. Febea, who comes to tempt Cristino, symbolizes the latter's latent natural inclination to love: "no todos los religiosos / son los que suben al cielo / Tambien serviras entre nos" [not all the "religious" go to heaven. You can be of service also among us]. One can serve God anywhere, if only one lives justly. Natural, honest enjoyment of life dignifies man's function in the universe. Don't people serve God well by genuinely loving each other? Thus, Justino and Febea do not steal a soul from God, but, on the contrary, they save it from the violent transgression that it was about to commit against Him as well as against nature and itself. Finally understanding that his past "dolores" were caused by his own improper approach to love, Cristino leaves the hermitage, now expecting that Febea's love for him "sea ygual" [will be the same as his love for her]. Far from representing
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a disillusioned view of man's inherent hedonistic, animalistic instincts, this Egloga is an exuberant exaltation of the triumph of reason, common sense, healthy nature, and genuine love, to the benefit of both soul and body, completely in harmony with Encina's Renaissance mentality and ideals, so unjustly doubted in the past. Metrical scheme: sixty "coplas de pie quebrado" (ten verses de arte menor)4; rhyme: aabbaccddc, with "villancico" at end ("estribillo" and four "mudanzas"). It is reported that when first staged in Rome, Egloga de Placida y Vitoriano didn't much please the spectators, which is not at all surprising, considering the interminable "vigilia a la enamorada muerta" [wake for the beloved dead], in which Vitoriano vents his sorrow and remorse because of Placida's suicide. However, because of its fundamental dramatic conception and its inspiring thought, it is a work of exceptional beauty and probably Encina's theatrical masterpiece. Placida and Vitoriano love each other "igualmente de verdaderos amores" [with equally true love]. Suddenly, they break their idyllic relationship, "por cierta discordia como suele acontecer entre los enamorados'' [because of a certain disagreement as often occurs between lovers]. One can imagine many possible reasons, but none so grave that they would put in doubt their genuine, profound, mutual love. Apart, they only long to be reconciled, but ' 'una liviandad de enamorada codicia," vanity, particularly Vitoriano's, prevents it. He wants Placida to take the first step and is sure that she will take it. To achieve this even faster, he feigns a flirtation ("forzar me quiero") with Flugencia. In spite of this, Placida continues loving him: "no le puedo querer mal, aunque a mi peor me trate" [I cannot dislike him, although he may treat me even worse], but concludes that he has forsaken her. This thought leads her into utter desperation and suicide. It is not Fortune or any other supernatural power that creates this tragedy, as some readers assert, but only the weaknesses and flaws of the lovers themselves, as Vitoriano openly recognizes: "yo quiero ser muy punido, yo quiero sufrir las penas, pues que fue el delito tal" [I want to be punished, I want to suffer, because the crime was so enormous]. He refers specifically to his "edad altiva y moza" [proud young age and mistress] as the cause of his foolish behavior. Vitoriano wants to end his own life, "no para remedio a sus propios males," but to share Placida's sufferings, with which he demonstrates the profound and unselfish love that he always felt for her, cleansing his heart of its past egoism and thus achieving the greatest "victory" over himself, and its richest reward, spiritual "placidity." Vitoriano's anagnorisis, purification, and victory of the spirit ("ya soy libre y bivo y sano" [I am already free and alive and sound]) explain the logic of this play's dramatic structure. The pagan deities that intervene in the lovers' relationship are poetic symbols of their thoughts and sentiments. In Placida's resurrection they function as a metaphor of the miraculous power of true love. Metrical scheme: 2,578 verses, mainly "coplas de pie quebrado," of eight syllables de arte menor; rhyme: a b a a b c c b with villancico at end (estribillo and three mudanzas).
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Was Encina patriarca del teatro espanol [patriarch of the Spanish theater], as he is often called? Before his Eglogas, there were the extraordinary Auto de los Reyes Magos, the plays by Gomez Manrique, and a number of didlogos, coplas, autos, and eglogas, which, although only rudimentarily, clearly represent a dramatic and theatrical expression. However, Encina's theater surpasses all these antecedents in all aspects and constitutes a decisive inspiration for other contemporary playwrights of genius: Lucas Fernandez, Gil Vicente, and Torres Naharro, among others. Soon after Encina's death and during the following two centuries, his works were forgotten, excepting Viaje a Jerusalem and some jocose-satirical poems, as is attested by Quevedo's allusion to Encina's disparates in his Visita de los chistes and by the association of this word with our author in some dictionaries even in the eighteenth century. Considerations of Encina, usually very general in nature, appear sporadically throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but it is only in our own that important information on his life and significant insight into his art are produced. The Bibliography includes essential studies on both of these facets. Among the studies with a special or significant focus on Encina's dramatic production (seen as a whole or as individual pieces), particularly noteworthy are the books, monographs, articles, introductions, prologos, estudios preliminaries, and so on of the following (alphabetically): Andrews, Battistessa, Cotarelo y Mori, Crawford, Diez-Borque, Gimeno, Jones, Kohler, Lazaro Carreter, Lopez Morales, Menendez, Pelayo, Rambaldo, Stern, Sullivan, Surtz, Van Beysterveldt, Wardropper, Yarbro-Bejarano. In our estudio preliminar of Juan del Encina: Teatro y poesia, the reader will find a more detailed critical evaluation of some of the preceding studies as well as a more elaborate explanation of all the observations on Encina's life and works presented in this entry. NOTES 1. A suelta is a piece of writing published separately, independently, or not in a collection. 2. Vilancicos are popular rustic songs with estribello [verse or verses repeated at the end of each stanza]; also Christmas songs. 3. Arte mayor describes verses of more than eight syllables, divided rhythmically in two hemistiches. Arte menor describes verses of eight or fewer syllables. 4. Copla de pie quebrado describes a couplet, song, or ballad in which a verse generally of five, four, or fewer syllables alternates with longer verses. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Modern Editions Teatro completo de Juan del Encina. Ed. Manuel Canete and Francisco Asenjo Barbieri. Madrid: Rivadeneyra, 1893. Reprinted New York: Greenwood, 1969.
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Representaciones de Juan del Enzina. Ed. Eugen Kohler. Strasbourg: Bibliotheca Romanica, 1913? El Aucto del Repelon. Ed. Alfredo Alvarez de la Villa. Paris: Ollendorff, 1916. Cancionero de Juan del Encina. Ed. princeps, 1496, published in facsimile by Real Academia Espanola. Ed. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori. Madrid: Revista de Archivos, Biblioteca y Museos, 1928. Egloga de Placida y Vitoriano, precedida de otras tres eglogas introductorias. Ed. Ernesto Gimenez Caballero. Zaragoza: Ebro, 1940, 1970. Eglogas de Juan del Enzina. Ed. Humberto Lopez-Morales. Madrid: Escelicer, 1963. Eglogas completas de Juan del Enzina. Ed. Humberto Lopez-Morales. New York: Las Americas, 1968. Juan del Encina: Obras dramdticas, I (Cancionero de 1496). Ed. Rosalie Gimeno. Madrid: Istmo, 1974. Juan del Encina: Teatro, Segunda produccion dramdtica. Ed. Rosalie Gimeno. Madrid: Alhambra, 1977. Juan del Encina: Obras completas. Ed. Ana Maria Rambaldo. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1978, 1983 ("Clasicos castellanos," 218, 219, 220, 227). Juan del Encina: Teatro y poesia. Ed. Stanislav Zimic. Madrid: Taurus, 1986.
Critical Studies Alborg, Juan Luis. Historia de la literatura espanola. Vol. 1. Madrid: Gredos, 1970, 484-508. Alvarez de la Villa, Alfredo. El aucto del repelon de Juan del Encina. Paris: Ollendorff, 1916, 7-250, 275-320. Andrews, James Richard. Juan del Encina: Prometheus in Search of Prestige. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959. Asenjo Barbieri, Francisco. "Preliminares," Cancionero musical espanol de los siglos XV y XVI. Buenos Aires: Schapire, 1945, 30-36. Battistessa, Angel Jose. Poetas y prosistas espanoles. Buenos Aires: Institucion Cultural Espanola, 1943, 173-232. Canete, Manuel. "Proemio," Teatro completo de Juan del Encina. Madrid: Rivadeneyra, 1893, v-xlix. Cirot, Georges. "A propos d'Encina: coup d'oeil sur notre vieux drame religieux." Bulletin Hispanique 43 (1941), 123-51. Cotarelo y Mori, Emilio. "Juan del Encina y los origenes del teatro espanol." Estudios de historia literaria de Espana. Madrid: Revista Espanola, 1901, 103-81. . "Prologo." Cancionero de Juan del Encina (1496). Madrid: Tip. de la "Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos," 1928, 3-32. Crawford, J. P. Wickersham. The Spanish Pastoral Drama. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1915, 22-50. . "Encina's Egloga de Fileno, Zambardo y Cardonio and Antonio Tebaldeo's Second Eglogue." Hispanic Review 2 (1934), 327-33. Cronan, Urban. "Egloga interlocutoria." Revue Hispanique (1916), 475-88. Diez Borque, Jose Maria. "Teatro del siglo XVI." Historia de la literatura espanola del siglo XVI. Madrid: Taurus, 1980, 321-89. Gimenez-Caballero, Ernesto. "Introduccion." Egloga de Placida y Vitoriano. Zaragoza: Ebro, 1970, 6-23.
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Gimeno, Rosalie. "Estudio preliminar." Obras dramdticas de Juan del Encina, I (Cancionero de 1496). Madrid: Istmo, 1975, 7-67. . "Estudio preliminar." Juan del Encina: Teatro, Segunda produccion dramdtica. Madrid: Alhambra, 1977, 3-103. Hathaway, Robert L. Love in the Early Spanish Theatre. Madrid: Playor, 1975, 47-69. Herrero-Garcia, Miguel. "Genesis de la figura del donaire." Revista de Filologia Espanola 25 (1941), 46-79. Jones, R. O. "Juan del Encina and Posterity." Medieval Hispanic Studies Presented to Rita Hamilton. London: Tamesis, 1975, 99-106. Julia-Martinez, Eduardo. "Literatura dramatica peninsular en el siglo XV." Historia general de las literaturas hispdnicas. Vol. 2. Barcelona: Barna, 1956, 239-315. Kohler, Eugen. "Introduction." Sieben Spanische Dramatische Eklogen. Dresden: Niemeyer, 1911, 7-50, 189-91. Lazaro Carreter, Fernando. Teatro medieval. Madrid: Castalia, 1970. Ley, Charles D. El gracioso en el teatro de la peninsula (siglos XVI-XVII). Madrid: Insula, 1954. Lopez Morales, Humberto. "Prologo." Eglogas completas de Juan del Enzina. New York: Las Americas, 1968, 9-54. Marban, Edilberto. El teatro espanol medieval y del Renacimiento. New York: Las Americas, 1971, 51-73. Menendez Pelayo, Marcelino. "Juan del Enzina." Antologia de poetas liricos castellanos. Vol. 3. Santander: Aldus, 1944, 221-97. Myers, Oliver T. "Juan del Encina and the Auto del repelon." Revue Hispanique 32 (1964), 189-201. Rambaldo, Ana Maria. El Cancionero de Juan del Encina dentro de su dmbito historico y literario. Santa Fe, Argentina: Castellvi, 1972. . "Introducciones." Obras Completas de Juan del Encina. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, "Clasicos castellanos," 1978, 1983, vols. 218, 219, 220, 227, pages vii-xxxiv, vii-xiii, vii-xvii, vii-xxxiv, respectively. Ruiz Ramon, Francisco. Historia del teatro espanol. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1967, 27-49. Salvador Miguel, Nicasio. Teatro medieval. Madrid: La Muralla, 1973, 24-34. Shergold, N. D. A History of the Spanish Stage from Medieval Times until the End of the Seventeenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967. Sherr, Richard. "A Note on the Biography of Juan del Encina." Bulletin of the Comediantes 34 (1982), 159-72. Stern, Charlotte. "Say ago and Say agues in Spanish History and Literature." Hispanic Review 29 (1961), 217-37. . "Juan del Encina's Carnival Eclogues and the Spanish Drama of the Renaissance." Renaissance Drama 8 (1965), 181-95. . "The Early Spanish Drama: From Medieval Ritual to Renaissance Art." Renaissance Drama n.s. 6 (1973), 177-201. . "Yet Another Look at Encina and the Egloga interlocutoria." Bulletin of the Comediantes 32 (1977), 47-61. Sullivan, Henry W. Juan del Encina. Boston: Twayne, 1976. Surtz, Ronald. The Birth of a Theater: Dramatic Convention in the Spanish Theater from Juan del Encina to Lope de Vega. Madrid: Castalia, 1979. . Teatro medieval castellano. Madrid: Taurus, 1983.
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Temprano, Juan Carlos. "Cronologfa de las ocho primeras Eglogas de Juan del Encina." Hispanic Review 43 (1975), 141-51. Valbuena Prat, Angel. Historia del teatro espanol. Barcelona: Noguer, 1956, 28-33. Van Beysterveldt, Anthony. La poesia amatoria del siglo XV y el teatro profano de Juan del Encina. Madrid: Insula, 1972. Wardropper, Bruce W. "Metamorphosis in the Theatre of Juan del Encina." Studies in Philology 59(1962), 41-51. Wiltrout, Ann E. "Quien espera desespera: El suicidio en el teatro de Juan del Encina." Hispania 12 (1981), 1-11. Yarbro-Bejarano, Yvonne. "Juan del Encina's Egloga de las grandes lluvias: The Historical Appropriation of Dramatic Ritual." In Creation and Re-creation: Experiments in Literary Form in Early Modern Spain. Newark, DE: J. de la Cuesta, 1983, 7-27. Zimic, Stanislav. "Estudio preliminar." Juan del Encina: Teatro y poesia. Madrid: Taurus, 1986, 7-83.
ANTONIO MIRA DE AMESCUA (1574-1644)
Manuel Delgado
BIOGRAPHY Antonio Mira de Amescua was born in Guadix, in the province of Granada, most likely in 1574. He was the natural son of Melchor Amescua y Mira and Beatriz de Torres y Heredia. The fact that Mira was an illegitimate son at a time when familiy honor and bloodline were highly regarded and scrutinized by Spanish society explains, in part, the paucity of information concerning the date of his birth and his childhood and youth. At the same time, the practice of the time of establishing a person's purity of blood before receiving approval for church positions led to an Expediente de pruebas de limpieza de sangre (document of proof of purity of blood), written in 1631 in support of Mira's candidacy for the position of archdeacon of the cathedral of Guadix. Thanks to the Expediente, parts of which were published by Torcuato Tarrago (1864) and Fructuoso Sanz (1911), Mira's biographers have been able to provide us with some information regarding his early years and youth. According to one of the witnesses who testified for the Expediente, Mira was a student for five or six years at the Colegio Imperial of Granada, where he studied law and canon (Tarrago, 307). The years Mira spent in Granada must have had a significant impact on his career as a playwright. During those years, theatrical performances had increased in variety and number, not only in the streets and plazas of the city but also in the Cabildo, in the Corral del Carbon, in the Chancilleria, and even in the Alhambra. As a result of popular interest in the theater, the city constructed in 1593 the Coliseo, a magnificent public theater, where plays were staged most of the year, according to Francisco Henriquez de la Jorquera.1 It seems reasonable to assume that during those years Mira might have attended some of these performances and that he was acquainted with works by Lope de Vega and other playwrights. After completing his studies in Granada, Mira was ordained as a priest and returned to Guadix, where he was named mayor of the town in 1600 by the corregidor, Fernando de Pulgar. In 1602 Mira is reported to have been in Gra-
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nada and to have met Lope de Vega in a literary session organized by Don Pedro de Granada Benegas (Carrasco, 9). Impressed by Mira's warm reception, Lope wrote a poem in La hermosura de Angelica (1602), in which he praised his hospitality and wit. The fact that Mira was invited to the literary sessions organized by Granada Benegas shows that he was already known in the artistic circles of Granada and that he might have written several plays that justify his inclusion as a playwright in Agustin de Rojas' Viaje entretenido (1603). While Vern Williamsen (1977, 165) has corroborated this possibility by listing some of Mira's plays written before his departure from Granada, Agustin de la Granja (1991) has investigated a document showing that El rey Alfonso (Las desgracias del don Alfonso el Casto), El milagro del amor, and La bella poeta, three plays by Mira, were sold in Toledo on January 21, 1603. Around 1606 and after his father's death, Mira went to Madrid in search of better fortune for his literary talents, or, as Cotarelo (475) has suggested, a position in civil or ecclesiastical tribunals in which he could use his expertise in both law and ecclesiastical matters. In 1609 Philip III ordered that he be named Chaplain of the Royal Chapel of Granada to replace the deceased doctor Pedro Martinez de Espinosa. Since the corresponding records from the Royal Chapel of Granada between 1608 and 1621 are missing, it has been impossible to confirm whether Mira was in Granada during those years, carrying out his duties as chaplain. Indeed, it is likely that Mira departed for Naples in November 1610, accompanying Don Pedro Fernandez de Castro, Count of Lemos, who had been recently appointed Viceroy of that kingdom. According to some documents discovered by Otis Green (317-18) in the archives of Naples, it is possible that Mira was named bishop of Tropea while he was in Italy. On the other hand, Fructuoso Sanz has quoted a witness, Luis Perez Cardader, who declared in 1631 that Mira "was almost named bishop in Italy and that he was in charge of the bishopric for a long time" (563-64). As James Castafieda has pointed out, Mira's residence in Italy must have had a profound effect on him, given ' 'the large number of Italian settings and historical references which are found in his dramatic production subsequent to 1610" (1977, 16). On July 29, 1619, the Infante Don Fernando, son of Philip III, became cardinal of Toledo, and Mira was named his chaplain. That Mira was among the most successful dramatists of his time is shown by the fact that the greatest of all, Lope de Vega, portrayed himself as "competing in plots with Mesqua and Don Guillen de Castro over which of us handles them best in his comedias" ("compitiendo en enredos con Mesqua y Don Guillen de Castro sobre cual los hace mejores en sus comedias").2 In May 1620 he was appointed by the City Council of Madrid to direct the festivities celebrating the beatification of Saint Isidro, patron of the city (Cotarelo, 489-90). Two years later, when the saint was canonized, Mira contributed some decimas to a poetic competition, winning the first prize (Cotarelo, 491; Carrasco, 6; Gregg, 18). The same year Mira was also a winner in the compe-
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titions held to celebrate the canonization of Saints Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier. As a censor, Mira approved Juan Ruiz de Alarcon's Parte primera de comedias on January 29, 1622; and on October 5, 1624, Lope de Vega's Parte veinte de comedias. On October 17 of the same year, Mira's Adversa fortuna de don Alvaro de Luna was approved by Pedro de Vargas Machuca. Emilio Cotarelo (493-501) and Karl Gregg (19-20) have traced Mira's literary production between 1625 and 1632, the year in which our dramatist left Madrid to return to Guadix. Still unexplained are the reasons for Mira's leaving Madrid in 1632, at a moment when his star and fortune were at their zenith and when the CountDuke of Olivares was in search of men of letters who would support his policies. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori (501) thinks that Mira applied for the post of archdeacon of the cathedral of Guadix because he was near sixty years of age and because he had tired of life at the court. After passing the prueba de linaje y limpieza de sangre, Mira was appointed archdeacon of the cathedral of Guadix, although he did not take possession until June 16, 1632 (Cotarelo, 501; Gregg, 20). Very little is known about his life in Guadix from the time he entered the cabildo until the date of his death, September 8, 1644. There are references to some problems that he caused to many capitulars ("muchos sefiores capitulares") (Rodriguez Marin, 94-95; Gregg, 20), suggesting a strong temperament on his part and reflecting the difficulties he may have had in adjusting to the lifestyle of Guadix. Until very recently scholars have maintained that Mira stopped writing after his return to Guadix in 1632. However, as Jorge E. Taracido (1984) and Agustin de la Granja (1990) have shown, Mira participated in two competitions, held in Granada and Murcia in 1634 and 1635, respectively. These recent discoveries prove that Karl Gregg was on track when he questioned, some years ago, the commonly accepted idea that Mira "could suddenly, and irrevocably, impose a strict censorship upon his pen" (21). Considering the recognition awarded Mira by such contemporaries as Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, and Calderon de la Barca, the relative lack of attention paid to him by more modern critics is rather remarkable. Many of these dramatists, above all, Calderon, demonstrated their admiration by imitating and copying many passages, phrases, characters, and ideas from Mira's theater. It is understandable, then, that George Ann Huck might question Emilio Cotarelo's and Valbuena Prat's reluctance to consider Mira "in the light of his own talent" and their reference "to an outstanding passage as 'digno de Calderon' (worthy of Calderon), 'digno de Lope,' 'digno de Tirso.' " (32). Indeed, the reconstruction of Mira's dramatic canon suggests that it may be equally appropriate to invert the analogy established by Cotarelo and Valbuena Prat and to refer to certain verses and passages from Tirso and Calderon as "worthy" of Mira. This recognition of Mira's contribution to the dramaturgy of the Golden Age serves to establish him as an important "transition playwright" (Herrero Garcia, 18; Huck, 32) between the cycles of Lope and Calderon and suggests that Mira
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composed a significant and valuable body of dramatic works that merit increased critical attention. DRAMATURGY: MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES As James Castaneda (1977, 24) has pointed out, one of the most recurrent themes in Mira's dramatic production is that of the inconstancy of fortune, a motif that is manifest particularly in his comedias de privanza. Featuring the traditional topic of the wheel of fortune, these comedias present the rise and fall of a royal favorite, or privado, in order to demonstrate "the inconstancy of human endeavor and of Fate, relative to the eternal and unchanging nature of Divine Will" (Oriel, 65). One of Mira's earliest treatments of the inconstancy of fortune takes place in La rueda de la fortuna, which, according to a letter from Lope de Vega, was performed in Toledo in 1604.3 The play presents two generals, Filipo and Leoncio, who upon their return to Constantinople are treated in different ways by the Emperor Mauricio. While Filipo's victory in war is rewarded with the privanza, Leoncio is dishonored publicly because of his defeat by the Persians. With time, however, and thanks to his impeccable behavior and constant service to the common good of the kingdom, Leoncio manages to restore his former reputation. El ejemplo mayor de la desdicha (1625) is another example of Mira's fondness for the theme of the inconstancy of fortune. Considered by James Castaneda as one of Mira's greatest plays (75), El ejemplo mayor de la desdicha presents the legendary Captain Belisario returning to Rome from war in Persia. However, in the midst of his triumphs and political ascent, this legendary figure encounters a powerful foe in the Empress Teodora, who tries to kill him on numerous occasions because he does not return her love. In spite of Belisario's innocence, Teodora manages to convince the Emperor Justiniano that the privado has made sexual advances to her. Believing that Belisario has betrayed him, Justiniano orders his eyes to be removed, as a result of which the heroic Captain dies in poverty and abandonment. In No hay dicha ni desdicha hasta la muerte (1628) Mira presents two Castilian friends, Don Diego Porcelos and Don Vela, who go to the court of Leon seeking their fortune. Both Porcelos and Vela agree that the latter will serve Garcia, the king of Leon, while the former will serve Ordono, Garcia's younger brother, who is trying to unseat him. In this way, whoever is in the winning party will be able to help his friend achieve his goal. After defeating Garcia, Ordono marries the daughter of the king of Navarra, Dona Violante, who had come to Leon to marry Garcia before his defeat. Named by Ordono his privado, Porcelos tries to enhance Vela's good fortune with the new monarch but fails after several attempts. More important, Porcelos' fortune turns for the worse when Ordono becomes suspicious of a possible affair between Violante and the privado. Although Porcelos is innocent, Ordono kills him as he sleeps. When
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the queen and her ladies, Leonor and Brianda, prove Porcelos' innocence, the king curses himself and asks the queen to kill him in an act of justice. Violante, however, pardons Ordono and orders Vela to marry Leonor instead of Porcelos. Closely related to this play is the dyptich formed by La prospera fortuna de don Bernardo de Cabrera and La adversa fortuna de don Bernardo de Cabrera, which, according to James Castaneda, "constitutes one of the best dramatic treatments of the theme of the fallen favorite" (58). The first part of the dyptich, La prospera fortuna, takes place in Zaragoza, where Don Lope de Luna and Don Bernardo de Cabrera arrive to seek their fortune at the court of Peter IV. While Bernardo enjoys political triumphs and is courted by Leonor and the Princess Violante, Lope's merits and values go unnoticed. Although the loves and whims of Princess Violante, Leonora, and Dorotea help to create a chaotic situation that tragically will bring harm to Bernardo, the primary responsibility lies with the king himself. It is he who, with grave consequences, abandons the affairs of state and turns to gambling and womanizing in late-night escapades. At the end of La prospera fortuna, the adverse fortune of Don Lope takes a turn for the better when the king and the princess express interest in knowing "a man to whom heaven gave such valour" (hombre a quien el cielo dio / tal valor) (Cotarelo, 673). In the second part of the dyptich, La adversa fortuna, Bernardo's luck comes to an end with his tragic death. While a series of circumstances causes Leonardo to lose the love of the princess and the confidence of the king, Lope becomes the new privado and replaces Bernardo in the princess' heart. Due also to a series of fortuitous circumstances, the king becomes convinced that Bernardo is a traitor and orders his death. The treatment of fortune in the comedias de privanza reaches its peak in the dyptich Prospera fortuna de don Alvaro de Luna y adversa de Ruy Lopez de Avalos (1618-21) and Adversa fortuna de don Alvaro de Luna (1621-24). Considered an "intrinsic whole" by Nellie Sanchez-Arce (1965. 22-26) and Ruth Lee Kennedy (1980, 251), these two plays re-create the rise and fall of the famous privado of King Juan II of Castille, Don Alvaro de Luna, who was hanged in the plaza of Valladolid June 2, 1453, by order of said monarch. These plays have been praised highly by scholars of Golden Age literature. While Margaret Wilson calls Prospera fortuna "undoubtedly one of the best historical dramas of the period" (36), Adversa fortuna has been considered by Raymond MacCurdy as "one of the finest tragedies of the Golden Age, and . . . the best tragedy written in Spain on the theme of the fallen favorite."4 The first part of the dyptich presents the arrival of Alvaro de Luna to the court of Castille and illustrates the political favors he enjoys with the young Juan II. However Juan IPs tutor, Ruy Lopez de Avalos, who was also Condestable (constable) under the deceased king Enrique III, falls into disgrace and is falsely accused of treason to the king. Thanks to his loyal servant Herrera, who has sold his own house to pay the legal fees for his master's defense in court, Lopez de Avalos is declared innocent and is later admitted to the service
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of King Alfonso of Aragon. While the old privado departs free for Aragon and Naples, Alvaro stays in Castille to become a kind of prisoner and a victim of his king's obsessive affection. Married to Dona Elvira Portocarrero at the first play's conclusion, he appears as a widower at the beginning of Adversa fortuna. In this play Alvaro experiences the wonders of political fortune when he receives many favors and rewards from his king. In addition to the numerous possessions and dukedoms granted to him by Juan II, he is appointed Maestre (grand master) of the powerful Order of St. James (Orden de Santiago) and, above all, Condestable of Castille, the highest position after the king. Most important, he is treated by the monarch as his privado, his dearest friend, and, at the same time, his own hechura, or a man he had made. Throughout these two plays Mira portrays the inconsistency of political fortune, no matter how noble and strong are the recipients of its favors. As shown in this dyptich and especially in Adversa fortuna, the downfall of great political figures can be caused by a variety of players: those who have favored, witnessed or envied their rise and, even more strikingly, those who have benefited from it, as in the case of Robles, Vivero, the infante of Aragon, and the future Queen of Castille with regard to Alvaro de Luna. As Raymond MacCurdy (1964, 8290) and James Castaneda (1977, 55-56) have explained, Alvaro's tragic downfall is due to the ingratitude of the hechuras, or beneficiaries of his favor, and to his own inability to realize that they cannot be trusted. With the exception of his second wife, Dona Juana Pimentel, and his loyal page Moralicos, Alvaro is abandoned by everyone in his tragic end, even by the king, who has fashioned him in his own image and has always called him his friend. Showing for the last time his weak personality and his indecisiveness, Juan II changes his mind after having ordered Alvaro's death and goes to the plaza where Alvaro is to die in order to save his life. Upon seeing Alvaro's head already separated from his body, the king repents and warns his "descendants" not to destroy their privados. According to Ruth Lee Kennedy (1980, 254), who has related this play to the death of Rodrigo Calderon in 1621, the royal "descendants" alluded to in the final words of Juan II can only be Philip IV and his wife, Isabel. In this way, Professor Kennedy argues, Juan II's final words represent Mira's supplication of Philip IV and Isabel on behalf of the life of Don Rodrigo Calderon, who was a privado under Philip III. As Raymond MacCurdy (1978, 56) has pointed out with regard to the historians and political essayists of the time, it can be said that Mira is trying to admonish the king's favorites to beware of the risks of privanza and to consider political power and human glory as something perishable and contrary to man's final destiny. Guided by this moral principle, Leoncio refuses to be crowned emperor in La rueda de la fortuna for the sake of the common good, an ideal that is also behind Don Bernardo's decision in Adversa fortuna de don Bernardo de Cabrera to leave court and to retire to a convent. It must be noted that Bernado's
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opinion on political power and the court is one of the most negative among Mira's privados, a fact that, together with his withdrawal to a convent, can help us understand the moral and political implications of the beatus ille theme, as well as Mira's own disillusionment at court in the late 1620s. It must also be noted that many of Mira's comedias de privanza contain a clear and strong message for kings, constantly reminding them to be committed to matters of government and justice and to avoid gambling, womanizing, or sloth, the most notorious defects of Philip III and Philip IV. This moral and political tone corresponds to our dramatist's own statement in his approval of Lope de Vega's Parte XX that "the purpose of drama is to teach moral and political virtues." The same didactic purpose is also present in El palacio confuso (1618-21) and in La desgraciada Raquel (1625), where the kings must learn how to control their instincts in order to govern properly. Although El palacio confuso has received little attention on the part of scholars, it merits a detailed study, because many of his ideas and situations may have helped Calderon to elaborate La vida es sueno. Like other Spanish dramatists of the Golden Age, Mira wrote several biblical plays. Valbuena Prat has cited El arpa de David (1616) and El rico avariento (1618?) as the best plays in this category, and James Castaneda has noticed in four of the five works "Mira's penchant for dramatizing the inconstancy and reversals of fortune, especially as they pertain to a royal favorite" (1977, 109). Considered as "unusually lyric" work by C. E. Anibal (1925, 2), El arpa de David dramatizes the relationship between King Saul and David, following Samuel, I and II. In his introduction to the play, Anibal has also compared David's fall from Saul's favor with the fortunes of the numerous privados portrayed by Mira in his theater. Like other works by Mira, El rico avariento has received very little attention from scholars. Based on the parable of the avaricious rich man and the poor Lazarus (Luke: 19-31), Mira has dramatized, once again, the theme, so dear to him, of the inconstancy of fortune, as well as his ideas on human love, wealth, and beauty. In establishing the contrast between earthly and perishable goods and the "celestial and eternal beauty" ("celestial y eterna hermosura"), Mira has not only succeeded in imitating the poetry of Jorge Manrique and Fray Luis de Leon but also achieved lyric moments that make him one of the best poets among Spanish dramatists. Nabal's speech in the first scene, for example, deserves special mention because, as Vern Williamsen has shown (1970, 33), it is an important antecedent of Segismundo's monologue in La vida es sueno. The many aspects of human love are consistently present in Mira's theater. Titles like Amor, ingenio y mujer or Cuatro milagros de amor (1629-31) are only one indication of how important love will be in Mira's theater, both as a dramatic device and as a theme or philosophy. As can be seen in La fenix de Salamanca, Dona Mencia's love for Garceran leads her to travel from Salamanca to Madrid and disguise herself as a man. As George Ann Huck has shown in her introduction to La Tercera de si misma (1626), love is also the force that
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gives Lucrecia courage and wit to try to conquer the Duke of Mantua and to disguise herself in masculine attire. In this way, both La fenix de Salamanca and La Tercera de si misma dramatize the theme of the masculine woman ("la mujer varonil"), an aspect that has received considerable attention in Spanish Golden Age studies.5 Far from being an isolated event of these two plays, the case of a woman dressed as a man occurs in nine of Mira's plays (Huck 1981, 39). As George Ann Huck has indicated, this technique helps Mira to establish "a special type of author-actress-audience relationship" (39). A strong attraction between a man and a woman or unrestrained sexual drives not only can ruin the lives and careers of political figures, as in La desgraciada Raquel (before 1603), El conde Alarcos, El ejemplo mayor de la desdicha, La adversa fortuna de don Bernardo de Cabrera, or El arpa de David, but threaten one's personal salvation, as in La mesonera del cielo and El esclavo del demonio. Some of Mira's descriptions of love affairs between men and women are among the most vivid in Spanish Golden Age drama. It must also be pointed out that Mira frequently attaches a moral and didactic purpose to this treatment of love. According to Mira's Neoplatonic and Christian ideas, virtuous, heroic, and saintly men or women have to control their appetites (physical attraction included) in order to prove their personal integrity and their ability to govern well and, most important, to prepare themselves to enjoy celestial and eternal beauty. The conflict between human and divine love, or between a person's instincts and Christian sublimation, is a common topic in Mira's hagiographical plays, especially in the two works often considered the best of these, El esclavo del demonio and La mesonera del cielo. Since El esclavo del demonio is studied in the following section, some explanation is needed here on La mesonera del cielo. Based on the life of St. Abraham, celebrated in the Roman Martyrology on March 16, La mesonera del cielo portrays with great dramatic force the life of the public sinner Maria, who is converted in the end, thanks to the admonitions of her uncle, Abrahan. Like many hagiographical plays, especially El esclavo del demonio, the purpose of this play is to portray God's mercy as infinitely superior to all sins and crimes committed by a sinner. This implies both that a person's salvation or damnation is not predetermined and that an individual's destiny depends on his or her collaboration with divine grace. As Jose M. Bella has indicated (28-31), this religious message brings La mesonera del cielo very close to the theme of El condenado por desconfado, a proximity that is reinforced by other similarities between the two plays. A survey of Mira's works and themes must also take into account his autos (one-act religious plays), which have been classified by James Castaneda (1977, 139) as autos de Nacimiento (Christmas plays), autos marianos (plays about the Virgin Mary), and autos sacramentales (Eucharistic plays). Following the tradition of medieval and sixteenth-century peninsular theater, Mira wrote Auto del nacimiento de nuestro Senor, Los pastores de Belen, and Auto famoso del Na-
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cimiento de Christo nuestro bien, y sol a medianoche, all three related to the liturgy and the folklore of Christmas. Among Mira's best-known autos sacramentales are La fe de Hungria (ca. 1626), El monte de la piedad, and La jura del principe. Taking into consideration that they combine contemporary historical events with the glorification of the Eucharist, it is more appropriate to call them circumstantial autos or, in Barbara Kurtz's words, "kerigma autos."6 While La fe de Hungria was probably written to celebrate the betrothal of the Infanta Maria and the King of Hungary (Maloney, 19) La jura del principe and El monte de piedad were based, respectively, on the precarious economic situation of Spain under Philip IV and on the oath of allegiance taken by Castilla and Leon to the young Prince Baltasar Carlos. Traditionally included among Mira's autos sacaramentales, Pedro Telonario is, strictly speaking, a morality play whose main objective is to show God's love and mercy for men who have sinned against Him. Like El esclavo del demonio and La mesonera del cielo and especially like El condenado por desconfiado, Pedro Telonario communicates to its audience that an act of love, no matter how small or insignificant, can cover all of a man's sins and bring him divine forgiveness and salvation. CRITICAL RESPONSE Although not necessarily Mira's best play, El esclavo del demonio (before 1605) is the most famous work by the Granadian dramatist. It belongs to the subgenre known as the comedies of saints and bandits (comedias de santos y bandoleros), which enjoyed great popularity in the seventeenth century. Based on the Portuguese legend about Frei Gil de Samtarem, who sold his soul to the Devil in order to learn the secrets of necromancy, the plot of El esclavo del demonio is as follows. Finding himself near death, the elderly Marcelo plans for the future of his daughters Lisarda and Leonor, arranging the former's marriage to Don Sancho de Portugal and the entrance of the latter into a convent. In an attempt to block her father's plans, Lisarda invites Don Diego de Meneses to pay her a visit in her room at night. When he is about to scale the ladder to her room, Fray Gil appears and convinces Diego to abandon his venture. Once Don Diego disappears, Fray Gil gives in to the temptation to take sexual advantage of Lisarda. Lisarda does not discover until later that the man with whom she has had the encounter is not Don Diego, but Fray Gil. Desperate at this realization and manipulated by Gil, she escapes with him to the mountains and carries out a series of crimes. Gil, in hopes of possessing Leonor as well as her sister, sells his soul to the Devil. Not to be outdone, Lisarda also renounces God, but not the Virgin Mary, whose protection she wants to enjoy. Meanwhile, Lisarda's and Leonor's suitors have gone to Marcelo's village to look for them. At about the same time the Prince of Portugal, also called Sancho, arrives. The prince hopes that the friar, who was renowned for his saintliness, may effect
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the cure of his sick father. Having failed in her attempt to kill Don Diego for what she considers his betrayal, Lisarda experiences a moral conversion, repents of her evil actions, and undertakes a life of extreme penitence and sanctity. Gil, for his part, has an experience similar to that of Lisarda, since upon failing in his plan to possess Leonor, he decides to break his pact with the Devil. When the latter refuses to give him the signed pact, Gil invokes his guardian angel, who comes to his aid and helps him recover his freedom. After several harrowing experiences the Prince Don Sancho decides to marry Leonor, an idea readily accepted by all parties. Gil appears then to declare publicly Don Diego's innocence and his own guilt, for which he is prepared to do penance in a convent. He also brings the news of Lisarda's death. The discovery of Lisarda's lifeless body at the foot of a cross and the admiration of all at these wondrous events bring to an end what Mira calls a ' 'true story'' [historia verdadera] (Castaneda, 1980: 3295). Described as "a complex, extraordinarily compelling, and emotionally disturbing play" by Jose M. Ruano de la Haza (263), El esclavo del demonio has received little attention from critics. Some of these critics have considered the lack of unity of action El esclavo''s principal flaw.7 E. M. Wilson and Duncan Moir, however, have pointed out that "incoherence of action, in an intelligent seventeenth-century dramatist's work (and Mira was certainly highly intelligent), may be deliberate, in order to provoke speculation on the playwright's motive in creating it; and incoherence in action may also be an invitation to seek underlying coherence of theme." 8 Along the same line and following Alexander Parker's idea that "the relation of one plot to the other must be looked for in relation of each to the theme," 9 Judith Rauchwarger (1976) and Roger Moore (1979a) have argued in favor of the thematic unity of the play. By paying close attention to Leonor's character and actions, Rauchwarger and, above all, Moore, have shown the special importance of Leonor's role in achieving the play's thematic unity: the need to yield to a superior power—be it terrestrial or spiritual—to avoid self-destruction or eternal damnation. Therefore, if one of the fundamental aspects of El esclavo del demonio is the portrayal of Lisarda's and Gil's temptation, fall, and salvation, another is the example of Leonor, who, by obeying and loving her father, manages to temper his wrath against Lisarda and foster the reconciliation of father and daughter. When Marcelo curses Lisarda, for example, Leonor makes him realize that by doing so he is distorting his daughter's action as with a magnifying glass: Temper, temper your anger for with those curses your eyes will be able to regard the actions diverted among their vain whims.10 Far from being a frivolous and hypocritical girl, as Valbuena Prat has contended (65), Leonor represents the model that Lisarda begins to imitate when
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she decides to become obedient to her father in order to be saved: " I become lost by not obeying, and I must regain myself obedient" [perdime no obedeciendo, / y he de ganarme obediente] (2192-93). This can be seen in the scenes that take place in the mountain, when Marcelo and Leonor are assaulted by Gil and Lisarda. After witnessing how Marcelo and Leonor love and support each other, as well as Marcelo's concern for his absent daughter, Lisarda asks her father to forgive her and to speak to her in "tender and sweet reasons" [blandas y dulces razones] (1375). Although it has been traditionally overlooked by critics, this episode is the turning point in Lisarda's life, as it will lead her ultimately to repentance and salvation. Leonor's role in El esclavo del demonio can be better understood if compared with that of Enrico in El condenado por desconfado, a play that has been attributed by some critics to Mira. Although Enrico commits all sorts of crimes, he has always kept alive the love for his father, Anareto, a quality that will help him to see God as a father and therefore lead him to repentance. Ironically, Enrico's attitude toward his father goes unnoticed by Paulo, the protagonist of the play. Contrary to Paulo, who is unable to love or to feel that he can be loved, Lisarda asks her father to love her tenderly after she witnesses the affection between him and her sister Leonor: Marcelo: What do you want? Lisarda: For you to forgive me for your injuries; for you to tell me tender and sweet reasons and as a father to bless me." Jose M. Ruano de la Haza has already explained the difficulties that the characters of El esclavo del demonio encounter in understanding and forming a relationship with God. Whenever Gil uses logic and reason, Ruano argues, ' 'he invariably chooses the wrong path or reaches the wrong conclusion" (261). After posing the question of how one can find the path of righteousness and salvation in El esclavo del demonio, Ruano concludes that "this path is best found by following one's instincts rather than one's reason" (262). Although I agree with Ruano's observations on the difficulties encountered by Gil and Lisarda in their relationship with God, I consider the path envisioned by him in terms of Neoplatonic or Christian love. This kind of love implies, on one hand, renunciation of one's basest instincts and, on the other, love or charity for one's neighbor. As we can see, El esclavo del demonio dramatizes the first step of this love in the scene where Gil realizes that his "experience" of having sexual relations with Leonor has been only a macabre illusion, since he has actually been with death. The second and more important step of this love, Christian charity, comes after the spirit experiences the disillusionment of physical love and feels the need, as does Lisarda, to give her jewelry to the anguished Lisida in an act of love.
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Far from being an isolated event of El esclavo del demonio, this portrayal of love is relatively common in Mira's religious and political plays. While renunciation of physical love or human beauty can be a sign of self-control and moral greatness in a political figure, in El esclavo del demonio, as in other religious plays, it represents the sinner's answer to mysterious calls that have been identified by C. E. Anibal as "voices from heaven" (voces del cielo). In his introduction to El arpa de David, Anibal has defined "voces del cielo" as "a mysterious warning" for a character that has done wrong (57). "Upon hearing a voice of which no physical explanation is evident"—Anibal explains—"characters are prompted by a consciousness of their guilt to amend their conduct" (57-58). Although Anibal's idea of "voices from heaven" is applied only to spoken words, religious figures such as Mary or the Guardian Angel can accomplish the same function, as they subtly reach the conscience of the bandit to effect a change in his or her conduct. Within this category of voices or messengers from heaven, one must consider the example of love and obedience to the father given by Leonor to Lisarda. Described by Marcelo as a "heaven that orders things with equality" ("cielo que ordenas / las cosas con igualdad") (171-72), Leonor is a constant reminder for her father and her sister of the mutual love that they should profess for each other. By working together in the interior of the bandit or sinner, the human example of Leonor and the spiritual protection of Mary and the Guardian Angel collaborate to silence definitively the voices of hell or instinct pronounced by Domingo under Lisarda's window. As a religious work, El esclavo del demonio dramatizes in admirable fashion the questions of grace and free will, the causes and circumstances of moral failing or sin, and the problem of salvation, issues that, as is known, were broadly treated by the different theological schools of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. If we combine this with the analysis of human motivations and passions, the beauty of the poetry, and the subtlety of the concepts, we can catalog this work as among the best religious plays of the Spanish Golden Age. Considered a Spanish contributor to the Faust legend by Valbuena Prat (42), El esclavo del demonio left a profound mark on later religious theater, particularly on La devocion de la cruz and El mdgico prodigioso by Calderon. After a careful examination of the play's structure, content, and style and after comparing these aspects of the work with those of La mesonera del cielo and Pedro Telonario, the reader comes to the conclusion that Mira draws from the same ideas and theatrical situations in his hagiographical plays as he does, for example, in his comedias de privanza. This fact leads us to pose once again the still-unresolved question of who is the real author of El condenado por desconfiado, one of the finest religious plays of Spanish classical theater. Taking into account the similarities shared by these hagiographical plays and El condenado por desconfiado, it seems likely that the Granadian playwright is one of the most serious contenders.
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NOTES 1. Anales de Granada, ed. Antonio Marin Ocete, vol. 2 (Granada: Publicaciones de la Facultad de Letras, 1934), 79. 2. See the letter addressed by Lope to the count of Lemos on May 6, 1620: Agustin G. de Amezua, Epistolario de Lope de Vega Carpio, vol 4 (Madrid: Aldus, 1943), 5 3 54. The translation of this passage is by Castaneda (1977, 17). 3. Epistolario de Lope de Vega Carpio, vol. 3, 1941, 4-5. Henceforth, the dates I cite for Mira's works come from Vern G Williamsen (1977). 4. In Francisco de Rojas Zorrila and the Tragedy (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1958), 18. 5. For a broad perspective on the social and moral connotations of the mujer vestida de hombre topic in Spanish drama of the Golden Age and in Mira's theater, see Melveena McKendrick, Woman and Society in the Spanish Drama of the Golden Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974). More recently, Amy Williamsen (1991) has studied the motif of la mujer varonil in Mira's La fenix de Salamanca. 6. The Play of Allegory in the Autos Sacramentales of Pedro Calderon de la Barca (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1991), 120-63. 7. See, among others, J. H. Parker, Breve historia del teatro espanol (Mexico: Ediciones de Andrea, 1957), 58; J. L. Alborg, Historia de la literatura espanola, vol. 2 (Madrid: Gredos, 1967), 377. 8. The Golden Age: Drama: 1492-1700 (London: Ernest Benn, 1971), 83. 9. Alexander A. Parker, The Approach to the Spanish Drama of the Golden Age," Tulane Drama Review 4 (1959), 44. 10. Mira, El esclava del demonio (before 1605), 151-55. Tiempla, tiempla tus enojos, que con esas maldiciones podran mirarlas tus ojos divertidas las acciones entre sus vano antojos 11. El escalvo del demonio,
1324-27.
Marecelo: jQue quieres? Lisarda: Que me perdones tu injurias; que me digas blandas y dulces razones, y, cual padre, me bendigas.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Editions La adversa fortuna de don Alvaro de Luna. Ed. Luigi de Filippo. Firenze: Felice Le Monnier, 1960; Ed. Nellie E. Sanchez-Arce. Mexico City: Editorial Jus, 1960. La adversa fortuna de don Bernardo de Cabrera. Ed. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori. In Obras
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completas de Lope de Vega. Vol. 3. Madrid: Tipografia de la Revista de Archivos, 1917. 61-69. El animal prof eta. Ed. Bonnie Wilds. Barcelona: Borras Ediciones, 1979. El arpa de David. Ed. C. E. Anibal. 1925. Lancaster: Lancaster Press, 1925. Collar en buena ocasion o,. Muerto vivo y enterrado. Ed. John V. Falconieri. Kassel: Edition Reichenberger, 1992. La casa del tahur. Ed. Vern G. Williamsen. Estudios de Hispanofila. Madrid: Editorial Castalia, 1973. La desgraciada Raquel, junto con la judia de Toledo de Juan Bautista Diamante. Ed. Alva V. Ebersole. Valencia: Albatros Hispanofila Ediciones, 1991. El ejemplo mayor de la desdicha. Ed. Angel Valbuena Prat. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1928. El esclavo del demonio. Ed. Milton A. Buchanan. Baltimore: J. H. Furst, 1905; Ed. Angel Valbuena Prat. Zaragoza: Clasicos Ebro, 1942; Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1960; Ed. James A. Castaneda. Madrid: Ediciones Catedra, 1980. La fe de Hungria and El monte de la piedad. Ed. James C. Maloney. New Orleans: Tulane University Press, 1975. La fenix de Salamanca. Ed. Angel Valbuena Prat. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1926. Galdn, valiente y discreto. Ed. Edward Nagy. Zaragoza: Clasicos Ebro, 1969; Ed. F. William Forbes. Madrid: Playor, 1973. La mesonera del cielo and Auto sacramental de la jura del Principe, Ed. Jose M. Bella. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1972. Nardo Antonio, Bandolero. Ed. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori. In Obras de Lope de Vega. Vol. 8. Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, 1930. 1-31. No hay dicha ni desdicha hasta la muerte. Ed. Vern G. Williamsen. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1970. Obligar contra su sangre. In Dramdticos contemporaneos a Lope de Vega. Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles. Vol. 45. Madrid: Sucesores de Hernando, 1924. 57-72. El palacio confuso. Ed. Charles Henry Stevens. Under the title Lope de Vega's 'El palacio confuso,'' Together with a Study of the Menaechmi Theme in Spanish Literature. New York: Instituto de las Espanas en los Estados Unidos, 1939. Ed. J. Hernando Cuadrado. Madrid: Francisco Arellano, 1982. Pedro Telonario. Ed. Angel Valbuena Prat. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1960. Polifemo y Circe. In Comedias de don Pedro Calderon de la Barca. Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles. Vol. 14. Madrid: Real Academia Espanola. 413-28. La Prospera fortuna de don Alvaro de Luna y adversa de Ruy Lopez de Avalos. Ed. Nellie E. Sanchez-Arce. Mexico: Editorial Jus, 1965. La Prospera fortuna de don Bernardo de Cabrera. Ed. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori. In Obras de Lope de Vega. Vol. 8. Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, 1917. 637-73. La rueda de la fortuna. In Dramdticos contemporaneos a Lope de Vega. Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles. Vol. 45. Madrid: Sucesores de Hernando, 1924. 1-22. La tercera de si misma. Ed. George Ann Huck. Valencia: Albatros Hispanofila, 1981.
Translations The Devil's Slave. Trans, and ed. Michael D. McGaha. Introd. Jose M. Ruano de la Haza. Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1989.
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Gambler's House. Trans. Vern G. Williamsen. Online. Internet. Send request to:
[email protected]. Critical Studies Anibal, C. E. "Voces del cielo. A Note on Mira de Amescua." Romanic Review 16 (1925): 57-70. . Mira de Amescua: El Arpa de David. Lisardo. His Pseudonym. Introduction and Critical Text. Lancaster, PA: Lancaster Press, 1925. Arellano, Ignacio. "El teatro de Mira de Amescua, de la penumbra a la luz." RILCE 1 (1991): 177-92. Arellano, Ignacio, and Agustin de la Granja. "Bibliograffa esencial de estudios sobre el teatro de Mira de Amescua." RILCE 1 (1991): 383-93. Bella, Jose Maria. Introduction. Mira de Amescua. Teatro. Vol. 3. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1972. 7 ^ 2 . Biedma, Aurora. "El escenario y la escena en El caballero sin nombre." RILCE 1 (1991): 203-15. Carrasco, Rafael. Lope de Vega y Mira de Amescua. Guadix: Imprenta de Flores, 1935. Castaneda, James A. "El esclavo del demonio y Caer para levantar: reflejos de dos ciclos." Studia Hispanica In Honorem Rafael Lapesa. Vol. 2. Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1974. 181-88. . Mira de Amescua. Boston: Twayne, 1977. . Introduction. El esclavo del demonio. Madrid: Catedra, 1980. 13—47. Cotarelo y Mori, Emilio. "Mira de Amescua y su teatro." Boletin de la Real Academia Espanola 17 (1930): 467-505; 18 (1931): 7-90. Flecniakoska, Jean Louis. "La jura del principe, auto sacramental de Mira de Amescua." Bulletin Hispanique 51 (1949): 39-44. Garcia Godoy, Mayte. "La logica de las apariencias: Duelo ficto en La adultera virtuoso." RILCE 7 (1991): 237-48. Giguena Beccaria, Maria Dolores. "De la comedia Hero y Leandro de Mira de Amescua, y algunas observaciones dramaticas de Calderon." Boletin de la Real Academia Espanola 69 (1989): 464-91. Gomez Lopez, Nieves. "La mujer en la obra Examinarse de Rey o Mas vale fingir que amar. RILCE 1 (1991): 281-90. Granja, Agustin de la. "Dos paginas desconocidas para la biograffa de Mira de Amescua." Teatro del Siglo de Oro. Homenaje a Alberto Navarro Gonzalez. Ed. Victor Garcia de la Concha et al. Kassel: Reichenberger, 1990. 259-68. . "Sobre una comedia de Mira de Amescua vendida en 1603." RILCE 1 (1991): 193-202. Granja, Agustin de la, and Juan Antonio Martinez Berbel, eds. Mira de Amescua en candelero. Adas del Congreso Internacional sobre Mira de Amescua y el teatro espanol del siglo XVII (Granada, 27-30 octubre de 1994). Vol. 1. Granada: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Granada, 1996. Green, Otis H. "Mira de Amescua in Italy." Modern Language Notes 45 (1930): 317— 19. Gregg, Karl C. "A Metaphor in Mira de Amescua." Bulletin of the Comediantes 19 (1967): 36-38.
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. "A Brief Biography of Antonio Mira de Amescua." Bulletin of the Comediantes 26 (1974): 14-22. Herrero Garcia, Miguel. "En el tricentenario de Mirademescua." Ecclesia ill (1944): 18. Huck, George Ann. Introduction. A Critical Edition of Mira de Amescua's La tercera de si misma. Valencia: Albatros Hispanofila, 1981. 13-46. . "New Data: Mira de Amescua, Royal Chaplain." Renaissance and Golden Age Essays in Honor of D. W. McPheeters. Ed. Bruno M. Damiani. Potomac, MD: Scripta Humanistica, 1986. 130-33. Kennedy, Ruth Lee. "Tirso's La vida y muerte de Herodes: Its Date, Its Importance, and Its Debt to Mira's Theatre." Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos 76 (1973): 121-48. . "Tirso's La republica al reves: Its Debt to Mira's La rueda de la fortuna, Its Date of Composition, and Its Importance." Reflexion 2 (1973): 39-50. . "The Date, Significance and Organic Unity of Mira's Dyptich on Ruy de Avalos and Don Avaro de Luna." Homenaje a Agapito Rey. Ed. Josep Roca-Pons. Bloomington: Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Indiana University, 1980. 249-74. MacCurdy, Raymond R. "Tragic Hamartia in La prospera y adversa fortuna de don Alvaro de Luna." Hispania 47 (1964): 82-90. . The Tragic Fall: don Alvaro de Luna and Other Favorites in Spanish Golden Age Drama. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures, 1978. Moore, Roger. "Leonor's Role in El esclavo del demonio." Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispdnicas 3 (1979): 257-86. Oriel, Charles. " 'Seeing and Not Seeing': Interpretation and Drift in Mira de Amescua's El ejemplo mayor de la desdicha.'' Writing and Inscription in Golden Age Drama. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1992. 65-90. Rodriguez Marin, Francisco. Pedro de Espinosa. Estudio biogrdfico, bibliogrdfico y critico. Madrid: Tipografia de la Revista de Archivos, 1931. 91-96. Ruano de la Haza, Jose M. Introduction to The Devil's Slave. Ed. Michael D. McGaha. Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1989. 5-43. . "Unparalleled Lives: Hagiographical Drama in Seventeenth-Century England and Spain." Parallel Lives: Spanish and English National Drama 1580-1680. Ed. Louise Fothergill-Payne. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1991. 252-66. Sanchez-Arce, Nellie E. Introduction. Prospera fortuna de don Alvaro de Luna. Mexico: Editorial Jus, 1960. 5-39. Sanz, Fructuoso. "El doctor don Antonio Mira de Amescua. Nuevos datos para su biografia." Boletin de la Real Academia Espanola 1 (1914): 551-72. Taracido, Jorge E. The Poetry of Antonio Mira de Amescua. Diss. University of MissouriColumbia, 1984. . "The Date of Composition of Mira de Amescua's La fenix de Salamanca." Bulletin of the Comediantes 40 (1988): 75-84. Tarrago, Torcuato. "El doctor Mira de Amescua." El museo universal 8 (1864): 11415. Valbuena Prat, Angel. Introduction. Mira de Amescua. Teatro. Vol. 1. Madrid: EspasaCalpe, 1960. 9-86.
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Villanueva, Juan Manuel. "El teatro de Mira de Amescua." RILCE 7 (1991): 363-81. Williamsen, Amy R. "Sexual Inversion: Carnival and la mujer varonil in La fenix de Salamanca and La tercera de si misma.'' The Perception of Women in Spanish Theater of the Golden Age. Ed. Anita K. Stoll and Dawn L. Smith. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1991. 259-71. Williamsen, Vern G. "Some Odd Quintillas and a Question of Autheticity in Tirso's Theatre." Romanische Forschungen 82 (1970): 488-513. . "The Development of a decima in Mira de Amescua's Theater." Bulletin of the Comediantes 22 (1970): 32-36. . "The Versification of Antonio Mira de Amescua's Comedias and of Some Comedias Attributed to Him." Studies in Honor of Ruth Lee Kennedy. Ed. Vern G. Williamsen et al. Chapel Hill: Estudios de Hispanofila, 1977, 151-67. Wilson, Margaret. "La prospera fortuna de don Alvaro de Luna: An Outstanding Work by Mira de Amescua." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 33 (1956): 25-36. Zeitlin, M. A. "£7 condenado por desconfiado y El esclavo del demonio." Modern Languages Forum 30 (1945): 1-5.
JUAN PEREZ DE MONTALBAN (OR MONTALVAN) (1601/2-1638)
Patricia Kenworthy
BIOGRAPHY Dramatist, poet, novelist, Doctor of Theology, priest, Notary of the Inquisition, protege and first (if somewhat fanciful) biographer of Lope de Vega, Juan Perez de Montalban spent his relatively brief life surrounded by books. His father, Alonso Perez, owner of a bookstore on the Calle de Santiago in Madrid and, after 1604, bookseller to the king, was a close friend and frequent editor of Lope de Vega. Montalban studied at the prestigious Universidad de Alcala de Henares, from which he received two degrees: the licenciatura in philosophy and humanities in 1617 and the doctorate in theology in 1625 or 1626 (the period of his ordination as a priest). Encouraged in his literary career by Lope, Montalban began writing plays at age seventeen. His first publications, however, were poems submitted to literary contests: in 1620, to celebrate the beatification of Saint Isidro, Madrid's patron saint, and in 1622, to honor the canonizations of Saint Isidro, Saint Francis Xavier, and Saint Ignatius of Loyola. His first major work was the collection of eight novelas [long short stories in the mode of Cervantes and Lope de Vega], Sucesos y prodigios de amor [The Happenings and Prodigies of Love], 1624. The popularity of these stories about the vicissitudes of love, in which virtue is rewarded, and vice is punished, is attested to by the more than twenty editions printed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The stories, which draw on conventions of the sentimental, Byzantine, and pastoral novels, are sprinkled with sententiae and attacks on culteranismo. The characters, settings, and plot complications are strikingly similar to those of his plays but lack their flashes of humor. The fourth story, La mayor confusion [The Greatest Confusion], ran afoul of the Inquisition censors, who ordered three revisions of the denouement of this tale of double incest: the protagonist unknowingly marries a woman who proves to be both his sister and his daughter. Although a second publication of 1624, Orfeo en lengua caste liana [Orpheus in the Castilian Language], bears the name
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of Montalban, his literary rivals believed it was written by Lope. (The long critical debate over the authorship of Orfeo is discussed by Felipe Pedraza Jimenez in his introduction to the 1991 fascimile edition of the poem.) Although the authorship of this long epic poem (238 octavas in four cantos) is in question, there is no doubt about its purpose: to attack Juan de Jauregui's learned style in his Orfeo (1624) by providing a counterexample in "pure" Castilian. Montalban's religious vocation is reflected in his next publication, Vida y purgatorio de San Patricio (1627) [Life and Purgatory of St. Patrick], a prose recounting of the life of the Irish saint and of the miraculous conversion of Ludovico Enio from sinner to saint after his experience in the "Purgatory" cave. Montalban's literary, philosophical, and theological miscellany Para todos (1632) [For Everybody] provoked Quevedo to repond with a scathing satire, Perinola (Teetotum), in which he alluded to Montalban's Jewish heritage, labeled his Christological allegorization of the Ulysses/Polyphemus/Galatea myth in the Auto del Polifemo as heretical (a charge from which Glaser successfully defends him), and roundly criticized the work's ungainly heterogeneity. Victor Dixon's important article on Para todos explicates its structural logic and provides useful information about the chronology of the four plays, two autos, and four stories included in the "entertainments." Dixon suggests that Montalban's intentions may have been to emulate Tirso's Los cigarrales de Toledo, show off his learning, and rid his shelves of previously written materials. Moll has suggested a different reason for the curious structure of the book: to circumvent the edict prohibiting the publication of plays in Castilla between 1625 and 1634. In 1635 Montalban oversaw the publication of the first collection of twelve of his plays, the Primero tomo, and mourned the death, on August 21, of Lope de Vega. In tribute to his mentor, he gathered the encomiums for the Fama postuma (1636) [Posthumous Fame]. Soon thereafter, Montalban suffered a severe mental illness—although the reports of his sudden attacks, childlike speech, and partial paralysis sound as if he suffered a series of strokes. In any event, he spent the final six months of his life in an asylum and died on June 25, 1638. His father supervised the posthumous publication of the Segundo tomo de las comedias (1638). DRAMATURGY: MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES Montalban's full-length plays, numbering more than fifty, run the generic gamut from lighthearted comedies to honor dramas, from history to fantasy, from secular to religious. The following list of titles is representative rather than complete; detailed plot summaries of all the plays attributed to Montalban may be found in Bacon. A majority of the plays present intrigues of love and honor that end either in marriage (No hay vida como la honra, La mas constante mujer, Cumplir con su obligacion, La doncella de labor, La toquera vizcaina, Como amante y como honrada) or in death (De un castigo dos venganzas, Los amantes de Teruel). Several plays treat historical figures, both Spanish (the two parts of
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El segundo Seneca de Espanol, El sefior don Juan de Austria, the two parts of La puerta macarena, La monja alferez) and foreign (El mariscal de Viron, Los templarios). Montalban's theological training and earnest Catholicism are evidenced in his five sacramental autos written for the annual Corpus Christi celebrations (El Polifemo, Escanderbech, Las santisimas formas de Alcala, El caballero del Febo, El socorro de Cadiz) and several religious dramas (El valiente nazareno, Sanson; El hijo del serafin, San Pedro de Alcantara; La gitana de Menfis, Santa Maria Egipciaca). The saints' plays are notable for their use of elaborate stage machinery and vivid tableaux. Spectacular staging also characterizes Montalban's dramatizations of chivalric (Don Florisel de Niquea, Palmerin de Oliva) and Byzantine (Los hijos de la fortuna, Tedgenes y Clariquea) romances. No one play has attracted sustained, serious scrutiny by modern critics. Several literary histories (most recently, the Oxford History of Spanish Literature) have praised El Segundo Seneca de Espana [The Second Seneca of Spain], the first of three plays about King Philip II (1566-1598). The events in the play, printed in the miscellany Para todos (1632), are taken from a history—Lorenzo Vander Hammen's Don Filipe el Prudente, Segundo deste nombre (1625)—to which Montalban had easy access: it was printed for his father (Dixon, "Para todos," 40). While the play succeeds as a character portrait, it lacks a unifying dramatic conflict. Montalban squanders the opportunity for a sustained exploration of the father-son conflict between the prudent king and his petulant son by delaying the entrance of Prince Charles until Act 2. He opts instead for a series of vignettes that reveal Philip's prudence, stoicism, and industry in handling crises both great (the Protestant rebellion in the Netherlands, the Morisco uprising in Granada, the Turkish threat in the Mediterranean) and small (a decorating problem at the newly constructed Escorial palace). The action clearly conveys a sense of the centralized, paper-laden bureaucracy that characterized Philip's reign: the king is constantly reading and dispatching letters. Philip responds judiciously, compassionately, firmly, and late into the night to the series of petitions. A love story is somewhat awkwardly grafted onto the events of state: the king's half brother, Don Juan de Austria, laments having to abandon his beloved Leonor when duty calls. This amorous subplot is employed to assist in the depiction of the self-centered, envious, immature, impetuous, and insecure Prince Charles: in addition to plotting to kill the Duke of Alba, whose military exploits he envies, Charles attempts to force his affections on Leonor. Philip, who humbly reveres the memory of his late father, the Emperor Charles V, is perturbed and perplexed by his son's behavior but exhibits fatherly forbearance and real concern for the welfare of his wayward son. Perhaps to give the illusion of a conventional conclusion, Montalban ends the plays with a wedding. The final scene presents the arrival, with great pomp and circumstance, of the king's fourth bride, Ann of Austria. While each scene features dramatic tension, the play as a whole seems as stately as its protagonist. This episodic dramatic tech-
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nique is also found in Montalban's other character studies: the second part of El segundo Seneca (which depicts Philip's death) and the hagiographic plays. Montalban's greatest successes, in my opinion, are his cape-and-sword plays. He is adept at manipulating the conventional elements of these plays: the plots move along briskly through the declarations of love and complications resulting from unfounded jealousies, disguises, mistaken identities, duels, nocturnal serenades, unexpected arrivals, and unlikely coincidences until the lovers are properly paired off. Montalban introduces clever verbal play, especially by the graciosos (comic servants), and amusing or rousing bits of stage business. For example, in No hay vida como la honra [There Is No Life Like Honor], Carlos is obliged to introduce his new friend Fernando to Carlos' beloved Leonor, to whom Fernando has been betrothed by mail. The lovers manage to communicate their mutual passion literally behind Fernando's back: as Leonor embraces her official fiance, she also manages to extend her hand to receive Carlos' kiss. A more melodramatic turn in the plot is accompanied by a more spectacular effect: at the end of Act 2, when another romantic rival is mistakenly introduced into Leonor's bedroom, an enraged Carlos, sword in hand, bursts into the room, knocking the door off its hinges onto the stage floor. Given the conventionalities of these plays, the challenge for Golden Age dramatists was to invent novel plot twists. Montalban's ingenuity is evident in the unusual ending to the honor drama De un castigo dos venganzas [One Punishment, Two Revenges]. Violante loves Juan, while Leonor and Lope love each other. Through a twist of fate, Leonor and Juan must marry. Leonor, however, refuses to renounce her passion for Lope and embarks on an adulterous affair with him. When the lovers are caught in flagrante delicto, it is Violante, rather than the dishonored husband, who kills the wife and her lover with a dagger. Montalban's version of Los amantes de Teruel [The Lovers of Teruel], published in the Primero tomo, follows Tirso's lead in shifting the legend of the tragic, star-crossed lovers from the medieval period to the reign of Charles V. CRITICAL RESPONSE Montalban's plays were once immensely popular. In Para todos, Montalban boasts that No hay vida como la honra was so well received that it was performed simultaneously in both Madrid public theaters—a unique honor. His claims of successful stagings are substantiated by official records of performances in the seventeenth century (Shergold and Varey). German Vega GarciaLuengos' research on the publication of Golden Age plays in Seville in the eighteenth century reveals that the "best-sellers" were, in order, Calderon (221 editions), Moreto (100) and Montalban (79 editions of 25 plays and 2 autos). Despite the fact that Montalban seems destined to live in the prodigious shadow of his friend and mentor, at one time his plays were more popular reading than Lope's. Montalban's critical decline begins in the nineteenth century. While Ticknor notes a certain unevenness in the plays, Schack finds them derivative
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and insipid—the result of writing too fast in a vain attempt to keep pace with Lope's astonishing production rate. Schack, who read thirty of the plays, laments that he spent so much time with them when more worthy texts were lying unread. Twentieth-century Hispanists, with the notable exceptions of Dixon, Parker, and Profeti, have largely ignored Montalban. Scholars have tended to focus on questions of authorship, chronology, and Montalban's participation in the literary polemics of the period. The only study that attempts to present a critical overview and to assess his themes, techniques, and place in the evolution of Golden Age theater is Profeti's insightful and judicial Montalban: un commediografo delVetd di Lope. In his artificially constructed plots, increasing use of pageantry and elaborate stage machinery, solemn rhetoric and cerebral stylization, Profeti finds an evolution away from servile imitation of Lope toward the more intellectually stylized, carefully structured dramas of Calderon. Dixon's assessment of Montalban as "an exuberant and ill-disciplined author" is concise and accurate. Feminist critics have begun to focus attention on La monja alferez [The Nun Ensign], a dramatization of the life of Catalina de Erauso, who escaped from a convent at the age of eleven to seek fame and fortune dressed as a man, eventually becoming a legendary soldier in the New World. The play, however, may not be by Montalban. One reason for the lack of critical attention to Montalban may be the general inaccessibility of his texts. There is no modern critical edition of any of his fulllength plays. Carmen Iranzo (for her edition of Los amantes de Teruel) and Federico Carlos Sainz de Robles (for his edition of El segundo Seneca de Espaha) both use eighteenth-century suelta copies rather than the first editions, which were printed during Montalban's life. Fitzmaurice-Kelly's translation of the The Nun Ensign includes the Spanish text of La monja alferez, but this play may be, as Dixon has suggested, by Luis Belmonte Bermudez. The only readily available texts are the six—No hay vida como la honra, La mas constante mujer, La toquera vizcaina, Como padre y como rey, Cumplir con su obligacion, Ser prudente y ser sufrido (which is probably not by Montalban)—included in the two volumes of Comedias escogidas del Dr. Juan Perez de Montalban (1827 and 1831), to which Volume 45 of the Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles (BAE) adds La doncella de labor. Volume 14 of the BAE contains plays written in collaboration (Montalban seems to have specialized in writing second acts): Polifemo y Circe (with Mira de Amescua and Calderon) and El monstruo de la fortuna, la lavandera de Ndpoles, Felipa Catanea (with Calderon and Rojas Zorrilla). The play Montalban cowrote with Lope, Los terceros de San Francisco, can be found in Volume 187. While there may not be a reliable modern edition of any of the plays, thanks to the exhaustive and careful bibliographical investigations of Maria Grazia Profeti (which have been continued by German Vega Garcia-Luengos), we know the exact location (and the library call numbers!) of every edition of every text ever written by, or attributed to, Montalban. While Juan Perez de Montalban
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deserves his reputation as a dramatist of the second rank, his plays can be profitably read as representative and often entertaining sources of information regarding linguistic, thematic, and staging conventions of the Spanish public theater from 1620-1635. BIBLIOGRAPHY First Editions Fama postuma. Madrid, 1636. Orfeo en lengua castellana. Madrid, 1624. Para todos. Madrid, 1632. Primero tomo de las comedias. . . Madrid, 1635. Segundo tomo de las comedias. . . Madrid, 1638. Sucesos y prodigios de amor. Madrid, 1624. Vida y purgatorio de San Patricio. Madrid, 1627. Modern Editions and Collections Los amantes de Teruel. Ed. Carmen Iranzo. Valencia: Albatros-Hispanofila, 1983. Caballero del Febo: Profeti, Maria Grazia. "II manoscritto autografo del Caballero del Febo." Miscellanea di Studi Ispanici. Pisa: Universita di Pisa, 1966-67. 218— 309. Comedias escogidas del Dr. Juan Perez de Montalban. 2 vols. Madrid: Ortega, 1827 and 1831. Dramdticos contemporaneos de Lope de Vega. Ed. Ramon de Mesonero Romanos. Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles, vol. 45. Madrid: Rivadeneyra, 1858. 477-604. Fama postuma: In Comedias escogidas de frey Lope Felix de Vega Carpio. Ed. Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch. Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles, vol. 24. Madrid: Rivedeneyra, 1853. ix-xx. La monja alferez: In The Nun Ensign. Trans. James Fitzmaurice-Kelly. London: Unwin, 1908. 145-288. Orfeo en lengua castellana. Facsimile edition. Intro. Felipe Pedraza Jimenez. Aranjuez: Aralovis, 1991. El segundo Seneca de Espana: In Teatro espanol, vol. 4. Ed. Federico Carlos Sainz de Robles. Madrid: Aguilar, 1943. 509-80. Also rpt. with Luis Velez de Guevara, Reinar despues de morir, and Antonio Mira de Amescua, El esclavo del demonio. Circulo de Amigos de la Historia. Geneva: Ferni, 1974. 201-81. Sucesos y prodigios de amor. Ed. Luigi Giuliani. Barcelona: Montesinos, 1992. Vida y purgatorio de San Patricio. Ed. Maria Grazia Profeti. Pisa: Universita di Pisa, 1972.
Critical Studies Bacon, George W. "The Life and Dramatic Works of Doctor Juan Perez de Montalvan (1602-1638)." Revue Hispanique 26 (1912): 1-474.
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Dixon, Victor. "Juan Perez de Montalban's Para todos." Hispanic Review 32 (1964): 36-59. . "Juan Perez de Montalban's Segundo tomo de las comedias." Hispanic Review 29 (1961):91-109. . "La mayor confusion." Hispanofila 3 (1958): 17-26. . "Montalban's Vida y purgatorio de San Patricio: Its Early Textual History." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 52 (1975): 227-34. Glaser, Edward. "El divino portugues, San Antonio de Padua de Juan Perez de Montalvan." Estudios hispdnicos-portugeses. Madrid: Castalia, 1957. 133-77. . "Quevedo versus Perez de Montalvan: The Auto del Polifemo and the Odyssean Tradition in Golden Age Spain." Hispanic Review 28 (1960): 103-20. Gonzalez de Amezua, Agustin. "Las polemicas literarias sobre el Para todos del Dr. Juan Perez de Montalban." Estudios dedicados a Menendez Pidal. Vol. 2. Madrid: CSIC, 1951. 409^43. Kennedy, Ruth Lee. "The Close Friendship of Gabriel Tellez and Perez de Montalvan: Its Possible Significance for the Segunda Parte of Tirso." Revista Hispdnica Moderna 37 (1972-73): 262-82. MacKenzie, Ann L. "Examen de El monstruo de la fortuna: Comedia compuesta por Calderon (I), Perez de Montalban (II) y Rojas Zorrilla (III)." Hacia Calderon. Tercer Coloquio Anglogermano. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1976. 110-25. Moll, Jaime. "Diez anos sin licencias para imprimir comedias y novelas en los reinos de Castilla: 1625-1634." Boletin de la Real Academia Espanola 54 (1974): 9 3 103. Parker, Jack H. "The Chronology of the Plays of Juan Perez de Montalvan." PMLA 67 (1952): 186-210. . "La gitanilla de Montalvan: Enigma literario del siglo XVII." Adas del Primer Congreso Internacional de Hispanistas. Ed. Frank Pierce and Cyril A. Jones. Oxford: Dolphin, 1964. 409-14. . Juan Perez de Montalvan. Boston: Twayne, 1975. . "Lope de Vega and Juan Perez de Montalvan: Their Literary Relations." Hispanic Studies in Honour of I. Gonzalez Llubera. Ed. Frank Pierce. Oxford: Dolphin, 1959. 225-35. . "La monja alferez de Juan Perez de Montalvan: Comedia americana del siglo XVII." Actas del Tercer Congreso Internacional de Hispanistas. Ed. Carlos H. Magis. Mexico City: El Colegio de Mexico, 1970. 665-71. Perry, Mary Elizabeth. "La monja alferez: Myth, Gender and the Manly Woman in Spanish Renaissance Drama." La CHISPA '87. Ed. Gilbert Paolini. New Orleans: Louisiana Conference on Hispanic Language and Literatures, 1987. 239-49. Profeti, Maria Grazia. ' 'Los empenos de un acaso de Pedro Calderon. Los empenos que se ofrecen de Juan Perez de Montalban."Calderon. Actas del Congreso Internacional sobre Calderon. Vol. 1. Ed. Luciano Garcia Lorenzo. Madrid: CSIC, 1983. 249-54. . Montalban: un commediografo dell'eta di Lope. Pisa: Universita di Pisa, 1970. . Per una bibliografia di J. Perez de Montalban. Verona: Universita degli Studi di Padova, 1976. . Per una bibliografia di J. Perez de Montalban. Addenda et corrigenda. Verona: Universita degli Studi di Padova, 1982.
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Schack, Adolfo Federico, Conde de. Historia de la literatura y del arte dramdtico en Espana. Vol. 3. Trans. Eduardo de Mier. Madrid: M. Tello, 1887. 372-88. Shergold, N. D., and J. E. Varey. "Some Palace Performances of Seventeenth-Century Plays." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 40 (1963): 212-44. Tadeo, Sara A. " 'Mentis, que no soy mujer mientras empufio este acero': Verdad, engano and valor in La monja alferez.'' Looking at the Comedia in the Year of the Quincentennial. Ed. Barbara Mujica and Sharon Voros. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1993. 111-20. Ticknor, George. History of Spanish Literature. Vol. 2. 4th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1881. 367-78. Vega Garcia-Luengos, German. "Lectores y espectadores de la comedia barroca: Los impresos teatrales sevillanos del siglo XVIII." Estado actual de los estudios sobre el Siglo de Oro. Actas del II Congreso Internacional de Hispanistas del Siglo de Oro. Vol. 2. Ed. Manuel Garcia Martin, Ignacio Arellano, Javier Blasco, and Marc Vitse. Salamanca: University of Salamanca, 1993. 1007-16. . Para una bibliografia de J. Perez de Montalban. Nuevas adiciones. Verona: Universita degli Studi di Verona, 1993.
AGUSTIN MORETO Y CABANA (1618-1669) Frank P. Casa BIOGRAPHY In spite of his well-merited fame, surprisingly little is known of Agustin Moreto y Cabana. He was born in Madrid in 1618 of well-to-do Italian parents and died in Toledo in 1669. He studied logic and physics at the University of Alcala de Henares and obtained his degree of licentiate in 1639. The next piece of information we have places him in Toledo (1642), where he received minor orders, which were followed by full orders taken in Madrid. Toward the end of his life (1657-1669), we can trace him in Toledo as the chaplain for the hospice Hospital del Refugio, and, finally, there are references that he was in Seville in 1656. The period of major literary activity seems to have been between 1642 and 1656. This extraordinary silence on his life, except for a spate of anecdotes of doubtful veracity, is the more puzzling when one considers that Moreto during his lifetime was highly praised by his contemporaries to the point that Baltasar Gracian, a worldly intellectual, called him "the Terence of Spain." This remark could be considered the praise of a recherche writer were it not that Moreto is accused by another contemporary, Francisco Bances Candamo, of degrading the purity of the theater by allowing himself to be seduced by the applause of the crowd, indicating therefore the dramatist's popularity with the common spectator. Moreto is usually classified as a member of the school of Calderon, that is, those writers who wrote around the time of Pedro Calderon de la Barca (16001681), the other major grouping being the school of Lope de Vega (1562-1635). This period is generally defined by its exuberance, improvisation, and imagination, spurred, of course, by the man whom Cervantes called ' 'the monster of nature," Lope de Vega. The comedia norm, established by Lope de Vega in his treatise on dramatic art, known as arte nuevo, and followed by all other playwrights, makes use of the three-act structure, the use of verse rather than prose, the employment of multiple verse forms (polimetry) rather than one type, a greater use of dialogue instead of set speeches, and a broader range of subjects
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that could be treated: classical, biblical, historical, chivalresque, religious, contemporary society, and so on. DRAMATURGY: MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES Although his known production includes some sixty plays and many shorter interludes, Moreto is particularly known for two plays, which are included in all lists of the most important plays of the Spanish Golden Age: Disdain against Disdain [El desden con el desden (1654)] and The Foppish Don Diego [El Undo don Diego (1662)]. Moreto's literary production comes toward the end of the Golden Century at a time when the theater suffered severe restrictions in what could be presented. Frequent closing of the theaters due to royal deaths and recurrent pestilences as well as an interdiction on "new" material forced writers to deal with themes that had been treated earlier. Moreto made a virtue of this necessity and wrote a series of plays based on earlier sources, a practice called refundicion. This propensity of the playwright was so well known that it prompted a fellow playwright and sometime collaborator, Jeronimo Cancer y Velasco, gently to satirize him: ' 'Imagine that I am mining / when you complain about me [working]; / for in these old comedias / I have found a great mine." 1 In spite of this friendly chiding, it is commonly agreed that in nearly all cases, Moreto was able to give greater definition to the dramatic structure of the original and, while staying more or less within the broad outlines of the source play, forged a new presentation and a new interpretation of the theme. The advent of Calderon coincides with a period of growing economic and political decadence in Spain, and it is held that the continual government defaults, bankruptcies, and currency depreciations and the military reversals in Catalonia, Portugal, and Flanders gave rise to a new introspection, a loss of energy, (Elliott, 553-99), a disenchantment that is reflected in the somber side of Calderon's dramatic production, for example, Life Is a Dream and The Surgeon of His Honor. The severe intellectuality of Calderon dominates the period, and a reliance on thoughtfulness and logic replaces the exuberance of the earlier period. Moreto partakes of this reflective vision of life while rejecting any incursion into somber considerations of human nature. Indeed, Ruth Lee Kennedy sees him as being totally unable to deal with tragic themes: "That the playwright consciously or unconsciously veered away from a portrayal of the tragic is evidenced by the fact that there is not a single play in his whole secular theater which conforms to the technical requirements of a tragedy—and this, too, when both logic and good stagecraft call for an unhappy ending" (113). Moreto's view of life is characterized by a gentle, satiric tone, a recognition and acceptance of frailties of life and of the peculiarity of human beings. He is particularly known for the fine character delineations that he introduces in his plays. His personages acquire a verisimilitude rare in earlier plays, and his themes deal more with social circumstances and personal feelings rather than with eschatological or transcendental subjects. He also touches upon the problem of good
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government and how it is affected by the merits or defects of the individual ruler. A clear idea can be obtained by focusing on his three best-known plays, each of which can be put into the three different subgenres that constitute his work: (1) a comedy of customs, The Foppish Don Diego; (2) a high comedy dealing with elevated personages, Disdain against Disdain; and (3) a historical-political play, The Valiant Justice-Giver (1656). The Don Diego play, based on an earlier play by the Valencian playwright Guillen de Castro, deals with a young man who comes to Madrid to marry his cousin. He is absurdly taken with his own good looks and elegance, and this obsession leads him to misinterpret all relations, especially those dealing with women. His cousin Ines, who is in love with another man, is horrified that her father would consent to this marriage. As usual in this type of play, the servants come to the rescue. Ines' maid, Beatriz, with the help of her lover, who is none other than Diego's own servant, pretends to be a noblewoman madly in love with Diego. The fop abandons Ines and pursues the elusive countess, who turns out to be, of course, a humble servant. Thus, Diego is discomfited and humiliated, and Ines is free to marry the man she loves. The play relies on two staples of Golden Age drama for its interest, the complications of the plot and the absurd narcissism of Diego, who is impervious to all hints, suggestions, or insults. Especially amusing is the scene in which Diego is being dressed by his servants while he comments on the beauty, elegance, and charm of his body and clothing. In spite of the sometimes welldeserved reputation of Golden Age plays for sloppy dramatic construction, this play stands out for its tight dramatic structure and singularly perceptive analysis of a social type whose obsession places him outside the bounds of the group. Disdain against Disdain (published in Part I of Moreto's comedias, 1654) is similarly concerned with an obsessive personality. This time it concerns an "overeducated" countess whose love of philosophy leads her to disdain all amorous advances. This is Moreto's masterpiece, and it has had singular success in all ages and all countries. It was particularly popular in the eighteenth century, when it enjoyed thirty-three productions in Madrid in only ten years, six in Toledo, seven in Seville, sixteen in Barcelona, and so on. The play's general appeal is made clear by the imitations of Moliere (La principessa d'Elide, 1664), Carlo Gozzi (La Principessa fdosofa, MIT), C. A. West (Donna Diana, 1819), and George Hyde (Love's Victory, 1825). The play deals with the willful Countess of Barcelona, who, because of her interest in philosophy, refuses to accept any offer of love or matrimony and retires with her maidens into the contemplation of important subjects. The siege by various noblemen meets with perpetual disdain. Carlos, a young nobleman, is intrigued by her refusal and decides to join the suit. However, he finds her as obstinate toward him as to the others until his servant, Polilla, suggests that the only way to conquer her is to feign indifference to love. Diana at first welcomes this respite from the pursuit of men but soon becomes offended at
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his indifference and decides to humiliate Carlos by making him fall in love. A struggle ensues between the two as to who shows greater indifference to love. Carlos is on the verge of succumbing several times but is saved at the last moment by the ingenuity of his servant. Little by little, Diana begins to fall under the spell of love until she capitulates to the demands of nature and accepts Carlos in marriage. The role of the educated woman, usually viewed negatively, is a frequently treated topic in Golden Age theater. In this context, it is revealing to compare the traditional treatment offered by the playwrights of the period with the moving personal testimony of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, the Mexican colonial nun and writer, who gives an impassioned defense of her right to the pursuit of knowledge (see her Respuesta a Sor Filotea). The Valiant Justice-Giver is a good representative of a serious dramatic work. It is a reworking of a play of disputed authorship, King Pedro in Madrid. If the other plays dealt with vanity and intellectual arrogance, this drama treats the theme of power. This work, like all plays dealing with King Pedro I of Castile, is difficult to understand because of the historical personage it uses as its protagonist. King Pedro was a brave, but violent and often cruel, individual who fought continually against his enemies, including his brothers. He was eventually killed in a fight with his half brother Henry, who later became King Henry II of Trastamara and started the royal line from which Isabel the Catholic emerged. Pedro made many enemies during his lifetime, and he is treated harshly by his contemporaries, particularly by Pero Lopez de Ayala in his Chronicle of King Don Pedro. However, he comes down in history with a double reputation, indicated by two epithets, "Don Pedro the Cruel" and "Don Pedro the JusticeGiver." When the theater of the Golden Age uses him as a character, he is invariably shown as a valiant and just man, although troubled by both the murders that he had committed and auguries of the future death at the hand of his half brother. In this play, Moreto focuses on the violence that characterized fourteenthcentury Spain and the struggles undertaken by the kings against the nobles in their efforts to centralize their power. This conflict is represented by Tello, a powerful and arrogant nobleman who oppresses his vassals and considers himself as important as the king in his own territories. In a confrontation in which the authority of the king as well as his physical prowess are tested, Pedro manages to subdue the defiant nobleman and impose justice in his lands, thus meriting the epithet implied in the title of the play, The Valiant Justice-Giver. CRITICAL RESPONSE There is considerable accord among critics as to the characteristics of Moreto's dramatic art. The dean of Moreto studies, Ruth Lee Kennedy, underscores his undoubted talent for plays of character: ' 'Moreto has shown consummate art in introducing his characters, in analysing their motives, and in presenting them
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before us as human beings who are consistent in thought and deed. Characterization, action, and idea go hand in hand to form a play of symmetry and beauty" (116). This preference for dealing with carefully delineated personages leads critics to compare him with Juan Ruiz de Alarcon (1581-1639), the undoubted master in the art of social satire and gentle didacticism (Wilson, 191). Wardropper, on the other hand, finds that mastery in character delineation and discipline in his art are the two salient aspects of his art. This penchant for order, discipline, and symmetry at times leads to an excessive display of moderation, which some see as provoking boredom rather than stimulation in the spectator: "Besides, present even in Moreto's best serious secular dramas are some boring characters . . . who behave in such a normal or excessively proper and reasonable manner that in the end we are not totally concerned that their attitudes, conduct, and situation are credible in human terms." 2 But while this tendency might lead to a lessening of dramatic tension, it responded to a programmatic necessity that reflected the realities of the moment (Caldera, 17-18). Caldera develops this thesis further and derives its origin from the works of the Jesuit Baltasar Gracian (1601-1658). According to him, Moreto follows Gracian in his efforts to replace the passion of the first epoch of the theater with dignity, human perfection, and decorum (31). However conflicting these traits may seem, they make Moreto the favorite Golden Age dramatist of the eighteenth century (Castaneda, 142^8). This period finds Moreto's calibrated treatment of theme and personages in consonance with its values, especially its lack of extravagant passions and reliance on common sense. Angel Valbuena Prat underscores the affinity between the rationality present in the theater of Moreto and the Enlightenment and sees him as an individual spiritually akin to Mozart, Mazo, and Watteau (264). The reputation of Moreto as a well-balanced and thoughtful writer, as evidenced by his popularity in a period in which these traits were highly prized, hides an interesting irony. Moreto is appreciated for his commonsensical approach to life and its problems and because of his tolerance of human frailties. With these tools he manages to disarm us and convince us of the rightness of his position. However, if one looks carefully at his work, one discovers that often this position coincides, to a remarkable degree, with a traditional view of life. Moreto seldom assumes a condemnatory air; he is never harsh; he simply convinces us that we should accept life and society as they are, without conflict or rebellion. Moreto's masterpiece, Disdain against Disdain, is a good example of this approach. The play integrates very well its various traditional components, the imperious and willful lady, the lovesick suitor who learns to control his passion in order to conquer her, the wily and resourceful servant. The success of the play may be due not only to this masterful amalgam of elements, together with an ambience of festivity (Castillo), but also to the light treatment of a potentially serious topic, the role of education in the lives of women. The figure of the "overeducated" woman is a source of criticism and merriment for the seven-
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teenth century, both in France and in Spain. The conservative and traditional idea that the role of women in society is restricted to the home resonates through the dramatic works of this period (Casa, 1973). The point is that in being educated, woman forsakes her primary role, that of wife and mother. It is not in vain that the countess of our play is named Diana, after the goddess of chastity, and her maids have names that are related to persons who reject love: Laura, Cintia. There are, therefore, both intellectual arrogance and a challenge to the order of things, both social and natural, implicit in her attitude. What Moreto does is to set up a series of scenes in which Diana is despoiled of her pretensions and comes to accept love as her primary goal. She is conquered not by the devoted service of her suitor but by the assumption on the part of the lover, Carlos, of an equally disdainful attitude toward love. That Diana dedicates her energy to making him fall in love indicates a vengeful and capricious attitude that undermines her intellectual pretensions. Moreto evidently takes a traditional, popular position in this argument, an attitude that can be seen in even greater figures, such as Calderon and Moliere. However, he manages to hide the underlying harshness of the theme by creating a series of delightful comic scenes, dances, garden encounters, and lovers' quarrels and concluding with a harmonious finale under the smiling protection of love.
NOTES 1. Luis Fernandez Guerra, Comedia escogidas, xiii. "Que estoy minando imagina / cuando tii de mi te quejas; / Que en esta comedias viejas / he hallado una brava mina." 2. Mackenzie, 25. "Ademas, incluso en los mejores dramas serio-seglares de Montero nos damos cuenta de la presencia algo aburrida de ciertos personajes . . . que se comportan de manera tan regular o excessivamente decorosa y razonable que terminan por no convencernos del todo de la verosimilitud human de su potura, cunducta y situacion." BIBLIOGRAPHY Editions of Major Plays Comedia escogidas de Don Agustin Moreto y Cabana. Ed. Luis Fernandez-Guerra y Orbe. Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles, vol. 39. Madrid: Rivadeneyra, 1856. Teatro. Ed. Narciso Alonso Cortes. Clasicos Castellanos 32. Madrid: EspasaCalpe, 1937. Includes El Undo don Diego and El desden con el desden. El parecido en la corte. Ed. Juana de Jose de Prades. Madrid: Anaya, 1965. El Undo don Diego. Ed. A. V. Ebersole. Madrid: Taurus, 1968. Together with El Narciso en su opinion, the source play. El poder de la amistad. Ed. Dwain Edward Dedrick. Valencia: Estudios de Hispanofila, 1968. El desden con el desden. Ed. Jack H. Parker. Salamanca: Anaya, 1970. El lego del Carmen, San Franco de Sena. Ed. Florian Smieja. Salamanca: Anaya, 1970. El desden con el desden. Ed. Francisco Rico. Madrid: Castalia, 1971.
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valiente justiciero. Ed. Frank P. Casa. Salamanca: Anaya, 1971. Undo don Diego. Ed. Frank P. Casa and Berislav Primorac. Madrid: Catedra, 1977. Undo don Diego. Ed. Maria Grazia Profeti. Madrid: Taurus, 1988. Undo don Diego. Ed. Victor Garcia Ruiz. Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1993.
Adaptations Crowne, John. Sir Courtly Nice. Ed. Charlotte B. Hughes. The Hague: Mouton, 1966. (No puede ser.) Gozzi, Carlo. La principessa filosofa (El desden con el desden), I due fratelli nemici (Hasta el fin nadie es dichoso), La Malia della voce (Lo que puede la aprehension), Annibale duca d'Atene (El defensor de su agravio) in Opere edite ed inedite. 14 vols. Venezia: Giacomo Zanardi, 1801-3. Hyde, George. Love's Victory. London: Hurst, Robinson, and Constable, 1825. (El desden con el desden.) Moliere. La princesse dElide. Oeuvres Completes. Paris: Seuil, 1962. (El desden con el desden.) St. Serfe, Thomas. Tarugo's Wiles: or, The Coffee-House. London: Printed for Henry Herringman, 1668. (No puede ser.) West. C. A. Donna Diana. Leipzig: Georg J. Goschen, 1819. (El desden con el desden.)
Critical Studies Books Caldera, Ermanno. // teatro di Moreto. Pisa: Libreria Goliardica, 1960. Discusses Moreto's plays in light of the dominant cultural tenets of the period of Gracian. Casa, Frank P. The Dramatic Craftsmanship of Moreto. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966. Deals with Moreto's reworkings of earlier plays. Castaneda, James A. Agustin Moreto. New York: Twayne, 1974. An overall assessment of Moreto's life and works. Elliott, J. H. The Count-Duke of Olivares. New Haven, CT: Yale, 1986. A historical and political overview of the times of Moreto. Exum, Frances. Essays on Comedy and the Gracioso in Plays of Agustin Moreto. York, SC: Spanish Literature, 1986. A collection of essays by diverse writers on the role of the gracioso in Moreto's plays. Kennedy, Ruth Lee. The Dramatic Art of Moreto. Philadelphia: Smith College Studies, 1932. The pioneer work on Moreto, particularly useful for its consideration of authorship problems. Mackenzie, Ann L. Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla y Agustin Moreto: Andlisis. Liverpool: University of Liverpool Press, 1994. A classification of Moreto's dramatic production and a discussion of the major plays within each grouping. Rissel, Hilda. Three Plays by Moreto and Their Adaptation in France. New York: Peter Lang, 1995. Discusses the adaptations made by French dramatists and the reason for his popularity in France. Valbuena Prat, Angel. Literatura dramdtica espanola. Barcelona: Editorial Labor, 1930.
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Wilson, Margaret. The Spanish Drama of the Golden Age. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1969.
Selected Articles Bauer, Roger. "Les Metamorphoses de Diane." In Wort und Text: Festschrift fur Fritz Schalk. Ed. Harri Maier and Hans Sckommodau. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1963, 294-314. Blue, William. "Echoing Desire, Mirroring Disdain: Moreto's El desden con el desden." Bulletin of the Comediantes 38 (1986): 137-46. Casa, Frank P. "Diana's Challenge in El desden con el desden." Romanistisches Jarhbuch 23 (1973): 307-18. Castaneda, James. "La 'brava mina'de Moreto." Homenaje a William L. Fichter. Ed. David Kossoff and Jose Amor y Vazquez. Madrid: Castalia, 1971, 139-49. Castillo, Jorge Luis. "La lengua del gracioso y el mundo del carnaval en El desden con el desden." Bulletin of the Comediantes 46 (1994): 7-20. Cotarelo y Mori, Emilio. "La bibliografia de Moreto." Boletin de la Real Academia Espanola 14 (1927): 449-94. Howe, Elizabeth Teresa. "The Education of Diana in Agustin Moreto's El desden con el desden." Romanische Forschungen 102 (1990): 149-62. Kennedy, Ruth Lee. "Moreto's Span of Dramatic Activity." Hispanic Review 1 (1939): 170-72. Lobato, Maria Luisa. "Cronologia de loas, entremeses y bailes de Agustin Moreto." Criticon, no. 46 (1989): 125-34. Mackenzie, Ann L. "£7 licenciado Vidriera: hacia una comparacion de la novela de Cervantes con la comedia de Moreto." Teatro del Siglo de Oro. Homenaje a Alberto Navarro Gonzalez. Kassel: Edition Reichenberger, 1990, 393-405. Van Beysterveld, Antony. "La inversion del amor cortes en Moreto." Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, no. 283 (1974): 88-114. Wardropper, Bruce W. "Moreto's El desden con el desden: The Comedia Secularized." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 34 (1957): 1-9.
LUIS QUINONES DE BENAVENTE (7-1651)
Diane Iglesias
BIOGRAPHY While modern theater companies have presented faithful and entertaining performances of Spanish Golden Age plays, today's theater audience usually does not enjoy the total theatrical experience that their seventeenth-century counterparts witnessed. At that time, an afternoon at the theater included music, dance, and short dramatic sketches presented before the main play, between the acts, and after the play's final curtain. These dramatic sketches or interludes typically were unrelated to the main play, although they were performed by the same actors. Occasionally, the interludes shared a common theme with the main play. Undoubtedly, the master of this genre in Spain is Luis Quinones de Benavente. Only a few facts are known about the life of Quinones de Benavente. He was born in Toledo, and he may have been related to the actor Luis de Quinones. He moved to Madrid and established his reputation as an excellent writer of interludes by 1620. Scholars have discovered receipts for payment that document various commissions for court and palace entertainments through the 1630s. In 1644, with Quinones de Benavente's approval, Don Manuel Antonio de Vargas published a group of his interludes under the title Jocoseria. The authorship of plays in many seventeenth-century collections has been vigorously disputed throughout the years, but even today, the authorship of the works in this collection is undisputed. Published copies of Quinones de Benavente's interludes usually include the title licenciado before his name. While no official documents have been found that explain how he merited this honor, it may signify that he was considered an educated man. Some critics have suggested that he may have taken holy orders later in life. There is no record of any other profession for Quinones de Benavente, and his death certificate does allude to his priesthood. Quinones de Benavente was not the creator of the interlude, but he did perfect the genre. His predecessors generally used prose, but he replaced prose with verse. This innovation was so successful that it set the standard for all that followed. Most of the interludes vary in length from 125 to 300 lines. They
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usually respect the classical unities of time, place, and action and often are divided into several scenes. The interlude's characters typically represent a lower social class than that of the characters in the main play. This permits the actors to employ a colorful vocabulary that accurately reflects the slang and topical humor of the day. The actors who played the roles of gracioso and tercera in the main play often enjoyed starring roles in the interlude. It was not out of character for these types to engage in slapstick comedy. The audience was amused by both the words and the style in which they were delivered, which was enhanced by the actors' gestures and the inclusion of physical horseplay. Besides slang, actors employed various traditional dialects, some comical in their own right and others made comical by parody. Sacristans, for example, usually spouted outrageous phrases in macaronic Latin when placed in situations where they desired to display their self-importance. The interludes' stage directions describe physical horseplay that often includes actors' getting hit with sacks of flour, left dangling on ladders, or being sewn into shrouds while still alive. Luis Quinones de Benavente's reputation as a writer of interludes was held in such high esteem that the public demanded the performance of his works. Over time, certain actors acquired particular fame for their talent with this genre. An outstanding example is Juan Rana, often called "the king of the interlude," whose facial gestures, voice tone, and timing intensified the comic aspects of the work. While Quinones de Benavente does not hesitate to use parody and verbal pyrotechnics, he does not sink to a vulgar level. Stock comic characters and situations are presented in a tasteful manner, and potentially explosive situations are usually resolved with good humor as the characters come together in a final dance or song. DRAMATURGY: MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES Luis Quinones de Benavente's major themes reflect the issues and conflicts experienced by the lower classes in their everyday life. Many interludes reflect a realistic depiction of urban life and capture the essence of personality types familiar to the audience. As themes such as greed, deception, conflict between the sexes, and pride develop, the comic nature of the interlude strains the limits of realism but offers a satisfying comic resolution. La maya is an excellent example of an interlude that paints a realistic portrait of customs. This piece re-creates the atmosphere of Madrid's May Day celebrations. Against this backdrop, four girls plot together to trick some young men into providing them with refreshments. The men are not entirely gullible, and the characters play a series of practical jokes on each other. The jokes include hilarious puns and reflect familiarity with dishonest tactics commonly used in the marketplace. In Gorigori, Quinones de Benavente appeals to his audience's belief that the upper classes often take advantage of the lower classes. In this interlude, Don Estupendo has invited some ladies to watch the bullfight with him from his
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balcony. Unfortunately, just as the fight begins, he receives news that a visiting Italian of high rank intends to appropriate the balcony for his own use. Don Estupendo devises a trick by which the girls sew him into a shroud and explain to the unwelcome visitors that he has died of the plague. The aristocratic Italian and his servant are a complete parody, physically and linguistically. The ruse is successful, since the foreigners depart in a panic, for fear of contagion. However, the final trick is on Don Estupendo, because the girls are too absorbed in the bullfight to free him from his shroud. Some interludes were written for special occasions, such as Corpus Christi celebrations or court entertainments. Others concentrate on the development of a single character such as the miser in El miserable, the compulsive talker in El negrito hablador, and the gossiper in El murmurador. Many examples of scheming females are found throughout his work. Often these interludes seriously stretch the boundaries of realism and become allegorical pieces. The characters are often inanimate objects. In El talego, for example, a full money bag is personified into a swollen character that greedy neighbors want to submit to a bleeding. It is noteworthy that Quinones de Benavente often gives the term entremes cantado, or "sung interlude," to these allegorical pieces. In them, the importance of music and dance is highlighted, perhaps for the purpose of softening the underlying moral message. Half of the plays collected in Jocoseria carry the term "sung interlude." The term never became popular, but it does demonstrate that Quinones de Benavente, by using the phrase, felt that music and dance served an important function. Music and dance were the vehicles through which the message was conveyed. They were not simply pleasant extras to please the public. CRITICAL RESPONSE Professional competition and rivalry were common among the writers of comedias and entremeses in the seventeenth century. From all accounts, however, Luis Quinones de Benavente was universally acclaimed by all. Besides his reputation as an outstanding writer of interludes, he was considered a talented musician with a pleasing personality. His brilliant wit was highly praised. He brought the interlude, as a genre, to its highest point. Modern critics have, however, largely ignored his work. The most thorough study of the author and his work has been accomplished by Hannah E. Bergman. Besides offering a rigorous study of the works attributed to Luis Quinones de Benavente, she includes a careful consideration of his versification patterns and a biographic catalog of actors cited in his works.
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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Editions Antologia del entremes (desde Lope de Rueda hasta Antonio de Zamora), siglos XVI y XVII. Ed. Felicidad Buendia. Madrid: Aguilar, 1965. [Cotarelo y Mori]. Coleccion de entremeses, loas, bailes, jdcaras y mojigangas desde fines del siglo XVI a mediados del XVII. 2 vols. Ed. E. Cotarelo y Mori. Madrid: Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles, 1911. Madrid en el teatro. Ed. M. Herrero Garcia. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientfficas, 1963. Quinones de Benavente, Luis. Coleccion de piezas dramdticas, entremeses, loas, y jdcaras, ed. Cayetano Rosell. 2 vols. Madrid: Libros de Antano, 1872-74. . Entremeses. Ed. Hannah E. Bergman. Salamanca: Ediciones Anaya, 1968. . Ramillete de entremeses y bailes nuevamente recogido de las antiguos poetas de Espana. Siglo XVII, ed. Hannah E. Bergman. Madrid: Clasicos Castalia, 1970. Vargas, Manuel Antonio de. Ed. Guido Mancini. Joco seria: Burlas veras, o reprehension moral y festiva de los desordenes publicos. Hildesheim: Olms, 1985.
Translations Quinones de Benavente, Luis. The Doctor and the Sick Man. Tr. Willis Knapp Jones. Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson, 1931. . The Drunkard. Tr. W. K. Jones. In Spanish One Act Plays in English, ed. Willis Knapp Jones. Dallas: Tardy, 1934, 102-14.
Critical Studies Asensio, Eugenio. Itinerario del entremes desde Lope de Rueda a Quinones de Benavente. Madrid: Gredos, 1965. Bergman, Hannah E. Luis Quinones de Benavente. New York: Twayne, 1972. . Luis Quinones de Benavente y sus entremeses. Madrid: Castalia, 1965. . "El romancero en Luis Quinones de Benavente." Nueva Revista de Filologia Hispdnica 15 (1961): 229-46. Buezo, Catalina. "Del entremes burlesco a la mojiganga." Didlogos Hispdnicos de Amsterdam 8.2 (1989), 553-68. Estepa, Luis. "Versiones primeras de dos obras de Quinones de Benavente." Revista de Literatura 54.107 (Jan.-June 1992): 335-62. Kennedy, Ruth L. "Quiteria, Comedianta Toledana: Her Importance for the Chronology of Quinones de Benavente and the Other Dramatists." Revista Hispanica Moderna 37 (1972-73): 1-28. La Barrera, C. A. de. Catdlogo biliogrdfico y biogrdfico del teatro antiguo espanol desde sus origenes hasta mediados del siglo XVIII. Madrid: Rivadeneyra, 1860. Lobato, Maria Luisa. "El testamento de Luis Quinones de Benavente." Bulletin of the Comediantes 44.2 (Winter 1992): 253-59. . "Luis Quinones de Benavente." In Kurt Reichenberger and Theo Reichenberger, ed. Siete siglos de autores espanoles. Kassel: Reichenberger, 1991, 163-68.
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. "Tres calas en la metrica del teatro breve espanol del Siglo de Oro: Quinones de Benavente, Calderon y Moreto." In Homenaje a Hans Flasche: Festschrift zum 80, ed. K. H. Korner and G. Zimmermann. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Veglag, 1991, 113-54. Madrofial, Abraham. "En torno a la Jocoseria de Luis Quinones de Benavente." Hommage a Robert Jammes, ed. F. Cerdan. vol. 2. Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 1994, 773-86. . "Vida y versos de Luis Quinones de Benavente." Revista de Filologia Espanola 63.3-4 (1993): 329-56.
FERNANDO DE ROJAS (1476-1541)
Mary Parker
BIOGRAPHY Fernando de Rojas was born in 1476 in Toledo or in Puebla de Montalban, province of Toledo (Puebla de Montalban appears in his testament, which he signed on April 3, 1541).] The exact date of death is unknown; it must have occurred between April 3 and 8, 1541, when the inventory of his possessions took place. He was buried in the church of the Mother of God Monastery in Talavera, where he was a member of the religious fraternity. In 1968 his bones were exhumed and transferred to the pantheon of Spain's famous names. In life, the famous author alleged to have been the son of Garcf Gonzalez Ponce de Rojas, hidalgo [nobleman] from Asturias. His mother was Catalina de Rojas. Fernando obtained the Bachelor of Law degree, owned an important library, was Mayor of Salamanca, married Leonora Alvarez, lived in Talavera de la Reina, and was a parent. In 1525 Rojas, who was of Jewish origin, was not allowed to defend his father-in-law before the Tribunal of the Inquisition in Toledo. Alvaro de Montalban had been charged with crypto-Judaic practices. The commonly alleged reasons for the Tribunal's refusal to have Rojas represent his wife's father are that the descendants of new Christians, as the converts, or conversos, were suspected of insincere acceptance of Catholicism or that the accused and Rojas were related. Although Rojas enjoyed high esteem and had a good reputation, his determination to be his father-in-law's defense attorney in such a case is surprising. Was Rojas out to win the case also for himself and dispel probable doubts about the sincerity of his Catholic beliefs? His now publicized marriage into a Jewish family could threaten his claimed nobility or his life if he became a suspect in the religious respect.2 According to Gilman, the records about the family of Fernando de Rojas tell their story, sometimes with hilarity. For example, one grandson, also named Fernando de Rojas, who was a student at the University of Salamanca, was called Celestina by his classmates, who identified him as the namesake of the
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author of the famous tragicomedy popularly known as Celestina? In 1584 this descendant claimed the title of nobility his grandfather alleged he had inherited from his hidalgo father. At the end of the century another relative began to litigate the same cause. In order to prove or disprove the allegation the authorities reconstructed the genealogical tree and concluded that Fernando de Rojas' father was not Garcf Gonzalez de Rojas, as he had maintained, but Hernando de Rojas, who had been condemned for hidden Jewish practices in 1488. Fernando was twelve years old then and was raised by a relative in Puebla de Montalban.4
DRAMATURGY: MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES The dramatic work known as Celestina derives from the various literary currents. It mixes different cultural traditions, the author's private world, and social reality. La Celestina appears at the end of the Middle Ages; it was written around 1497 by Fernando de Rojas, under the title The Comedy of Calisto and Melibea, later entitled Ea tragedia de Calixto y Melibea and Ea Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea. It is the only work by the author, but its big success was enough to establish Rojas as a renowned writer. The location where the dramatic action is supposed to take place is still being debated. Espinosa Maeso believed it to be Salamanca, based on the allusion to Bishop Diego de Deza, who arrived and joined the University of Salamanca in 1497.5 Alleged findings have equally made Toledo and Talavera de la Reina the probable place Rojas had in mind. The plot may be summarized as follows. One day the young nobleman Calisto, in pursuit of his falcon, enters Melibea's garden and instantly falls in love with her. Madly in love and rejected by Melibea, Calisto confides in his servant Sempronio, who advises him to engage Celestina, the old master in arranging love situations. Helped by Calisto's servant Parmeno and his servant and confidant, Sempronio, Celestina succeeds. Melibea submits to Calisto. It is time for the helpers to collect their recompense. An added reward is a heavy gold chain Calisto has inherited, which they had coveted. The argument that his lady was standpat in her virtue made it easy for Celestina to exploit Calisto's passion. If he wants to enjoy the favors of his impervious maiden, he needs to add the gold chain to the cash sum. Celestina's distribution of the reward does not please the helpers. Each wants a bigger share. They fight and murder Celestina. In turn, they are condemned and beheaded for the crime (vol. 2, Act 13, 110). One night while scaling the wall to meet Melibea, Calisto is distracted and falls to his death. Melibea in desperation jumps from a high tower. Her parents' tearful, mea culpa, high-sounding, rhetorical speeches seal the multiple tragedy. Major Themes La Celestina is about the language of coercion, although this has never been seen before as its central theme. It is also about love and human passion. Beliefs
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in white magic and witchcraft are satellite themes in the plot of an illusion founded on deceit and the power of words, make-believe, and double-talk. In Rojas' artistic universe human conduct, moral principles, and beliefs in the supernatural are made to uphold emerging principles that the new human order nourishes. In Rojas' creation, the prevailing artistic principle is being attacked, and its rule of conduct in love matters appears under siege. Love in art and literature was traditionally portrayed, depicted, and symbolized as ideal or divine love. In the courtly tradition, love stories are about anguished lovers (like Calisto at the beginning) who suffer because of an impossible love. Among the troubadours, love did not expect either satisfaction or recompense. The unattainable lady was an object of pure, ideal love. In classic literature Cupid, Eros, and Lust intervene as love mediators in stories of kings and queens of literature, such as the fruitful legend of Tristan and Ysolt, or the dark, passionate tales of jealousy, adultery, and incest in classic antiquity. Rojas does not present the love of the troubadours, adulterous love, or The Good Love as in the book by the Arcipreste of Hita, but love at the level of the common young single man and woman, the girl next door and the boy who falls for her. Next to the enamored, Rojas portrays agents of cupidity, merchandising uncontrolled passion, dishonest, impure, and forbidden love. The tragedy of his characters is less the tragedy of the human heart, as has been pointed out, than its corruption by error, evil domination of the mind, and deception. The last is also an important theme. In order to cope with the world of experience Rojas adapts the earlier conventions in the idealized behavior of the protagonist of the main plot with whom we move toward the emerging middle-class realism, from idol to transgressor. In the second plot, we have the realism of the underworld, where the characters underline the exemplary nature of the main figures by opposition. To mark the separation and implicit opposition, Rojas had to sharpen the secondary characters, and to make his realistic approach more feasible he recreated living types and situations—servants who call themselves loyal but who infect and weaken their masters' principles and help as go-betweens for gain— that could embody that part of reality, his artistic sense and his dramatic goal. The character opposition (Melibea and Celestina, masters and servants, parents and children, father and daughter, rich and poor), which is maintained until the end, can be found in Celestina's reputation as a witch and in the fear and anxiety she produces in others who fight to keep her away as dangerous and disruptive. Rojas created a naturalistic, imaginative, inventive, and resourceful character whose role is to bridge the two distinct worlds, symbolically as a mediatress of love. Characterization Rojas portrays topological characters as believable individuals. Awesome and debilitating, Celestina emerges from her role as the promise of some possibly humane order overcoming the abstract ideal of the mechanical laws that bound
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creativity. Rojas' Celestina appears as a cross between the simple characters of the commedia delTarte and the church plays. The main figures may seem less real or believable to us, almost six centuries later, perhaps because they are private, mysterious, and removed. They appear abstract, like shadows next to the life energy and vitality of the secondary characters, who, even today, are recognizable types. We see the latter's actions and effect on society, their individuality, and their passions. We also see how Rojas takes all of them to their logical and fatal end. Melibea is well guarded and well protected, her parents think, against any danger or threat against her virtue. Daughters needed to be guarded, as they are always in danger to be wronged by lurkers like Celestina. High, solid walls separate and divide. They also stand, with the tower, as symbols of the ideal virtue that families lived by and that wives and daughters were expected to uphold. Melibea lives inside, as if sequestered, away from what goes on in the outside world. Her idealized behavior stands in opposition to the behavior of other female characters of the subplot, Lucrecia, the house servant, and Elicia and Areusa, both of whom also work for Celestina. Melibea's purity and virtue make her a more desirable prey. Celestina subsists in the margins, but she goes around investigating lives, raping people's minds, corrupting, coercing without any distinction, thinking that with her work she benefits herself and her clients. In her laboratory are the paraphernalia of magic and mystery that critics—Menendez y Pelayo, Rico, Russell, Saenz Alonso, to name a few—associate with witchcraft. Thematically, witchcraft keeps the suspense and makes her selfreliant, but Rojas shows it as her deception or as if she were meant to be ludicrous and laughed at. Dramatically, the laboratory draws attention and interest away from the main plot and thematic center and directs the focus toward her and the other characters. There is general agreement that Melibea actively participates in the action. Not quite. She lives restricted and idealized by her parents, absent from serious life until she is besieged by Celestina. In my view, she is not as independent as she has been thought to be. When she finally agrees to speak with Calisto (Act 46) and surrenders (second half of Act 10), she acts under Celestina's pressure, influence, and mind-controlling tricks. In love, Melibea submits and becomes a slave both to passion and to the old procurer whom the servants call the "evil witch'' and who is the disrupter of the human order. The go-between (alcahueta), is both a literary and a cultural type in several nations. Go-betweens are midwives, healers, experts in the preparation and sale of beauty aids, threads, ointments, amulets, good-luck charms, and religious articles. They pretend devotion and claim that midwifery and selling are the sole sources of income. In fact, both are excuses to gain access into the house of honorable families to seduce young women for men madly in love with unattainable maidens. In creating the character Celestina, Rojas mixed imagination, literary tradition, the author's private world, and social reality. Realism of the underworld and the popular define Celestina and the other secondary characters.
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Probably based on a well-known, original go-between, Celestina is a retired prostitute who possesses the characteristics of the soothsayers and of the proverbial witches who are said to be guided by ambition, bribery, lust, sensuality, drunkenness, and exploitation of those suffering and in need. These qualities, together with all popular Hispanic traits with which Rojas endows her, exhibit dangerous types and reflect contradictions present in the culture. Calisto's male servants Parmeno and Sempronio are depicted as brags, mendacious and free from moral or social concerns, other than their secret, true identity. In a way, their conduct exemplifies the comic type that will become famous in Golden Age comedia, where the graciosos are, generally, male and female servants who misuse their position for personal gain or lascivious ends. Language and Style The naturalistic language that the secondary characters use adds to the realistic characterization. Their speech is full of popular proverbs, catchwords, and expressions. It is the style that Sancho will also abundantly use in Don Quixote. The style is elegant, contrived, and controlled to characterize the situations and the people who lived between the court and the University of Salamanca.7 There is little humor or verbal joggling, which makes the tragicomedy a model of compact dialogue and of sharp, precise, condensed, deliberate style. In Leandro Fernandez de Moratin's opinion one might be able to remove every fault from the Celestina without adding one syllable to the text.8 Often the go-between confirms Moratin's perception. Once is when she tells Sempronio, "Get to the point quickly." Once more, Rojas expresses his preference and idea of style through his mastery of language arts: "Leave out these circumlocutions; cut out the unnecessary rhetoric of poetic fictions; / . . . / move to the action quickly" (Act 1, 64, 65). Despite the praise and Rojas' success, his artistic celebration of Celestina, whose role in society is as a provider of young girls for pay, has alarmed the moralists for several centuries. In some cases, the same feeling of reproach extends to other aspects of Rojas' creation. Its ambiguity of meaning, for example, has been a cause of contention among critics. The degree of ambiguity present in Celestina, which is common in universal works, makes it possible to see that Rojas shows how the course of nature is interrupted and destroyed by the violation of limits. Suffering, distraught behavior, and desperation result from moral slackness and sidetracked conscience. To this reader a moral intent is realized dramatically in the penalties the author dispenses on the characters for the actions that change and determine their fate: Calisto jumps after his flying fancy and begins to slip. Distracted from his purpose he falls in love. In his deep suffering and passion for Melibea, he seeks evil intervention. Illicit means and illicit love turn natural human desire and the long-awaited satisfaction to short-lived happiness. The happy end of comedy opens the tragedy. For the willful act of the lovers and their helpers, Rojas has prepared a tragic end. For her parents, long regrets and suffering, tragedy in the
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form of frustration. Pleberio and Alisa are too late in recognizing that they were blind to the truth and distracted from what was going on inside their own house. In a certain way, the doleful sounds in Pleberio's last speech alternate with the voice of pride in the ideals he has lived by. The magnitude of his hurt is undiminished by the belief that he did his fatherly duty. Then moral desperation overcomes pride, and he admits some degree of failure when he recognizes that the circumstances that led to Melibea's tragic fate resulted from his overconfidence in his young daughter's ability to resist the forces of evil. One way to understand Pleberio's admission is to think of his failure as an error born out of blind, self-deceptive authority. He himself questions his true role as a head of the family. A lack of perception and distraction made him and his family vulnerable. Parental blindness, nature, and the evil force Celestina embodies lead to the course of action that ends in Melibea's suicide. Dramatically, Melibea's sad demise accomplishes two things. It shocks Pleberio into facing transient and ultimate reality and also into understanding his own vainglory, his self-deception, his false pride, and his error in blaming Fortune for the sadness and suffering of his loss. When Melibea goes to the tower, the true symbol of love, power, and authority, she crashes the mistaken, idealized image that Pleberio holds of the world order, of himself, and of her. Pleberio's failure is that he idealizes and treats his daughter as an abstraction. He fails her in her human dimension. The importance of his admission resides in the fact that it reveals that for him she is a repository of his dreams and ideals of human love, virtue, and honor, not as the real, human person she really is. She also fails. In her last father-daughter exchange, Melibea admits, "I am the cause of what happened" [De todo yo fui la causa] (vol. 2, Act 20, 195), but we are forced to see various degrees of transgression, responsibility, guilt, regrets, punishment, and retribution. The Text There are two versions of the text. One (Burgos, 1499) entitled Comedia de Calisto y Melibea, is divided into sixteen acts. The other (Toledo, 1500, and Seville, 1501), under the title Tragi-comedia de Calisto y Melibea, consists of twenty-one acts. One 1502 Seville edition has the title Libro de Calisto y Melibea y. . . de la vieja Celestina. Popularly, the book was better known as Celestina. The publisher in Seville subscribed to the title most people preferred and placed the secondary character next to the names of Calisto and Melibea. From the large number of scholars who tried to confirm or revise the date of the first and other early editions, a few published new, fundamental information in the 1960s. According to Homer Herriott, other 1502 editions (Toledo, Salamanca, and two in Seville) called it tragicomedia.9 All five editions published in 1502 have additions, deletions, and extensions that create structural changes. Five more acts entitled The Centurion's Speech [El tratado de Centurio] are placed after Act 14. The last two acts, 15 and 16, become 20 and 21. The 1526
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Toledo edition added still one more act, Traso's Speech [El tratado de Traso] and Criado del Val and Trotter included it in their 1958 edition with the judgment that it has little literary value.10 Anna Krause and D. W. McPheeters11 study the problems of additions and authority of these texts. There is one volume of each of the two oldest editions known. Their dates of publication were being disputed; therefore, specialists continued to research the oldest printed editions, well into the 1960s. The Burgos, 1499, edition lacks the title page; the Toledo, 1500, 1502, and Seville, 1501, all have sixteen acts. The preliminary pages contain a letter from the author to a friend ["del Autor a un amigo"] saying he found Act 1 and himself wrote the other fifteen acts; eleven acrostic, eight-verse stanzas; plot summary for the entire work and separately for each of the sixteen acts; three other stanzas written by the corrector Alonso de Proaza that constitute an acting lesson to the reader of the lines that hide the author's name and the place and date of publication. A second version under the title of the Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea was published five times in 1502: once in Salamanca, once in Toledo, and three times in Seville. In all five 1502 editions a Prologue follows the eleven original acrostic verse stanzas, increased in number by three, in which "the Author concludes making the end coincide with the purpose for which it was written" ["Concluye el Auctor, aplicando la obra al proposito por que la acabo"]. This version contains five added acts for a total of twenty-one. Other sixteenth-century editions are Seville, 1503; Toledo, 1526 which has yet another addition, the Traso's Speech, later eliminated; and a 1569 Alcala edition, which is the latest sixteenth-century Spanish edition known. The Problem of Authorship Rojas' statement that he found Act 1 was a bibliographical challenge for the literary world. In the acrostic verses Rojas wrote that the "Bachelor F d R found Act 1 and himself wrote the other fifteen acts." The author of the first act and the last five added acts of the 1502 editions remains unknown, and several theories and strong candidates have been proposed. Who authored the first act? The opinion in Rojas' own time simply accepted Rojas' words. Juan de Mena (1411-1476), who wrote The Wheel of Fortune, [La Rueda de la Fortuna], and Rodrigo de Cota (living in 1511), author of Dialogue between Love and an Old Gentleman [Didlogo entre el Amor y un caballero viejo] were considered two strong possibilities. Juan de Valdes, who died the same year Rojas did (1541), wrote in Dialogue about the Language [Didlogo de la lengua], "I am pleased with the ingenius author who began it, and not so much with the one who finished it" ("me contenta el ingenio del autor que la comenzo, y no tanto el del que la acabo"). Valdes' statement, perhaps a tongue-in-cheek remark on the change of direction or on Rojas' evolution as a writer, created and made popular the theory of the two different authors. In later centuries, Leandro Fernandez de Moratin (1760-1828), a writer
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and sharp critic, and Menendez y Pelayo (1856-1912), the highly respected literary historian, wrote to the contrary.12 Their findings were that there is stylistic, technical, and ideological continuity in the text and attributed all sixteen acts to Rojas, proposing the one-author theory. In Pelayo's mind, La Celestina is a daring piece, and the author wished to remain anonymous; he attributed Rojas' story, that he had found Act 1, to a natural scruple. The author simply did not wish to admit that the idea to write such a book was originally his. He adds that La Celestina is more a work of literature, and, as such, it was not in line with Rojas' educational aspirations of the moment; it is a totally inappropriate piece for the law degree he was pursuing, since it could not be recommended as an ethical example.13 Rojas' claim that he found Act 1 has also been seen as a literary device used by many authors in various ways. Cervantes used it in Don Quixote. Menendez Pidal, on the other hand, defended the two-authors theory that Rojas' contemporary Juan de Valdes had created. Pidal himself found differences in style, length, references, and allusions between the first act and the rest.14 Following Pidal's lead, F. Castro Guisasola in Observaciones sobre las fuentes literarias . . . concludes Rojas did not write the first act. He was almost alone on that road then.15 In the 1970s the general belief was that Rojas did not write Act 1. Probably, Rojas wrote Act 1 in his youth, perhaps as an academic exercise, and wrote the rest years later when he was a grown man who, as a practicing lawyer, had more artistic preparation and intellectual maturity. I imagine Rojas could have revised it after his father-in-law's episode with the Holy Tribunal of the Inquisition. It is also possible that Alvaro de Montalban authored Act 1 and was identified, investigated, and brought to trial. Aside from the difficulties related to the authorship of Act 1, Rojas' work presents other important problems in connection with the history of the national theater. One is the problem of generic classification: drama or dramatic novel? The problem of literary genres seems less pressing and more distant at this moment, when the concept of the theater has largely been extended. In the tragicomedy Rojas offers an alternative to the strict distinction between dramatic, narrative poetry and prose and, also between the medieval and the Renaissance styles and structural frame. The long debate concerning the genre of La Celestina was settled, in a large degree, with the reminder that until the sixteenth century the theater was written to be "heard" (read by several friends), not to be "seen." The classification of the work as a novel may have been due to the fact that its most significant imitations and continuations are novels. In drama Lope de Rueda and Juan de Timoneda show signs of influence in their interest and use of prose and "humble and lowly language" [humilde y baja lengua]. The opinion most widely accepted is that La Celestina opens the way for the Spanish theater. The spirit of the dialogue, the situations, and the structure of the plot are dramatic. Lida de Malkiel is with the majority on the issue of La Celestina's genre when she takes the position that, in spite of its length, it is a dramatic work.
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She reminds those who disagree that the fifteenth-century French mysteries were more than 60,000 verses long. (And remember, there are seventeen-act plays being written in our twentieth century.) The frequent change of place was later common in the Golden Age comedias. In Malkiel's opinion, obscenity (prostitution and the crude, humble, and uneducated language) is not a valid argument. Obviously, reflecting the amoral, relativistic attitude of her time, Malkiel argues that obscenity is a relative concept "[if we consider] the dramatic representations that one can witness today in many theaters around the world."16 After the long debate on the issue of genre, scholars and critics centered the debate on its sources and influences by turning their focus on the abundant names of writers, erudite allusions, and quotations Rojas mentioned in La Celestina. Sources of La Celestina In his own words, Rojas creates a Terencian work, "una terenciana obra," but as critics have shown, Rojas also owes to Plautus. Terence's influence is seen in the humorous technique, in his irony and satire of wanton appetite, to Plautus Rojas owes the rhetorical style, elevated language, and use of learned literary allusions. Rojas honors and acknowledges his literary debt to the masters of Latin comedy. It was a common practice among writers to mention the Greek and Latin masters and their works to show knowledge and add prestige to their "work," like the number of footnotes and bibliographical lists in our academic books and articles today. In La Celestina Rojas joins the humanistic closed structure, which is attributed to Petrarch, with the freer, more open episodic structure of the story or romance. Also joined are the medieval styles (elevated and common). All this mixing of styles, times, and structures forms a dissonant union that gives birth to the book Rojas himself renamed The Tragi-comedy of Calisto y Melibea. F. Castro de Guisasola's Observaciones . . . continues P. E. Russell's work, and is followed by countless writers, philologists, critics, and researchers who tend to study the precedents and the literary sources of La Celestina. They are the baggage of a man of culture in Rojas' time. M. R. Lida de Malkiel amply covers many of the significant contributions on the subject. Rojas' sources commonly cited since the sixteenth century are Eastern sources, the Bible, Aristotle, Boethius, Persius, Seneca, Publius, with a stronger resonance and therefore easier to detect influence of Latin works, characters and themes, such as Virgil's Aeneid, Ovid's Metamorphosis, Lucio Apuleius's "dipsas," Andreas Capellanus' Ars Amandi [The Bible of Poets] and the carpe diem [seize the moment] theme; among the Renaissance voices mentioned are Boccaccio in Decameron, and Fiammetta, Petrarch the humanist in Opera Varia (1496), its Invectiva contra medicum with its Index of Sentenciae [Proverbs] was in Rojas' library. One Spanish source and influence usually mentioned is The Chronicle of Alfonso X, "the Wise," where scholars found the description of Queen Ysolt in Tristan from Leonie close to Rojas' depiction of Melibea. Also mentioned are: the Book
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of Good Love by the Archpriest of Hita, as his word "trota-conventos," for an old woman running around the convents, appears in the second act of La Celestina; Phamphilus, Proverbs, and El rimado en palacio by The Chansellor Pero Lopez de Ayala; Didlogo entre el Amor y un caballero viejo by Rodrigo de Cota; La Laberinto de Fortuna by Juan de Mena, the prince of the poets of Castile; El Corvacho, by J. de Talavera, a writer known for his sententious prose, use of popular proverbs and catchwords; the poetic eulogy on the theme of the vanity of worldly glory that Jorge Manrique wrote for his father seems to be echoed in Pleberio's speech; Cdrcel de Amor [Prison of Love] by Diego de San Pedro, and the Egloga de Cristino, Fileno y Cardenio by Juan del Encina (two works where the desperately enamored gallants lose their will and health, suffer, choose death, or die for the merciless lady they love), and other contemporaneous figures of Rojas' work are also cited. The list of names who have studied La Celestina in relation to the copious literary tradition, and with the sources that feed it, is vast. Literary and Dramatic Legacy Calisto and Melibea "fall in love" and fall to death, but Rojas' work did not fall dead on the literary world. It has been said that Guzman de Alfarache by Mateo Aleman and all the picaresque novels borrow various elements from La Celestina and that from Rojas himself they borrow the ability to judge from without with somber reserve, even with intellectual disdain. It could also be a case of mere historical similarity, writing technique, or similar sensibility. Influence of La Celestina in Later Works Rojas' concrete influences in later literature are the many continuations, imitations, allusions, literary debates, criticism, and opinions in praise and condemnation of Celestina. Montemayor's la sabia Felicia in La Diana', Cervantes' Sancho Panza in Don Quixote, and in The Licentiate [Made] of Glass [El Licenciado Vidriera], Lope de Vega in The Dorotea, and Quevedo in The buscon include magic and witchcraft elements that Rojas introduced in La Celestina. Salas Barbadillo continued the story in Celestina's Daughter or the Ingenious Elena [La hija de Celestina o la ingeniosa Elena] (1612), Feliciano de Silva, Sancho Mufion, Hurtado de la Vera, and Juan Rodriguez also have elements of La Celestina in their novels. Celestina's strong influence or coincidence in the theater is enormous. Two early adaptations, by Pedro Manuel de Urrea, and Juan Sedefio, are in verse. Critics have found it in Juan del Encina in the Egloga de Zileno y Zambardo; in Gil Vicente's Go-between Brigida Vaz in The Ship of Hell [La barca del inferno]', in Torres Naharro's Ymenea; in Juan de Timoneda's La tragi-comedia llamada Filomena', and in La segunda Celestina, attributed to Agustin de Salazar, to Mira de Amescua, and to Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. There are traces
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and echoes of La Celestina in Lope de Rueda (prose, types), Juan de la Cueva (interest in national themes and culture), and in Lope de Vega, (magical elements in El caballero de Olmedo and the character of the gracioso in the new comedia). The supernatural dominate the comedias de magia in the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth, Hartzenbusch wrote Los polvos de la madre Celestina giving the type added tricks and a new dimension. In the twentieth century, Felipe Pedrell composed the lyrical drama Celestina (1914), Antonio Gala treated the celestinesque theme in A Ring for a Lady [Anillo para una dama], Alejandro Casona reworked versions of Celestina for modern audiences (1965), Jorge Guillen revisited El huerto de Melibea (1954), Segundo Serrano Poncela published El secreto de Melibea (1959), Alfonso Sastre revived Celestina with clear awareness of the social degradation and emphasis on the marginal expression in Taberna Fantdstica de la gitana Celestina [The Fantastic Tavern of the Gypsy Celestina]; Manuel Criado del Val asks Do You Remember Celestina, the Old Bawd? [Os acorddis de Celestina. . . la vieja alcahueta], and makes the prostitutes take vengeance on Calisto and Melibea for the death of Celestina. It was staged in Hita in 1974. Enrique Llovet turned La inmortal Celestina into a musical (1974) and Jose Martin Recuerda follows the model in Las conversions (begun in 1973, finished in 1980), and presents a Celestina in a series of betrayals that twist an innocent girl into Rojas' malevolent character. In Rojas' text, Parmeno's mother is Celestina's closest lifetime friend and confidant. From her Celestina took the place of authority and all she knows about life, selling the flesh, pandering, and witchcraft. Internationally, Mabbe, Rojas' first English translator, acknowledged Rojas' legacy to universal literature when he stated that it was hardly an exaggeration to say that, "after the creation of Calisto and Melibea, the appearance of Romeo and Juliet was but a question of time." 17 In Spain, the Romantics saw in Calisto and Melibea the prototype of the Golden Age heroes and heroines they admired and revived in their dramas and comedia remakes during the nineteenth century. Another lasting legacy is Rojas' use of the spoken language as a form of artistic expression. Finally, his mixing of styles and literary epochs is a legacy. He may not have invented the technique, but his artful use defined it as a model to be imitated. The mixing of language, styles, and time is now one of the defining characteristics of Spanish art in general and of drama in particular. Spanish critics have always underscored La Celestina's realism first; some have even made it the key to the merit of Rojas' creation: the characters are true to life and function in a world true to the one in which Rojas lived and wrote. As characters, they are representative of lovers, parents, unscrupulous nobles, servants, tricksters, old merchants of the flesh, and cheats. They are shown with their weaknesses, foibles, and pitfalls, with that human quality and life energy on which Cervantes remarked. Notwithstanding the importance of true-to-life realism, Rojas is, above all, an artist—a writer who succeeds in appearing impersonal and emotionally removed and an artist who is seduced by the power of creativity, guided by the passion of existence, curiosity, mystery,
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sense of tragedy, and romance. Accordingly, the 1630 English translator and later foreign specialists praise the realism of La Celestina, but what they stress is the writer's craftsmanship. Among them, Rojas is credited with having given coherence and impulse to literary tendencies that he found scattered. Rojas stood between the end of one age and the beginning of another, where the individual was going to control the universe. Nature meant order, beauty, and perfection, and ideas were the supreme expression of moral principle and human dignity. A man of culture, he listens to the world of ideas and deals with life, nature, and culture. His artistic expression admits his debt to the classics. His dramatic piece is a spool that holds many threads: ideas are in discord with the world of observation and experience, time brings change, nature changes, art changes. His aim is to introduce change in the nature of art. From the literary point of view, Rojas expresses the Renaissance sympathy for the vernacular languages propounded by several contemporaneous writers like Juan de Valdes (died 1541) in Didlogo de la lengua and their attempt to make the vernacular as apt for artistic expression as Greek or Latin. Rojas clearly participates in such an attempt. He mixed medieval models (the convent-trotter created by the Archpriest of Hita), the realism of the epic poems, and the light, satirical style of the Archpriest of Talavera with the classic examples used as argument ad hominem at various levels and in defense of change. Artistically, the two opposing and debated literary styles of a time of deep ideological crisis find an integrating or eclectic possible artistic solution in the tragicomedy. But in tragedy, it cannot be. There are differences, and they remain irreconcilable. But Rojas, the welder of the two styles that sustain the structure, is as convinced as Celestina that his magic acts will succeed and that he will open closed doors to youthful hearts and minds. The performance (the magic) as an artful act of illusion broadens the play by exploring and integrating the magic motifs with the themes of deception and impure love that unleash violence and death. In Calisto's fall Rojas was perhaps declaring death to tragedy, as they knew it. The feeling, shared by many, was that lifeless academic correctness, which was the proper artistic expression of absolute art, would transform classical themes into topical drama, suppress the creative energies of the Spanish people, and culminate with their hour of defeat. Nevertheless, the two forms will remain separate and distinct until Lope crystallizes the many attempts his predecessors had made and finds the mixed-style formula that succeeds. Realism dictated to Rojas the need to write his dialogue in prose, the style closest to what people use in everyday situations. In Rojas' own words, "from life to art / from what seems to existence / from shadow to the real" ["De lo vivo a lo pintado / de la apariencia a la existencia / de la sombra a lo real"] (Act 1, 40). The triumph of Spanish drama in the hands of a poetic genius like Lope sealed the victory of poetry over prose in the comedia. The victory of poetry stopped the advance toward autochthonous prose as the dramatic form of expression until the end of the nineteenth century, when playwrights wrote drama in prose or poetry or mixed the two in one play. In La
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Celestina there is the poetic and cult language of the lovers Calisto and Melibea and her parents. Perhaps, not only to the modern reader, it sounds bookish, artificial, unauthentic. On the other hand, there is the plebeian, popular, ruffian language of the picaresque world of the secondary characters. To these distinct worlds correspond two levels of culture, morality, and belief: the world representing the medieval ideal of restraint, control, and renunciation and the hierarchical order signified in the family, which was under attack and in danger of being destroyed and replaced by the cult to Eros, love satisfaction, and ideal beauty, the newly emerging concept and principles of the Renaissance. To marry them is impossible. To join them by deceptive means breaks social and artistic convention, the law of nature, the moral code. The noted pessimism in La Celestina is probably rhetorical and owed more to the Petrarchan view of love than to the dying medieval spirit, the unhappy feelings caused by the insincere beliefs, or Rojas' "new Christian" origin. Petrarch's influential work The Remedy against Prosperous and Adverse Fortune was known before its translation was published in Valladolid in 1510. The numerous learned allusions serve to establish Rojas' educational background. They also function to give a contrasting, but fuller, picture of life in the real world where the servants and Celestinas sell, trade, and exploit their young masters.
CRITICAL RESPONSE James Mabbe wrote that the authority of La Celestina "rather waxes than dwindles with time" and that "it has for its most striking characteristic a quality of perennial freshness."18 The large majority of specialists agree that the Celestina is the capital work of the fifteenth century and one of the most outstanding of all the Spanish, even of all universal literature. Menendez y Pelayo affirmed that "if Don Quixote had not been written, La Celestina would occupy the first place among the creative books written in Spain." The dramatist Jose M. Rodriguez Mendez proudly repeats that Casona's revival of La Celestina was performed in Spain two thousand times during the 1970 season. Closer to its time, there is testimony of its high esteem in the story that when Diego Hurtado de Mendoza traveled to his new diplomatic post as Ambassador to Rome, he was carrying two books, one being La Celestina. Cervantes, in prefacing clipped verses of Don Quixote, praised it as a "divine book if the human [psyche] were not so exposed." Unquestionably, love, passion and deceit to obtain it are explicit and widely exposed by Rojas. Love, transformed into uncontrolled desire or passion, appears as madness; it leads to blindness or illicit acts that are the root of suffering and death as convention and religious beliefs dictate. Rojas also makes love that seeks satisfaction uphold the natural and the lawful social order, which Melibea and her parents represent. Serpent-like, a twisted moral sense, and values, upset even, replace love as the principle of natural law and uphold human desire as the defining tenet of the emerging order.
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Thus, while the human love principle in the young supports Rojas' artistic universe, deceit to satisfy natural desire destroys and begets human tragedy. Artistically, Rojas moves away from classical drama by and for small audiences and toward the more flexible, combined form of tragicomedy, which allows him to establish the strong connection between life and art all citizens could enjoy as people enjoyed the classic theater in antiquity. With the character Celestina the drama's generic amalgam gets lost in the torrent of life and signals social changes brought with the passing of time. Such are Celestina's dominance and importance that even succeeding generations of publishers were convinced to change the original title from The Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea to Celestina. The change puts the focus on the go-between and on her role as a mediator in illicit love affairs. On the basis of Celestina's stature and her role in society, twentieth-century critics interested in social issues and sociological aspects picked up the signal and focused on the go-between. J. A. Maravall views Celestina as one sign of society's total crisis. That situation is due, in his view, to the social and economic transformations that had been taking place in the culture. He sees rancor in the servants towards the masters and finds its explanation in the growing economic disadvantages among the poor. Questionable is his interpretation of Celestina's character as a product of society, and her activities as being related to her needs and the need of other members of her own social and economic group.19 It is true that the poor and dispossessed often sought aid from old women whom they believed had supernatural powers, could foretell the future, read their fortune, control natural and social forces in the interest of the poor. In reality, Celestina takes more than she gives away. She provides women for the servants of her targets and clients, offers them generous rewards but cheats them of their share. Sempronio warns Parmeno: "Wait and you will see, she will not want cash because money is easy to count and divide" (Act 5, 204). The implication of the socioeconomic approach is that Rojas' intention was to make Celestina a social responsibility. Such an emphasis on social realism could best apply to the picaresque novel, but the socioeconomic, political picture of the world in La Celestina seems inappropriate for an age when thinkers and writers are attempting to make humanity the center of the universe and when they replace the ideal dramatic hero for the self-reliant individual. To see La Celestina as a product, rather than a reflection of society, and her activities as being related to her needs shadows the characterization and individuality Rojas designed. Celestina's hedonism is what drives her. She defines good life in terms of the pleasures of carnal love, reasoning that she is a needed instrument. With sophistry she teaches, "Nature flees the sad and craves after pleasure" ["La naturaleza huye de lo triste y apetece lo deleitable"] (Act 1, 10) or that God's gifts are to be shared: "And since we are all human, born to die, he who is only concerned with himself cannot, in truth, be said to have been born'' (Act 4, 175, 176). She has a powerful desire for life full of pleasure of the flesh, in part, because she sees in people, in objects, and in events the inflexible laws of
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Nature. Celestina's "six dozen years" (Act 2, 126) prevent her from herself being active in what is referred to as the oldest profession but not from inducting other women into that dissolute life or from arranging illicit love affairs. Rojas gives Celestina the conventional language of magic and the belief in the supernatural. Her belief in the power of magic is important because it makes her selfreliant. Confidence thrusts her into action. As the top procurer she is well paid, with gold and silver coins and objects. J. L. Alborg looks more closely and further than Maravall. He sees in La Celestina and the servants a detailed observation of the world, the reflection of life and of the historical reality at the end of the fifteenth century.20 Rojas reflects court life, class distinctions, courtly love, the credulity and superstitious attitudes towards the supernatural, egotistic admirers like Calisto, and Celestinas who masquerade utilitarian ends as pious, altruistic gestures or as acts of Christian benevolence. Finally, Rojas shows the abuses the Celestinas and their clients cause on young individuals, families, and society. On that background Rojas constructs a complex dramatic action whereby moral slackness leads to desperation, distraught behavior, sidetracked conscience, social death, and eternal tragedy. Other twentieth-century literary critics, S. Gilman and A. Castro among them, saw La Celestina in terms of Rojas' Jewish origin and the dissatisfaction of an insincere convert.21 Gilman views the characters' conduct not just as a generic vision of humanity, as had been suggested, but also as the behavior of persons whose essence is expressed in a constant breaking of the codes of law.22 As seen by these literary critics, La Celestina is an expression of reality in crisis and of all its values in the process of crumbling down. In partial agreement with Gilman, Ruiz Ramon sees Rojas' work as a lucid vision of the concrete historic world around its author. In seeing it as a criticism of that world, Ruiz Ramon correctly elaborates on its didactic purpose when he says that without exception the different characters disregard any common norm and every system of rules; that they hold on exclusively to their own appetites, interests, ambition, and personal desires; that Rojas' characters are in conflict with each other and with the common good, which is the basis of society's harmonic structure. As he sees it, the love story points out the inherent dangers and the final catastrophe as the logical end if men and women of all ages, status, and conditions who form society persist in behaving as Rojas' negative paradigms behave.23 The preceding judgments bring forth the problem of Christian religion and morality. Both have been major points of contention since La Celestina appeared. The book addresses the problem of religion openly: Sempronio calls Calisto heretic and blasphemer, three times (Act 1, 41); Calisto (Rojas) would like to skew the ultimate fate the mythical lovers Piramo and Tisbe shared, but, as Sempronio warns Calisto, they will not escape final tragedy. There are instances like the following exchanges between Sempronio and Calisto, who, overpowered by love, forgets God and speaks heresy three times:
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Sempronio: "Are you not a Christian?" Calisto: "I? I am Melibeo / and I adore Melibea / and I love and believe in Melibea." Or, Calisto: "For me she is God, /. . . and I don't believe there is another sovereign in heavens, although she is living among us." Sempronio: "Sir, what you just spoke is a heresy." (Act I, 43^-4) Sempronio's misapprehensions about his master's religious beliefs anticipate, even justify, the doubts about Rojas' Christian sincerity. In the twentieth-century edition, Julio Cejador wrote in the introduction that, for him, it was absolutely impossible to imagine that a true Christian believer of that time could have chosen the pagan end Rojas gave his protagonists in 1497. Already the 1502 Seville edition, probably in an effort to put to rest the subject of moral ambiguity, has added at the end of the text the clearer explanation that "the comedia of Calisto and Melibea was composed to reprimand mad lovers [like Calisto], who overcome by their unbound desire called their ladies their God." It continues to say that it was written as a warning against the deceptions of old go-betweens and of the evil, pleasing servants. A "General Plot" states the meaning intended in their edition: "Engaged by the suffering Calisto to help him in his love quest for Melibea, Celestina, evil, and astute woman, turned his loyal servants into disloyal with the bait of a handsome reward (women, gold and silver). The lovers and those who helped them had a tragic end. Bad fate prepared the unfortunate situation in which Melibea appeared before Calisto's eyes." While the textual ambiguity reflects life's contradictions in the changing culture, it also has made it difficult to disavow opposing views and opinions regarding morality and intent. Some moralists defend the moral lesson they see implicit in the tragedy, while others reproach the artistic re-creation that immortalizes an evil type. Their criticism extends to Rojas' ambiguity regarding attitude, intention, and meaning of his work. There are two main currents of criticism: one is that all of what Rojas wrote in the preliminary pages about his purpose, from the 1500 edition on, is a hypocritical way to cover his real intentions and mask the book's irreligious pessimism and negative content. The other, associated or derived from it, is the Jewish thesis. At the head of the modern moral and religious debate is Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo. In his opinion, the writer's religious and moral skepticism seemed to contradict the orthodox principles the author stated in the preliminary pages and at the end.24 Before him, Fr. Antonio de Guevara, Fr. Luis de Leon, J. Ruiz de Alarcon, Fr. Juan de Pineda, Cervantes, and Lope, the well-respected moralists, writers, and critics of the Golden Age who are closer to Rojas' time, find the work morally reproachable. Luis Vives retracted his original negative opinion on the
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morality question. The others condemned La Celestina for its crude language, raw exchanges, and scenes that include sexuality and witchcraft. Cervantes's famous quip "Libro divi—, si encubriera mas lo huma—" (a divine book—, if it would hide the human [psyche] more—), shows him agreeing in principle. While recognizing its artistic worth, he judged that its realism, human truth or the human story, could have been better disguised. In complete agreement with these early moral philosophers, theologians, and men of letters, later men who hold strong moral principles and deep Catholic beliefs also find grave religious implications. Menendez y Pelayo particularly reproves Celestina's invocation of Satan, the conjuring act, and the spool of thread she weaves, symbolically trapping the devil while she prepares to meet with Melibea. The props in Celestina's laboratory, fetishism, and magic arts, as well as her invocation and conversations with Satan, are viewed, in general, as real aspects of the necromantic, which, in their eyes, make her a true witch. For these reasons and in view of Celestina's utilitarian motives, excessive epicureanism, and ability to influence, direct, and coax others, forcing them to follow her way of life, Pelayo calls Rojas' creation an aesthetic hell, a scientist of evil for evil's sake, perversity incarnate.25 Numerous other critics, moralists, and writers, on the other hand, emphasize the moral integrity of Rojas' work, guided by the author's interest in the theme and by the lesson they find implicit in the tragedy. Leading them, Marcel Bataillon unequivocally defended the didactic purpose and moral value of Rojas' work.26 He says that it was written to be read and interpreted as a morality. In his judgment La Celestina teaches moral doctrine by threatening with the bad end those listeners who imitate vice. It denounces the blindness of parents who do not know their children, exposes the delinquency and crime in the low end of society, and warns against passion that leads to crazy behavior, illicit love, dishonest conduct, and the hiring of the go-between. The tragic deaths of all the characters involved in the act, the defenders argue, are preventive signs. Finally, Bataillon finds in Celestina the timeless teaching that it is prudent to learn from the mistakes of others. For Ed wing Morby Celestina is a morality play27; Herrero Garcia, in essential agreement with Bataillon, backs his view when he writes that Rojas' dispensation of penalties and the irony of the resolution satisfy the moral teaching and the didactic requirement.28 Stephen Gilman, Americo Castro, and Ramiro de Maeztu29 developed Pelayo's suggestion of suspected insincerity on Rojas' part. The authority, weight, and notoriety of the names who found signs of religious insincerity and their followers made the convert thesis the dominant interpretation of the 1960s. Pelayo's ideas had found more fertile ground in the growing number of critics and advocates who then applied the theory to other ambiguous aspects of the work and even extended it to other Spanish drama and literature. Along with Bataillon, Leo Spitzer and a long list of salient Hispanists backed the contrary position. In 1993 Marquez Villanueva focuses his analysis of the Origenes y sociologia del tema celestinesco on the contributions of Jewish and Arab sources to the phenomenon of "proxenitismo o alcahueteria" (pandering) in Spain. He attributes a new literary attitude toward celestinaje to the social situation of the new Christians. Like Maravall,
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Marquez points out the social and the spiritual forces that affect life and the literary aesthetics in Spain, but Marquez underlines the important influence that the Jewish converts had in Rojas' tragicomedy and other Spanish works. It seems appropriate, nonetheless, to remind ourselves that the presence of the supernatural element carries a tradition that associates love with magic performed by a mediator, a goddess, sibyl, sage, messenger, go-between, soothsayer, necromancer, sorcerer, or witch. As Ruggeiro points out, the transformation from goddess to witch can be explained easily because the ideas of the supernatural were also associated with the belief in good and evil spirits. When they abandon the Christian faith and make pacts with Satan, go-betweens become witches. The witches summon Satan to extract certain secrets from him and to ask for his assistance in accomplishing their ends.30 Rojas directly attacks this confusion (Act 13, 88). The increasing tendency to revive the gods and myths of antiquity that began during the late Middle Ages, on one hand, while aspiring for more realism in art, on the other, made it possible to place next to Venus, Cupid, and Amor of high culture, the go-between, as the procurer, in popular literature. Historically, Rojas took the important and definitive step in that direction by developing the traditional traits of the go-between while making the witch a popular character who is part of his own social milieu, to expose its ills. Thus, when Celestina conjures the devil using the formula "I conjure you unfortunate Pluto, lord of the infernal depths, emperor of the cursed kingdom, proud captain of those condemned" (Act 3, 148^-9), Rojas again exposes the medieval confusion of science, superstition, and abandonment of Christian beliefs. As pointed out, many inferences can be drawn from such situations, including, I would submit, that the overlying views expressed toward them in the text are clear enough not to stand as Rojas' personal beliefs. Rather, they are a slice of life and the expression of a social attitude toward that reality. Rojas makes use of witchcraft in Celestina's work, but he stays clear of that belief by referring to "sophistic acts" and "false pretenses," which Celestina admits a good procurer needs to use (Act 3, 132). These words lend skepticism to the historical and literary connection between magic and love. At the same time, they enhance the psychological power of the character Calisto praises with cynicism and hyperbole: "Oh marvelous, cunning, crafty woman! Oh prudent female! / Oh malicious, sly, and discrete messenger!" (Act 5, 215); thus, Calisto draws his own and her spiritual and moral deficit. Through Calisto, Parmeno, and Sempronio, Rojas informs his audience that what makes Celestina famous is not her power of the supernatural or her diabolical acts: "All was jest and lies" (Act 1, 86). It is, instead, her superhuman will to have power and control. To the modern reader or viewer, she may appear ludicrous, as do, also, those naive individuals who fear her power. True science and true Christianity have always combated such practices and beliefs, which exist even today. Yet, in 1499 those beliefs and fears of magic and witchcraft were part of the psyche. The popularity and interest in occult sciences that Rojas
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reflects in Celestina gain popularity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when mystery, authority, and fear among the common folk are ways of control and deceit. The serious study of the occult was part of the curriculum of important European universities. Such interest is reflected in famous works such as Marlowe's Dr. Faustus in England. In Spain, Velez de Guevara's El diablo cojuelo and Calderon's The Wonder-Working Magician [El mdgico prodigioso], and elements of it in numerous Golden Age comedias and novels further reflect this general preoccupation. Artistically, the artful acts Celestina performs correspond to the psychic emotions the author seeks to create in his dramatic illusion. Celestina uses magic in a moment of desperation when she fears failure. Rojas mimics and exploits it as a dramatic device. Appropriate to its understanding are Rojas' disclosures of the truth about his characters. Such disclosures are found in the action and in what the characters say. Ultimately, in spite of her incantations and the stock of props for witchcraft she uses to bend the will of others, the success of Celestina is due to her quick, astute mind and to the capacity for persuasion that Calisto underscores. Celestina's power of coercion, through fear and intimidation, is clearer in the most intimate moments: the aside and the soliloquies. There are many instances, a few must suffice. One is when Parmeno harshly refuses to let her in the house to see her client Calisto, and Celestina threatens his indiscretion: "Crazy little rascal, you have insulted me. You'll see I will wound you where you hurt most" (Act 7, 242). She plays on his fears and superstitions: fear of the ghosts of his origins, which she knows, and his true fear of the devil personified in women like her. Faced with Parmeno's objections, she insists "Let's get to the point." She is really saying, "What would make you happy, what is your price?" Above all, what Parmeno wants is to keep his true identity secret, but Celestina knew his father was a "new Christian." Parmeno knows Celestina well, also. After his mother suffered a witch's death, he became Celestina's young servant, which explains why he does not want her near his master's door. To make it easier for the wounded Parmeno to be her ally, without showing that it is because of her intimidation, she livens up the mood with friendly advice: "Dare if you wish to succeed" ["Solo el que se atreve podrd lograr"]; and "Fortune helps those who dare" ["La fortuna ayuda a los osados"] (Act 1, 104). The promise of money is not enough; his passion for Areusa and her disdain for him will be. She will serve as his eager go-between. As a panderer she operates at all levels of society; thus, she projects love's universality while securing her own, because the situation regarding Melibea also involves the young woman's family and the human family. The strength of Celestina's will, sagacity in human relations, and degree of awareness of the weaknesses of others also show in her dealings with Calisto in Act 4. She expects Melibea's firm resistance to speak with her or even let her into her house, but she reassures herself: "Troya was stronger!" (Act 3, 181). To Calisto, she shows only confidence: "Trust me, Sir. . . . You do not know of what I am capable . . . I have tamed others who were more adamant [than Melibea]" (Act
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1, 159). In order to reassure him, Celestina effectively stresses her credentials, boasting about her lifelong history of bringing men and women together by seducing "more than five thousand virgins" (Act 1, 159). "None of the maidens she seduces are older than eighteen or younger than fourteen." (ibid.). As expected, Celestina's craftiness is even more evident in her planning to unite Calisto with Melibea. The soliloquies (on her way to Melibea's home or before she conjures the devil) clearly show that she indulges in the fantastic pyrotechnics of language to get her way. She dominates by breaking the will of others. The soliloquies are explicit renderings of the hidden duplicities in Celestina's world and Rojas' sort of boastful, satirical representation of the sick psychology of love, the misguided motives, the promotion of wrongful conduct. In the same soliloquy Celestina reminds herself of each person's individuality. The erotic persuasions she uses for Parmeno and Areusa will not be appropriate for a lady. When Celestina fails to gain Melibea's trust, she insists: "Please lady, let me finish. . . . You will see that what I am up to is to serve God, not dishonest ends. It is more for the health of a sick man than to dishonor the healer Melibea." With the show of compassion for the suffering Calisto, the feared devil expects the Christian young lady to feel charitable. Celestina asks her for a pious deed. She should go to see and heal Calisto without fear or sense of guilt. Thus, while setting forth the hideous dilemma between duty and conscience, she thrusts a wounding arrow upon the weakened Melibea. Immediately, Celestina tries to disarm her by praising her beauty, exalting and appealing to her Christian virtues of mercy, charity, and devotion: Dear lady, I lost my fear at the sight of your beauty. I cannot believe God painted in you such attributes each one more perfect than the next, except to make them a bouquet of virtues, mercy, and compassion, ministers of his mercy and charity.31
Moments like this show Rojas' originality. They offer a variation of the dialogical clashes in which Celestina engages herself with her "serpentine tongue." In the double-talk of Celestina the author may have been alluding to literature that addresses different audiences, to each of whom it conveys an appropriate message. In Rojas' hands ambiguity reflects the gray area of the problematic, which he offers in variations of the main themes. Life, love, honor, and the supernatural are transformed into evil means by the power and the magic of Celestina's art and exposed, in the play, as make-believe. Gilman correctly stated that these themes and the kind of dialectic exercises set Rojas' love intermediary apart from all the previous mediators. Celestina uses language of seduction, persuasion, deception, and coercion to aid dishonest or forbidden love. But she also knows that to be effective she must get to the root of a problem fast, and must delve into a person's inner soul and be ready to take advantage of the emotions or needs of her targets. This psychology, selfconfidence, knowledge of people's lives, and weakness make the character vigorously alive, many-sided but contemptuous and deeply human.
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From the preceding examples of psychological and cultural realism it becomes clear that when Rojas characterizes and dramatizes each situation, he particularizes the absolute necessity of human perception in the real world, where dangerous individuals also live, always lurking and hovering over like birds of prey. Therefore, the ideals of virtue and personal and social honor make it necessary for daughters to be sequestered, or they will be vulnerable to aggression, always about to be wronged and their life ruined by Celestina whose twisted moral sense allows her to say with satisfaction that her work affords happiness to both herself and her clients, that she lives off her work "very honorably" ["muy limpiamente"]. When she says, "Whether I live in virtue or sin, God is my witness" ["Si bien o mal vivo, Dios es el testigo de mi corazori" (vol. 2, Act 12, 101)], we are not to judge. But the understanding that we should read irony into Rojas' words makes them more poignant when spoken with the conviction with which his character pronounces them. Another example, perhaps the most significant in terms of Rojas' artistic magic, is the rope belt that Celestina requests Melibea to take off. It is the basis for the critics' misapprehensions and outright condemnation. As part of the religious, psychological, and cultural beliefs, it illustrates the use of religious symbols and the expression of beliefs or superstitions at the various levels of society in Rojas' time. It was believed and feared that any object worn by a person could be used effectively in white or black magic to bend the will of others and obtain the desired results. The rope Melibea wears is also associated with the existing belief in a kind of contagious magic and curing power that relics are believed to have: "They say your belt has touched all the relics that exist in Rome and Jerusalem" (Act 3, 181), says Celestina while asking Melibea to give her the belt to help heal her client Calisto. Human love is supposed to be a reflection or extension of pure and divine love. The belt symbolizes that unity. The intended psychomythic effect is clear when Melibea removes it and hands it over to Celestina who reluctantly agrees to go to Calisto. In the meeting of the minds and the mating of the lovers (to extend Rojas' initial falcon metaphor), Melibea gains her human identity for the first time. Dramatically, the scene marks a change of mind, direction, and technique on Rojas' part. Celestina as the reverberant center of the drama has deserved our attention. Right after she secures the rope belt from Melibea to prove to Calisto that her mission has been accomplished, she nears her end. Full of self-pride, Celestina lets her ego take over and loses control of the situation. She returns to Calisto feeling triumphant, believing that she can manipulate the devil himself. With the news of success she asks for a higher price for her intervention, demanding a long, heavy, gold chain Calisto has inherited. Reluctantly, he surrenders it to his messenger. They are now chained to the human love Celestina embodies. Her latest success is a Pyrrhic victory. The rope belt and the value that she places in the gold chain lock her fate. In it she picks up the adverse chain of events that will lead to the tragedy. When the time to divide the reward comes, she offers the servants stylish clothes and lots of women, and, resorting to her
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convincing skills, she tells them that the chain is missing, and that it may have been stolen from her house. Up to now language has been the force that generates all kinds of situations, the powerful weapon on her battles to get her way. Now the actions delineate the abstract, main characters more clearly, giving them and the drama a greater significance. Celestina's conjuring and trapping of the devil, central to the theme of language and deception, function artistically as the dramatic expression of Rojas' intention to abandon the literary fetishism as sophistic magic acts. Celestina, who knows the weaknesses and limitations of others, did not foresee that the servants could turn her lessons and example against her. Rojas further underlines that arrogance, not success, blinds her perception, preparing her to succumb to the servants. Parmeno and Sempronio feel betrayed and murder her for the chain she and they coveted throughout the play, believing it would bring them happiness. Its pursuit is associated with cupidity and arrogance. Dramatic irony seals her end as she is destroyed by her own machinations—irony, also, since Celestina, who pledges "anything for life" ["todo por vivir" (Act 3, 165)] and is the most vibrant and vital character in the play, is the first to die. The turn of events exposes Celestina's loss of power and control, but it also proves her humanity. The chain and the rope belt, not her, acquire new symbolic significance as the multiple personal tragedies are linked to these objects. When first introduced, the chain and the belt seem unimportant. Once they are put in motion, both motifs are inseparable from the intrigue. They pull the audience away from the secondary characters and call attention back toward the main plot and the thematic center as if to bridge the separation between art and life. The rope belt and the gold chain that Calisto and Melibea surrender to Celestina express their decision to yield to temptation. As a result, they enslave their will; their freedom from suffering is lost. As dramatic devices both motifs broaden the illusion issuing from the initial symbol of the bird of prey and the theme of love and desire. They tie it together with the metaphors suggested in Calisto's "rapacious eyes" and in "the venom" of Celestina's "serpentine tongue" Parmeno says he dreads. As the end approaches, Rojas introduces an element of surprise, which satisfies the artistic principle of admiratio [surprise]. We all have also been distracted, misled, and seduced by the double-talk and language of Celestina, by the rhetorical speeches of Pleberio, and by the author's erudite, dialogical style. We have been blinded by Celestina's bright sophistry. Literary credulity and superstition have made her the center of the drama and given her psychomythic proportions. Calisto, the shadowy, evasive, and somewhat mysterious figure, holds the key to the drama. He is heir to a history, and when he yields his precious possession—the chain—he releases the power, the magic, and the mystery it holds. The power of desire as motivation is symbolized in the magic of gold. When Calisto gives away his treasure, he becomes vulnerable and is destroyed. His fate is the consequence of a long chain of actions closely linked to
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the rest of the characters in a relationship of cause and effect. Therefore he, not Celestina, is the center of the drama Rojas intended. In La tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea Rojas both creates and destroys cultural and literary myths. Both love-blinded Calistos and the go-between exist. Go-betweens are old women who fake piety and speak fallacious advice and twisted maxims to justify an immoral cause; also they use their involvement with the supernatural to corrupt and deceive men and women who promote the sex trade. Both are part of the cultural and social reality where a procurer can brag: "A quien no me quiere no le busco / de mi casa me vienen a sacar / en mi casa me ruegan" (I do not go after anyone who does not want me. They come to me, they beg my intervention, and move me to leave my house and mediate" [vol. 2, Act 12, 101]). Celestina's work is pandering, and she has made it an art. Rojas' action imitates life through the magic of art. With artistic ability he mixes literary tradition—the theme and character of the mediator, the science of the occult, the mysterious and the supernatural—and transforms these into human talents. In his transformation he presents the mediator of all ages, as the living, modern-day go-between, always ready to mediate, and introduces the celestinesque (alcahueta) type and pandering (celestinaje) as a theme and motif in Spanish literature. As Webber points out, Calisto's love for Melibea stands in opposition to the ideal courtly love and of Andreas Capellanus' the Art of Love.3,2 Their story replaces the myth of secret, pure, and ideal love with a modern story of human love as passion that is part of the natural order but ends tragically for the couple and for the go-between who brings them together. Ramiro de Maeztu acknowledged the established, fundamental, and universal significance of Rojas' go-between. From his Don Quixote, Don Juan y La Celestina, she emerges as one of the three major literary myths Spain has contributed to world literature. It needs to be stated that Celestina is the antithesis of "Don Quixote The Good." She is a female Don Juan. She matches the purpose of his wandering, his lies to deceive young women, and his libido. Rojas shows her as a merchant of the flesh in action and her dishonest deeds bring short happiness and long suffering to the world. Tirso de Molina, a clergyman, punishes Don Juan to eternal damnation; Rojas, who is closer to the classic mold, condemns his character and her predecessor to a terrible tragic death. Modern readers tend to ignore the level of interpretation that has looked at the sin/punishment morality that informs Rojas' work. It does not matter that Rojas wrote The Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea; the public changed his title. The popular audiences that generally hail weakness not virtue, or that side with the negative or shady dramatic characters, also honor and pay homage to Celestina. La Celestina will be five hundred years old in 1999, and Mabbe's affirmation of 1631, quoted in these pages, is true today. To celebrate the quincentennial, there is talk about a definitive edition and one project that will complete the updates on the Reception of the work from 1499-1999. The surveyed criticism on the salient points of La Celestina, which has tried to distill its full meaning,
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suggests its richness. The theory, thesis, thought, and divination that are still being extracted from this work imply the opinion that its full meaning has yet to be deciphered. Except for the question of its genre, which Rojas settled in the title, and the abandoned theory that three or four authors wrote the twentyone-act tragicomedy, all the issues it raises about philosophy, ethics, language, pseudo science and religion, art, itself, its origin, and its author, continue to spark debate. Their effect on life ensures that its present and future readers will ponder its human, social and sociological concerns, its classical humanism, and artistic originality. The problems it poses about human and artistic identity, limits and laws, parental duties, relationships, right and wrong, good and evil, love, life and death, and so on will also be revisited. Their effectiveness and functionality in the drama entice the heart, expose the soul, and stir the mind, conscience and imagination. The story continues to enchant audiences in the existing translations, old and modern productions; the dramatists have responded with revivals, continuations, imitations, and adaptations. One basic reason for the authority and eternal freshness of Rojas' work is that Celestina remains a warning and a reminder that we live in a less than perfect world. Rojas reveals the old and the new ways of thinking and being beyond culture. Another reason is that the tragicomedy examines the multiple sides of an academic literary debate over timeless issues that are of interest and concern to most citizens of the world.
NOTES 1. Fernando del Valle Lerzundi, "Testamento de Fernando de Rojas," Revista de Filologia Espanola (RFE) 16 (1929): 366-88. 2. Lerzundi, "Documentos referentes a Fernando de Rojas," RFE 12 (1925): 38596. 3. Stephen Gilman, "The case of Alvaro de Montalban," Modern Language Notes 28 (1963): 113-25. 4. Stephen Gilman, and Ramon Gonzalves. "The Family of Fernando de Rojas," Romanische Forschungen 78.1 (1966): 1-26. 5. Spinosa Maeso, "Introduction," vol. 13 Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles (BAE) (Madrid: Artes Graficos, 1926). 6. All textual quotations in this entry are from Julio Cejador y Frauca's edition of Fernando de Rojas' Celestina, 2 vols. (Madrid: Clasicos Castellanos, 1968). 7. Ramon Menendez Pidal, "La lengua en el tiempo de los Reyes Catolicos (Del retoricismo al humanismo)," in Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos 13 (Jan.-Feb. 1950): 12, 15. Reprinted in Espana y su historia vol. 2 (Madrid: Ediciones Minotauro, 1957). 8. Leandro Fernandez de Moratin, Origenes del teatro espanol, vol. 1 BAE Nueva ed. (Madrid: Real Academia Espanola, 1944), 88. 9. J. H. Herriott, Towards a Critical Edition of the 'Celestina'. A Filiation of Early Editions. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964), vi; "The Authorship of Act I of La Celestina," Hispanic Review 31 (1963): 153-59; Frederic J. Norton, Printing in Spain 1501-1520, with a Note on the Early Editions of the 'Celestina' (Cambridge:
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Oxford University Press, 1966), includes new data; Edward M. Wilson, review Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 44 (1967): 291-93. 10. Anna Krause, "Deciphering the Epistle-Preface to the Comedia de Calisto y Melibea," The Romanic Review 45 (1953): 89-101. 11. D. W. McPheeters, "El corrector Alonso de Proaza and the Celestina.'' Hispanic Review 24 (1956): 13-25; also by him, El humanista espanol Alonso de Proaza (Valencia: Castalia, 1961). 12. Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo, Estudios y discursos de historia crtitica y literaria, vol. 2 of Complete Works. National Ed. (Santander: Aldus, 1941), 237-58; vol. 29 BAE (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1949). 13. Menendez y Pelayo, Origenes de la novela, vol. 3 of Complete Works Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles (Madrid: Real Academia, 1910), 14, 30. 14. Menendez Pidal, "La lengua," Cuadernos (1950): 9, 24. 15. Florentino Castro Guisasola, "Observaciones sobre las fuentes literarias de la 'Celestina' Revista de Filologia espanola 24 (1924): Appendix 5. 16. Maria Rosa Lida de Malkiel, La originalidad artistica de "La Celestina," 2d ed. (Buenos Aires: EUDEBA, 1970), 58, 63. 17. James Mabbe, Celestina or the Tregicke-Comedy of Calisto and Melibea Englished from the Spanish of Fernando de Rojas by James Mabbe (London, 1631), reprinted 1894, ed. James Fitzmaurice-Kelly. 18. Quoted by James Fitzmaurice-Kelly, "Introduction." James Mabbe's Celestina or the Tregicke-comedy of Calisto and Melibea Englished from the Spanish of Fernando de Rojas by James Mabbe (London: David Nutt, 1894), vii. 19. J. A. Maravall, El mundo social de La Celestina, 3d ed. (Madrid: Gredos, 1986), 87-89. 20. J. Luis Alborg, Historia de la literatura espanola, vol. 1 (Madrid: Gredos, 1970), 580-81. 21. S. Gilman, The Art of "La Celestina" (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1974); Americo Castro, La Celestina como contienda literaria (castas y casticismos) (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1965). 22. S. Gilman "La Celestina, " Revista de Filologia Hispdnica 7 (1945): 147-59; and The Art of "La Celestina" (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1956), 195. 23. Francisco Ruiz Ramon, Historia del teatro espanol (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1971), 76. 24. Menendez y Pelayo, Estudios y discursos. 25. Menendez y Pelayo, Estudios, 242. 26. Marcel Bataillon, "La Celestine" Selon Fernando de Rojas (Paris: Desidier, 1961), Spanish translation (Madrid: Gredos, 1968), 130-34, 191, Chapter 5 in particular; V. A. Deyermond and R. Lapesa also agree with Bataillon's view regarding the edifying value of La Celestina. They base their interpretation on the significance of the tragic deaths and on the relationship of these to sin and punishment. 27. Edmond S. Morby, "La Celestina viewed as a Morality Play," Romance Philology 16(1963): 323-31. 28. Miguel Herrero Garcia, Estimaciones literarias del siglo XVII (Madrid: Voluntad, 1930), 9-60. 29. Ramiro de Maeztu, Don Quijote, Don Juan y La Celestina (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1967), 137-45. 30. Michael J. Ruggerio, The Evolution of the Go-Between in Spanish Literature
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through the Sixteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), 3-5; A. Bonilla y San Martin, and A. Miro Quesada have a good starting bibliography on this issue. More recently, Marquez Villanueva's Origenes y Sociologia (1993), includes an extensive list of old and recent sources on the development of the type and theme in Spanish literature. 31. Rojas, La Celestina, Act 3, 175: El temor perdi mirando, senora, tu beldad que no puedo creer que en balde pintasse Dios unos gestos mas perfectos que otros, mas dotados de gracias, mas hermosas facciones; sino para hacerlos almacen de virtudes, de misericordia y de compasion, ministors de sus mercedes e dadivas como sois vos. 32. William J. Webber, "La Celestina" as an Arte de Amores (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958), 145-53. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY The bibliography on La Celestina could fill libraries. Thus, the word "selected" here also means limited. The works listed will lead to the copious sources available on the different aspects, topics, and controversies about Rojas' artistic creation.
Early Editions and Translations The oldest surviving editions of La Celestina are listed chronologically by Jules Horrent. According to Homer Herriott, until 1600 there were 187 editions of the two known published versions: Comedia de Calisto y Melibea and Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea. The oldest surviving edition (Burgos, 1499) is entitled Comedia de Calisto y Melibea', it is divided into sixteen acts. The title page is missing.
Sixteenth-Century Editions Toledo, 1500 ed., Princepts, according to Luis Montanez. "El incunable toledano de la Comedia de Calisto y Melibea." Anales Toledanos 8 (1973): 130-79. Toledo, 1500 and 1502, under the title Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea. Seville, 1501, under the title Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea. Seville, 1502, with the new title Libro de Calisto y Melibea y de la. . . vieja Celestina. Toledo, 1502, Salamanca and two in Seville, entitled tragicomedia (tragicomedy) all have five more acts entitled Tratado de Centurio (Centurion's Part). Seville, 1503, has one more act, Tratado de Traso (Traso's Part). Zaragoza, 1507 ("lost," according to Herriott). Toledo, 1526, has the Tratado de Traso. Toledo, ca. 1550 ed., La Celestina comentada (Russell, 1976). Alcala, 1569, the latest sixteenth-century Spanish edition known. Toledo, 1500, 1502, and Seville, 1501, all have sixteen acts. A second version under the title of La tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea was published five times in 1502: once in Salamanca, once in Toledo, and three times in Seville. This version contains five
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added acts for a total of twenty-one. The Seville, 1503, and Toledo, 1526, editions have yet another addition, the Tratado de Traso, later eliminated, and Alcala, 1569, is the latest sixteenth-century Spanish edition known.
Translations Celestina has been translated into Dutch, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Latin, English French, Czechoslovak, Croatian, Polish, and Portuguese. (Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles, 1910, 3).
English The first English translations were done in the sixteenth century. One 1530 attempt to translate it in verse was a failure. The second: Celestina or The Tragicke-Comedy of Calisto and Melibea Englished from the Spanish of Fernando de Rojas by James Mabbe. London, 1631; reprint. J. Fitzmaurice-Kelly. London: (David Nutt), 1894. In 1707 John Savage wrote an unsuccessful play based on Mabbe's translation of La Celestina.
French Jacques de Lavardin. Translated from an Italian version.
Twentieth-Century Editions Cejador y Frauca, Julio, ed. 2 vols. Clasicos Castellanos, 1913, 1954, 1968. Criado del Val, Manuel, and G. T. Trotter, eds. Madrid: Clasicos Hispdnicos, 1958. Damiani, Bruno M., ed. Potomac, MD: Scripta Humanistica, 1974. Foulche-Delbosc, R. reprint of Fadrique de Burgos' 1499 edition entitled Comedia de Calisto y Melibea. Madrid: Biblioteca Hispanica, 1900. , facsimile ed. of the 1502 Seville edition, entitled Libro de Calisto y Melibea y de la . . . vieja Celestina. Madrid, 1902. Krapf, Eugenio, and M. Menendez y Pelayo, eds. (Introduction, study and notes by Menendez y Pelayo), 2 vols. Vigo, 1899-1900. Huntington, Archer M., Facsimile ed. of Fadrique de Burgos' 1499 text. New York: Hispanic Society of America, 1909. , Introduction and Notes by Pedro Bohigas. Barcelona: Montaner y Simon, 1952. Sherman, Dorothy Severin. Madrid: Aliansa Editorial, 1969; and Madrid: Catedra, 1988.
Critical Studies On Problems of Bibliography and Criticism of First and Early Editions Brault, G. J. "English Translations of the 'Celestina'." Hispanic Review 28 (1960): 301— 12.
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. "Textual Filiation of the Early Editions of La Celestina and the First French Translation." Hispanic Review 36 (1968): 95-109. Foulche-Delbosc, R. "Observations sur la Celestine." Revue Hispanique 1 (1900) 2880; 9 (1902), 171-99; and 78 (1930), 545-99. Herriott, J. H. Towards a Critical Edition of the "Celestina." A Filiation of Early Editions. Madison: Wisconsin University Press, 1964. Horrent, Jules. "Cavilaciones bibliograficas sobre las primeras ediciones de La Celestina. Annali dellTnstituto Universitario Orientali: Sezione Romanza 5 (1963) 301-9. Krause, Anna. "Deciphering the Epistle-Preface to the Comedia de Calisto y Melibea." Revue Hispanique 45 (1953): 89-101. McPheeters, D. W. "The Corrector Alonso de Proaza and the Celestina." Hispanic Review 24 (1956): 13-25. . El humanista espanol Alonso de Proaza. Valencia: Castalia, 1961. Norton, F. J. Printing in Spain 1501-1520 with a Note on the Early Editions of the "Celestina." Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 1966. Penney, C. L. The Book Called Celestina in the Library of the Hispanic Society of America. New York: Hispanic Society of America, 1954. Russell, P. E. La Celestina comentada ca 1500. Studies in Honor of Rita Hamilton. London: Tamesis, 1976, 175-93. Scoles, Emma. "Note sulla prima traduzioni italiana della Celestina." Study Romanzi 33 (1961): 157-217. Snow, Joseph T. "Un cuarto de siglo de interes en La Celestina,' 1949-75: Documento Bibliografico." Hispania 59 (1976): 610-56. Periodical updates in Rev. Celestine sea. Whinnom, Keith. "The relationship of the Early Edition of the Celestina." Zeitschrift fur Romanische Philologie (1966): 82. Wilson, Edward M., review of "F. J. Norton's Appendix: Note, Printing in Spain 15011520 with a Note on the Early Editions of the 'Celestina.' " Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 44 (1967):291-93. Analysis and
Interpretation
Alonso, Amado. "Sobre antecedentes de La Celestina." Revista de Fiologia Hispdnica 4 (1942): 266-68. Asencio, Eugenio. "La peculiaridad literaria de los conversos." Anuario de Estudios Medievales 4 (1967): 327-51. Bataillon, Marcel. "La Celestine" Selon Fernando de Rojas. Paris: Desidier, 1961. Benedickt, Michael. Cuatro comedias celestinescas. Colleccio Oberta. Serie textos teatrales hispdnicos del siglo XVI. Madrid: UNED, 1993; Seville, 1993; Valencia Universitat de Valencia, 1993. Berndt, Erna Ruth. Amor, muerte y fortuna en "La Celestina." Madrid: Gredos, 1963. Bloch, R. Howard. Medieval Misogyny and the Invention of Western Romantic Love. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. Bonilla y San Martin, A. "Antecedentes del tipo celestinesco en la literatura Latina." Revue Hispanique 15 (1906): 372-87. Booth, Wayne. "Freedom of Interpretation: Bakhtin and the Challenge of Feminist Criticism." Critical Inquiry 9 (1982): 45-76. Bugge, John. Virginitas: An Essay on the History of a Medieval Ideal. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1975.
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Burke, J. F. "Metamorphosis and the Imagery of Alchemy in La Celestina." Rev. Celestinesca 1 (1977): 129-52. Cane-Valles, Luis. Cinco comedias celestine seas. Colleccio Oberta. Textos Teatrales Hispdnicos del Siglo XVI. Valencia: Universitat Natl., de Educacion a Distancia, 1993. Caro Baroja, Julio. "Witchcraft and Catholic Theology." Early Modern European Witchcraft: Centers and Peripheries, ed. Begnt Aukarloo and Gustav Henningsen. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Castro, Americo. La Celestina como contienda literaria. (Castas y casticismos). Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1965. . "El problema historico de La Celestina." Santa Teresa y otros ensayos. Madrid, 1929; reprint Estudios y Semblanzas espanolas. Madrid: Alfaguera, 1972. Castro, Americo, and Hugo Rennert. La vida de Lope de Vega. New York: Las Americas, 1968. Castro Guisasola, Florentine "Observaciones sobre las fuentes literarias de La Celestina'." Revista de Filologia Espanola 24 (1924): Appendix 5. Chicharro Chamorro, Damaso. Origenes del teatro: La Celestina, el teatro prelopista. Madrid: Cincel, ca. 1980. Cirac Estopafian, Sebastian. Los procesos de hechicerias en la Inquisicion de Castilla la Nueva. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1942. Clark, Dorothy C. Allegory, Decalogue and the Deadly Sins in "La Celestina. " Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968. Corfis, I., and Joseph Snow. Fernando de Rojas and Celestina Approaching the Fifth Century. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993. Correa, Gustavo. Naturaleza, religion y honra en ' 'La Celestina.'' University of California Press, 1966; PMLA 78 (1963): 323-31. Costa Fontes, Manuel da. The Idea of Limpieza in La Celestina. Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 1988. Criado del Val, Manuel. "La Celestina." Teoria de Castilla la Nueva. Madrid: Gredos, 1960. . ' La Celestinesca." De la Edad Media al Siglo de Oro. Madrid: Publicaciones Espanolas, 1965. Devlin, John. "La Celestina." A Parody of Courtly Love: Toward a Realistic Interpretation of the "Tragicomedia de Calixto y Melibea." New York: Anaya-Las Americas, 1971. Deyermond, Alan. The Petrarchan Sources of "La Celestina." New York: Oxford University Press, 1961; Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1975. . "Teatro, dramatismo, literatura: criterios y casos discutibles." Cultura y representacion. Actas del II Festival de teatre i musica medieval d'Eix (Proceedings of the Second Medieval Theater and Music Festival in Eix), ed. E. Rodriguez Cuadros. Valencia: Generalitat Valenciana, 1994. Giffort, D. J. "Magical Patter: The Role of Verbal Fascination in La Celestina." In Textos Linguisticos del Medioevo espanol, ed. D. J. Giffort and F. W. Hodcroft. Oxford: Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literatures, 1967, 3037. Gilman, Stephen. La Celestina: Arte y estructura. Revised Spanish edition of The Art of Celestina. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1956; by Margit Frenk de Alatorre. Madrid: Taurus, 1974.
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Gilman, Stephen and Ramon Gonzalves. "The Family of Fernando de Rojas." Romanische Forschungen 78 (1966): 1-26. . The Spain of Fernando de Rojas: The Intellectual and Social Landscape of the Celestina. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972. . "The Case of Alvaro de Montalban." Modern Language Notes 78 (1963): 113— 25. . "El tiempo y el genero literario en 'La Celestina'." Revista de Filologia 75 (1963), 362-64. Green, Otis H. Spain and the Spanish Tradition, vol 1. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1963. . "The Artistic Originality of La Celestina." Hispanic Review 33 (1965): 15-31. Handy, Otis. "The Rhetorical and Psychological Defloration of Melibea." Celestinesca 7.1 (1983): 17-27. Hartunian, Diane. "La Celestina." Feminist Reading of the 'carpe diem' Theme. Potomac, MD: Scripta Humanistica, 1986. Herrera, Francisco Jose. "El rufian en el cielo celestinesco: del sistema a sus variantes." In Medievo y literatura. Actas del V congreso de la asociacion Hispdnica de Literatura Medieval. (Proceedings of the Fifth Congress of the Spanish of the Medieval Literature Association.), ed. J. de Jose Prades. 4 vols. Granada, 1995, 477-87. Herrero Garcia, Miguel. Estimaciones literarias del siglo XVII. Madrid: Voluntad, 1930. Hodcroft, F. W., et al., eds. Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Honor of P. E. Russell. Oxford: Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literatures, 1981. Kaplan, Gregory B. Review. Marques Villanueva, Francisco. Origenes y sociologia del tema celestinesco. Hispanic Review 4 (1995): 601-3. Kramer, Heinrich, and James Sprenger. The Malleus Maleficarum. Ed. and trans. Montagne Summers. New York: Dover, 1971. Lida de Malkiel, Maria Rosa. La Originalidad artistica de la Celestina. 2nd ed. Buenos Aires: EUDEBA, 1970. Lihani, John. "Spanish Urban Life in the Late Fifteenth Century As Seen in Celestina." Celestinesca 11.2 (1987): 21-28. Maeztu, Ramiro de. Don Quijote, Don Juan y ' La Celestina.'' Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1967. Malinowski, Bronislaw. "Magic, Science and Religion." In Witchcraft and Sorcery: Selected Reading, ed. Max Marwick. Baltimore, MD: Penguin, 1970, 210-16. Maraval, Juan Antonio. El mundo social de "La Celestina." Madrid: Gredos, 1986. Marques Villanueva, Francisco. Origenes y sociologia del tema celestinesco. Barcelona: Antropos, 1993. McPheeters, D. W., ed. Estudios Humanisticos sobre "La Celestina." Potomac, MD: Scripta Humanistica, 1970. . "Una traduccion hebrea de 'La Celestina' en el siglo XVI." In Homenaje a Rodriguez Monino. Vol. 1. Madrid: Castalia, 1966. . "The element of Fatality in the 'Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea'." Symposium 8 (1954): 331-35. . El humanista espanol Alonso de Proaza. Valencia; Castalia, 1961. Menendez y Pelayo, Marcelino. Estudios y discursos de critica historica y literaria. Vol. 2 of Edicion nacional de las obras completas de Menendez y Pelayo, ed. Enrique Sanchez Reyes. Santander: Aldus, 1941.
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. Historia de los Heterodoxos espanoles Edicion nacional de las obras completas de Menendez y Pelayo. 2d ed. Madrid: CSIC, 1965. . Origenes de la novela espanola. Vol. 3 BAE, Madrid: Real Academia, 1910. Menendez Pidal, Ramon. "La lengua en tiempo de los Reyes Catolicos (Del retoricismo al humanismo)." Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos 13 (Jan.-Feb. 1950): 9-24. Miro Quesada, Alejandro. "La trotaconventos: Origen latino del celebre personaje del Arcipreste de Hita." Letras de Lima 9 (1943): 408-14. Montesinos, Jose F. "Dos reminiscencias de La Celestina en comedias de Lope." Revista de Filologia Espanola 13 (1926): 60-62. Moratin Fernandez de, Leandro. Origenes del teatro espanol. Vol. 1 of Complete Works. Madrid: Real Academia Espanola de la Historia, 1830; BAE Madrid: Real Academia, 1944. Morby, Edmond S. "La Celestina viewed as a Morality Play." Romance Philology 16 (1963): 323-31. Morgan, Erica. "Rhetorical Technique in the Persuasion of Melibea." Celestinesca 3.2 (1979): 7-18. Oliver Asm, Jaime. "Mas reminiscencias de La Celestina en el teatro de Lope." Revista de Filologia Espanola 15 (1928): 61-74. Pavia, Mario N. The Celestinas: Drama of the Siglo de Oro: A Study of Magic, Witchcraft, and Other Occult Beliefs. New York: Hispanic Institute in the United States, 1959. Perez-Priego, M. A., ed. Cuatro comedias celestinescas. Valencia: Universitat de Valencia Servei de Publicacions, 1993. Rand, Edward K. Ovid and His Influence. Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1925. Read, Malcolm K. "The Rhetoric of Social Encounter: La Celestina and the Renaissance Philosophy of Language." In The Birth and Death of Language: Spanish Literature and Language, 1300-1700. Potomac, MD: Scripta Humanistica, 1983, 7096. Rico, Francisco. "Brujeria y literatura." Brujulogia: Ponencias y communmicaciones del Primer Congreso espanol de Brujologia celebrado en San Sebastian: Septiembre de 1972. Madrid: Seminarios, 1975, 97-117. Round, Nicholas G. "Conduct and values in 'La Celestina'." In Textos Linguisticos del Medioevo espanol, ed. D. J. Gifford and F. W. Hodcroft. Oxford: Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literatures, 1967, 38-52. Ruggerio, Michael J. The Evolution of the Go-Between in Spanish Literature through the Sixteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. Chs. 3-5 are about magic and witchcraft. Ruiz Ramon, Francisco. Historial del teatro Espanol. 2 vols. Madrid: Aliansa Editorial, 1971. Russell, P. E. "La magia como tema integral de la Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea. " Studia Philologica: Homenaje a Ddmaso Alonso. Madrid: Gredos, 1963, 337-54. . "Literary Tradition and Social Reality in 'La Celestina'." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 41 (1964): 230-37. Saenz-Alonso, Mercedes. "Hecate-Muerte-Noche Mujer." Brujologia: Ponencias y comunicaciones del Primer Congreso espanol de Brujologia celebrado en San Sebastian: Septiembre de 1972. Madrid: Seminarios, 1975, 331-42. Sanchez Serrano, Antonio. "Dialogos interpolados o refundidas en la 'Comedia de Calisto y Melibea'.'' Medievio y literatura. Actas del 111 congreso de la asociacion
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Hispdnica de Literatura Medieval (Proceedings of the Third Congress of the Spanish Medieval Literature Association), 2 vols., ed. M. I. Toro Pascua. Salamanca: Biblioteca espanola del siglo XV, 1994. Schevill, Rudolph. Ovid and the Renaissance in Spain. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1913. Schiel, [Reverend] Nicolas Edward. A Theological Interpretation of ' 'La Celestina.'' St. Louis: University of St. Louis Press, 1965. Schizzano Mandel, Adrienne. La Celestina Studies, A Thematic Survey and Bibliography (1824-1970). Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1971. Snow, Joseph, Jane Schnider, and Cecilia Lee. "Un cuarto de Siglo de interes en 'La Celestina,' 1949-1975: Documento Bibliografico." Hispania 59 (Oct. 1976): 616-60. Snow, Joseph. Documento Bibliografico: 1930-1985. Atlanta: Georgia State University, 1985. , ed. Celestinesca. Supplement (vol. 1, 1977): 23-45 and 39-53; Supplement (vol. 2, 1978): 35-50 and 49-64. . "Reception of the Work [LC] from 1499-1822." Celestinesca 19, vol. 2 (1997); "Reception of the Work from 1989-1999." (projected). Valle Lerzundi, Fernando del. "Documentos referentes a Fernando de Rojas." Revista de Filologia Espanola 12 (1925): 385-96. Webber, Edwing J. "Tragedy and Comedy in La Celestina." Hispania 35 (1952): 318— 20. Webber, William J. 'La Celestina' as an Arte de Amores. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958, 145-153.
FRANCISCO DE ROJAS ZORRILLA (1607-1648)
Anita K. Stoll
BIOGRAPHY Rojas was born in Toledo, but the family moved to Madrid when he was three years old. There he attended the same school as Pedro and Jose Calderon. Indications are that he attended the University of Salamanca, the locale of two of his plays. What the Marques de Villena Wanted to See [Lo que queria ver el Marques de Villena] and Obligated and Offended, and the Freeloader of Salamanca [Obligados y ofendidos, y gorron de Salamanca]. He was always in favor at court, and MacCurdy tells us that only Calderon was more popular (1968, 17). Rojas collaborated with several prominent dramatists in play writing, beginning with La Baltasara, a product of Rojas, Luis Velez de Guevara, and Antonio Coello (Whitaker, Stoll). In the 1930s Calderon and his disciples "developed a remarkable fondness" for this practice (Mackenzie "Velez," 182), and Rojas wrote at least one act of some fifteen plays in all. There appeared to be a special kinship between Velez de Guevara and Rojas Zorrilla; both were attracted to sensational subjects, both enjoyed portraying extraordinary characters, and both had a weakness for creating startling or extravagant theatrical effects. He also collaborated with Perez de Montalban and Calderon in writing The Prodigy of Fortune and Laundress of Naples [El monstruo de la fortuna y lavandera de Ndpoles], dated around 1932. His first play, performed on February 23, 1633, for the king and queen, was Persiles y Segismunda, a tragic melodrama based on Cervantes' novel of the same name. The violent ending was a feature that he repeated in several other plays. Royal favor, particularly from the queen, Isabel de Borbon, allowed him to provide several plays for the court in the next several years. Among his collaborations for the court was The Rape of the Sabinas [El robo de las Sabinas] with Juan and Antonio Coello, which was part of special festivities on the visits of Maria de Borbon. He also took part in lampoons, exaggerating personal qualities of his peers, after one of which he was apparently seriously wounded by an outraged target.
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He saw the publication of Part I of his dramas in 1640, paid for by Pedro Coello, who owned the rights. The same year the new theater containing all the latest theatrical machinery, the Coliseo in the Buen Retiro, was inaugurated with his play The Rival Houses of Verona [Los bandos de Verona]. Rojas published Part II of his plays in 1645 during the enforced leisure caused by mourning for the deaths of Isabel de Borbon in 1644 and Prince Baltasar Carlos in 1646. MacCurdy lists thirty-five plays that he accepts as written by Rojas. In 1643 Philip IV nominated Rojas for the Order of Santiago. During the usual investigation on purity of blood, his family's former neighbors in Toledo insisted that his ancestors were converted Jews, one of whom had been executed by the Inquisition. However, the king prevailed, and Rojas entered the order on October 13, 1645. Rojas has nine sacramental plays [autos sacramentales] attributed to him (MacCurdy, 1968, 32); the last was also the last work he created, an allegory of Philip's court entitled The Great Courtyard of the Palace [El gran patio de palacio] in 1647. Rojas died on January 23, 1648, possibly the victim of foul play. DRAMATURGY: MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES Below the King All Men Are Equal [Del rey abajo] (discussed later), along with Marrying for Revenge [Casarse por vengarse], departs from the more usual pattern of Rojas' honor plays in that many of them deal with honor abused and avenged by women, rather than the conventional honor drama in which the husband tries to kill his wife because she brings dishonor. One of this kind gaining renown for Rojas for his daring in unusual treatment of conjugal honor is To Each His Due [Cada cual lo que le toca]: the wronged wife ends up killing the offender. This is the case in several other plays (although these plays are also classed as tragedies): To Die Intending to Kill [Morir pensando matar] in which Rosamunda kills her husband for insulting her father (valued by both MacCurdy and MacKenzie as the high point of Rojas' tragic creations); Los encantos de Medea, in which Medea kills her children to get revenge because Jason abandoned her for another woman; Procne and Philomena [Progne y Filomena], in which the women insist they are required to avenge their honor; and Lucrecia and Tarquin [Lucrecia y Tarquino], in which Lucrecia kills herself as the only one able to remove the dishonor of rape. Noteworthy are the different reactions to the character of Lucrecia by the two major critics. MacCurdy finds Lucrecia "simply too eminently good . . . resembling a martyr in a saints' play" {Francisco . . . Tragedy, 46), while MacKenzie judges her very differently: "En absoluto hallamos en ella un exceso de bondad o virtud,. . . una mujer de gran sensualidad" {Francisco . . .Andlisis, 61) ("We do not at all find in her an excess of goodness or virtue . . . a woman of great sensuality"). MacCurdy counts several of Rojas' plays as tragedies "written in the Spanish style" {Francisco . . . Rojas, Twayne, 38); that is, their overall effect was tragic,
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even though including comic elements and at times ending happily. Both of the major critics of his work believe that he "had the most powerful tragic mood of his age" (MacKenzie, Francisco . . . Andlisis, 32, quoting MacCurdy, Francisco . . . Tragedy, 139). These ten plays include those based on a classical story just enumerated for their honor content {Medea, Progne, and Lucrecia), along with Cleopatra's Serpents [Los dspides de Cleopatra], depicting Anthony and Cleopatra as innocent lovers condemned to a tragic fate. It is interesting to note that MacKenzie believes that both Del rey abajo, ninguno and Cada cual lo que le toca belong in this group of tragic plays {Francisco. . . Andlisis, 82). Three of these tragedies deal with the theme of Cain and Abel. A King Cannot Act as a Father [No hay padre siendo rey] reprises a play by Guillen de Castro, Justice in Piety [La justicia en la piedad]. Rugiero's flaw is arrogance, which prohibits him from showing his love for his brother. He kills his brother, Alejandro, by accident, causing their father, the king, to condemn him to death. The populace rises up against the king, who then abdicates in favor of Rugiero. The Cain of Catalufia [El Cain de Catalufia], indebted both to Guillen de Castro's play and his own No hay ser padre. . . , repeats the character of Rugiero in the person of Berenguel, but infinitely more evil because of his extreme envy of his brother, coupled with a total lack of conscience. The father-king enables his escape from prison after killing his brother, but he is felled by a bullet as he climbs over the wall. MacKenzie differs with MacCurdy's assessment of his character as totally negative; she sees him as tormented by guilt for the murder and believes that the character inspires compassion {Francisco . . . Andlisis, 5051). The Most Unlikely Executioner for the Most Just Revenge [El mas impropio verdugo por la mas justa venganza], the third of these Cain plots, provides the most wicked sociopath of all. Alejandro allows nothing to interfere with his will and happily offers to serve as public executioner of his father and brother. His life ends at the hand of his father, who calls him the most wicked son in history. MacCurdy judges him "Rojas' most Freudian creation and one of the great rebels born of the Baroque" {Francisco. . . Rojas, Twayne, 61). Rojas' Numantia plays—Numantia Besieged [Numancia cercada] and Numantia Destroyed [Numancia destruida]—are his only two-part creation. They appear to have been written early in his career. Written at least fifty years after Cervantes' tragedy, they show some indebtedness to it but differ significantly in focus. While Cervantes' play subordinates everything to the theme of war, Rojas combines two themes, love and war, and through the love theme injects humor and intrigue. The work of Rojas has frequently been singled out for its feminism. In both his article "Le Feminisme de Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla" and in his edition of Del rey abajo, ninguno, Jean Testas underscores this opinion. He cites especially Progne y Filomena, in which Rojas changes the traditional outcome of the play. His version presents the unusual idea for this period that the sisters are capable of avenging, and have the right to avenge, a dishonor: they enunciate this right and then together kill the violator.
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Another play demonstrating his nontraditional view of women is Cada cual lo que le toca. In this honor drama, Don Luis discovers that his bride, Leonor, was violated previous to the marriage. She also avenges herself. Duncan Moir praised this play especially for its fine characterization ("Notes," 150) and cites Bances Candamo as writing that the play displeased the public because of his representation of the duped and weak husband (35). Besides these two works depicting unusual determination and action on the part of female protagonists, Rojas is also often praised for the fine delineation of his feminine characters, as in The Ways of Women [Lo que son mujeres] and Morir pensando matar. Although traditionally praised for his gift of tragedy, recent critics have placed greater emphasis on his comic gifts and originality of characterization. He is often cited as the originator of the grotesque figure called the figuron, vain, presumptuous, loutish, and often freakish in appearance, the opposite of the usual gallant hero. The character is a focus for comedy and provides an excellent personification and criticism of the worst of his society. Merry Sport with Fools [Entre bobos anda el juego] is the play often singled out to exemplify the type. One of these comic plays is Lo que son mujeres. It centers on two sisters, Serafina, rich, beautiful, intelligent, disdainful of men, and Matea, her opposite in all respects. A matchmaker, Gibaja, presents Serafina with four suitors, each with a freakish personality: the first a grumbler, the second a bore, the third a pedant, and the forth a fool. She rejects the lot, while Matea loves them all. The play becomes metatheater when a literary contest initiated by Gibaja turns into a mirror of all the characters. The reversal is complete as Serafina tries to choose one of the suitors and is rejected by all, and Matea becomes the disdainful, rejecting one. Dishonor Leaves No Room for Jealousy [Donde hay agravios no hay celos] has been a very popular, highly praised, and imitated comedy for its wellordered plot, excellent characterization, and comic situations. Referring to this work, Cotarelo was prompted to write: "Rojas had a special talent for creating ridiculous characters, in that respect he outdid other dramatists" ["Poseyo Rojas especialidad en fantascar caracteres ridiculos, en lo que sobrepujo a los demas dramaticos"] (121). The particularly attractive device of the work is the exchange of roles by master and his servant, Sancho, who provides another good example of the figuron. It was often played in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and was recast by Hartzenbusch in the nineteenth century as El amo criado. It was adapted in French by Paul Scarron as Jodelet ou le maitre valet, which formed the basis of The Man's the Master (1669) by William D'Averant. The fact that religion provided important dramatic themes in Spain's Golden Age—and even more so because of the royal deaths and subsequent theatrical ban during several years—may have given some impetus to Rojas' productions of sacramental plays and the five full-length dramas on religious topics. In the former category he wrote nothing remarkable and not much in the latter category. The two that have attracted attention are Life in the Tomb [La vida en el ataiid], edited by MacCurdy, and Saint Isabel, Queen of Portugal [Santa Isabel,
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reina de Portugal] edited by Armando Teixeira Carneiro. La vida merits comment for the creation of the heroine, Aglaes, called by MacCurdy the most voluptuous of all Rojas' heroines, and for one of the most sensual scenes in Spanish drama, at the beginning of the third act, as dawn breaks on Aglaes and the soon-to-be-martyred Bonifacio. The religious element is thoroughly subordinated to the secular La vida (1968, xlviii-1). Rojas also wrote dramas that are cited by some as precursors to the vogue of plays about magic in the eighteenth century. The plays were probably intended to employ the theatrical machinery introduced into the comedia by Cosme Lotti. One of these plays is Medea's Sorcery [Los encantos de Medea]. Although the plot is one of great tragedy, when it is dramatized as the conflict between maternal love and desire for revenge, this treatment is more travesty of this idea than tragedy. MacKenzie cites this work as one of Rojas' worst, "en cuyo laberinto fantastico de gongorismos perdemos inevitablemente el hilo del significado dramatico" [in whose fantastic labyrinth of Gongorisms we inevitably lose the thread of meaning] {Francisco. . . Andlisis, 20). Medea is consumed through most of the play by thirst for revenge, while the playwright is determined to include as many stage tricks as possible. He includes a flying cloud, an earthquake, a crumbling mountain, and several flying people. Another of these magic plays is What the Marques of Villena Wanted to See [Lo que el marques de Villena queria ver]. MacCurdy dismissed this play as one "about which little need be said" (1968, 130), partly because it is very episodic. However, it has several noteworthy features. One of these is the character of the title, the marques of Villena, a figure from Spain's history and the subject of a play by Alarcon: The Cave of Salamanca [La cueva de Salamanca]. Another is the attention to stage effects with a magic mirror and a double stage, both of which fly away ("Da un golpe con el baculo Fulgencio y buelan a la par los dos tablados con todas las personas"), effects that led Shergold to believe that it was written for a palace performance (365). While the woman dressed as a man [mujer vestida de hombre] was a ubiquitous figure on the Spanish Golden Age stage, this is the only play of Rojas' to include such a female protagonist. Rojas' least successful theme was novelistic. Of these five plays only The Rival Houses of Verona [Los bandos de Verona] has been given a separate edition (by Herbert Koch, 1953). The play suffers by comparison with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and also from a redirection from the serious theme to the comic by the strong part provided for the comic, Guardainfante, perhaps included because of the occasion (Friedman, 93). There is also a comic scene featuring the gracioso-comic in the tomb. This drama, like Lope's version, Castelvines y Monteses, saves the lovers at the end. CRITICAL RESPONSE Del rey abajo, ninguno is an honor play that has long been accounted one of the masterpieces of Spanish theater MacCurdy places it in the category of du-
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bious authorship because it deviates from the usual proportion and distribution of poetic forms, and for its various dramaturgical traits (MacCurdy, 1957, 7-9). He does not exclude the possibility that Rojas wrote the play in collaboration. The hero, Garcia de Castanar, who is a noble disguised as a peasant, mistakes the king's emissary, Don Mendo, for the king himself. One evening while Garcia is hunting. Mendo enters the bedchamber of Blanca, Garcia's wife, in an attempt to seduce her. Garcia returns unexpectedly, discovering Mendo in the room. Believing him to be the king, he allows him to leave. Garcia must protect his honor, and since he cannot take the king's life, he decides to kill Blanca. She escapes to the protection of the queen. When Garcia arrives at court, he discovers his error and takes his revenge on Mendo, killing him. When the king learns of his nobility, he pardons Garcia and accepts his support for his war against the Moors. Two earlier plays bear significant resemblance to this play: Lope's Peribdfiez and The Peasant in His Corner [El villano en su rincon]. It is similar to both in its glorification of country life in contrast to city-court life. As well, Lope's hero and Garcia are alike in their great devotion to the king. Bruce Wardropper has described very well the poetic world of the play, emphasizing the use of dramatic material common to the comedia in a fresh, new way and showing the way to later studies of this world. Eduardo Urbina has elucidated the importance of the images of sun versus darkness and their synonyms in stating and resolving the love and honor problems of the play. Raymond Conlon has continued this appreciation by explaining how the animal imagery connected with the villain, Mendo, not only establishes his essence but also is involved integrally in the poetic construction of the whole play. The continuing studies of the work confirm the long-standing critical appraisal of the play as one of the most important of the period. Many say that Rojas' fame should rest on his tragedies, often considered the best of the period (MacCurdy, Francisco . . . Tragedy, 23-24). Reevaluations in the twentieth century reverse this opinion. Ruiz Ramon has stated that "Rojas ha creado esplendidas comedias, pero no esplendidas tragedias" [Rojas has created splendid comedies, but not splendid tragedies] (346). Duncan Moir believes that not enough attention has been paid to his comedies, "which are, in the main, better [than his tragedies]" (Moir and Wilson, 130). Entre bobos anda el juego is generally considered Rojas' best comedy. The title is a part of a proverb that ends "y eran todos fulleros," which may be translated, including the ending, as "all the players were fools, and cardsharps too" (Larson, 156). Part of the inspiration for it came from a play by Alonso de Castillo Solorzano, The Marques of Cigarral [El marques del Cigarral]. Don Lucas is the wealthy, but wildly grotesque, protagonist-^zgwrdrc, described by his servant as bowlegged, bald, swarthy, unkempt, a bad poet and liar, foolish, and a miser. He is accompanied by an equally unusual sister, Dona Alfonsa. The beautiful lady of the piece, Dona Isabel, is betrothed to him, even though she is in love with his poor cousin, Pedro. The body of the work centers on Pedro and Isabel's attempts or refusals to communicate and her desire to avoid Don
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Luis, another grotesque suitor, and marriage to Don Lucas. This figuron turns the tables on the lovers at the end, getting his revenge by blessing their union with poverty. The play exemplifies Rojas' comic talent in his gift for caricature and ability to manipulate language, here especially in a burlesque of the social milieu that is also a biting criticism of it. As stated in the title of the play, all of the players are fools; that is, all lose. Don Lucas has only his revenge, while Isabel and Pedro will be married but miserable in their lack of money, essential in the society. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Collections Primera parte de las comedias de Don Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla. Madrid: Maria de Quinones, 1640. Segunda parte de las comedias de Don Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla. Madrid: Francisco Martinez, 1645. Comedias escogidas de Don Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla. Ed. Ramon de Mesonero Romanos. Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles 54 Madrid: M. Rivadeneira, 1861. Teatro. Ed. Raymond R. MacCurdy. Clasicos Castellanos 153. Madrid EspasaCalpe, 1961. {Del rey abajo, ninguno and Entre bobos anda el juego). Los bandos de Verona. Ed. Herbert Koch. Halle: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1953. Cada cual lo que le toca y La vina de Nabot. Ed. Americo Castro. Teatro Antiguo Espanol II. Madrid: Junta para Ampliation de Estudios e Investigaciones Cientfficas, Centro de Estudios Historicos/Sucesores de Hernando, 1917.
Plays Entre bobos anda el juego. In Spanish Drama of the Golden Age, ed. Raymond R. MacCurdy. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1972, 511-72. Garcia del Castanar. Ed. J. W. Barker. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970. Del rey abajo, ninguno, el labrador mas honrado, Garcia del Castanar. Ed. Brigitte Wittmann. Salamanca: Anaya, 1970. Del rey abajo, ninguno, o el labrador mas honrado, Garcia del Castanar. Ed. Jean Testas. Madrid: Editorial Castalia, 1971. Donde hay agravios no hay zelos. Ed. Brigitte Wittmann. Geneva: Droz; Paris: Minard, 1962. Entre bobos anda el juego. Ed. Maria Grazia Profeti. Madrid: Taurus, 1984. Lucrecia y Tarquino. Ed. Raymond R. MacCurdy. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1963. Morir pensando matar and La vida en el ataiid. Ed. Raymond R. MacCurdy. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1961. Numancia cercada. Numancia destruida. Ed. Raymond R. MacCurdy. Madrid: Porrua Turanzas, 1977. Obligados y ofendidos, y gorron de Salamanca. Ed. Raymond R. MacCurdy. Salamanca: Anaya, 1963.
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Santa Isabel, reina de Portugal. Ed. Armando Teixeira Carneiro. Arquivo Coimbrdo Vols. 19-20 (1964): 335-425.
Critical Studies Briesemeister, Dietrich. "El horror y su funcion en algunas tragedias de Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla" (Horror and Its Function in Some Tragedies by Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla.) Criticon 23 (1983): 159-75. Busquets. Loreto. "Lucrecia y Tarquino, o el conflicto entre el fin y los medios" {Lucrecia y Tarquino, or the Conflict between the End and the Means.) Nueva Revista de Filologia Hispdnica 39.2 (1991): 977-1004. Caldera, Ermanno. "Solitudine dei personaggi di Rojas' " (Loneliness of Rojas' Characters.) Studi Ispanici 1 (1962): 37-60. Cafias Murillo, Jesus. "Unidad en la dualidad: la segunda action en Cada cual lo que le toca, de Rojas Zorrilla" (Unity in Duality: The second Action in Cada cual lo que le toca.) Anales de Estudios Filologicos 4 (1981): 39-54. Castro, Americo. "Obras mal atribuidas a Rojas Zorrilla" (Works Erroneously attributed to Rojas Zorrilla.) Revista de Filologia Espanola 3 (1916): 66-68. Conlon, Raymond. "Animal Symbolism and the Characterization of Mendo in Rojas Zorrilla's Del rey abajo, ninguno." Bulletin of the Comediantes 40.1 (Summer 1988): 13-23. . "Mendo as Social Enemy in Rojas Zorrilla's Del rey abajo, ninguno." CriticaHispdnica 12.1-2 (1991): 65-74. Cotarelo y Mori, Emilio. Don Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla, noticias biogrdficas y bibliogrdficas (Biographical and Bibliographical Notes.) Madrid: Imprenta de la Revista de Archivos, 1911. Cruickshank, D. W. "Rojas Zorrilla's Lucrecia y Tarquino: The Date and Printer of the First Known Edition." Modern Language Notes 92 (1977): 329-31. Elejabeitia, Ana. "La transmision textual de La mas hidalga hermosura" (The Textual Transmission of La mas hidalga hermosura.) Letras de Deusto 51 (1991): 5365. Friedman, Edward H. "Romeo and Juliet as Tragicomedy: Lope's Castelvines y Monteses and Rojas Zorrilla's Los bandos de Verona." Bucknell Review 33.1 (1989): 8296. Fucilla, Joseph G. "Sobre las fuentes de Del rey abajo, ninguno" (About the Sources of Del rey abajo, ninguno.) Nueva Revista de Filolgia Hispdnica 5 (1951): 381— 93. . "Lucrecia—necia." (Dumb Lucrecia.) Hispanic Review 15 (1947): 120-36. Gonzalez, Cristina. "Sobre Del rey abajo ninguno" (About Del rey abajo ninguno.) Bulletin of the Comediantes 32 (1980): 49-53. Gouldson. Kathleen. "Seventeenth-Century Spain as Seen in the Drama of Rojas Zorrilla." Bulletin of Spanish Studies 16 (1939): 168-81. . "Religion and Superstition in the Plays of Rojas Zorrilla." Bulletin of Spanish Studies 17 (1940): 116-26. Granja, Agustin de la. "Una carta con indicaciones escenicas para el autor de comedias Roque de Figueroa" (A Letter with Scenic Indications for the Comedia Author Roque de Figueroa.) Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispdnicos 17.2 (Winter 1993): 383-88.
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Howe, Elizabeth Teresa. "Del rey abajo, ninguno and menosprecio de la corte Reconsidered." Journal of Hispanic Philology 9 (1985): 133^-6. Julio, Maria Teresa. "Planteamientos de la trama en el teatro de Rojas Zorrilla" (Establishment of Plot in the Theater of Rojas Zorrilla.) Anuari de Filologia 15 (1992): 59-72. Lancaster, H. C. "The Ultimate Source of Rotrou's Venceslas and of Rojas Zorrilla's No hay ser padre siendo rey." Modern Philology 15 (1917-18): 435-40. Larson, Catherine. "Grice's Maxiums and Rojas Zorrilla's Entre bobos anda el juego." In Language and the Comedia: Theory and Practice. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell UP, 1991. MacCurdy, Raymond R. "A Note on Rojas Zorrilla's gracioso Guardainfante." Bulletin of the Comediantes 6 (1954): l^k . "Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla." Bulletin of the Comediantes 9 (Spring 1957): 7-9. . Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla. New York: Twayne, 1968. . Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla: bibliografia critica (Critical Bibliography.) Cuadernos Bibliogrdficos. Vol. 18. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1965. . Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla and the Tragedy. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1958; reprinted 1966. . "More on 'The gracioso Takes the Audience into His Confidence': The Case of Rojas Zorrilla." Bulletin of the Comediantes 8 (1956): 15-16. . "Rojas Zorrilla's gracioso and the Renunciation of Honor." Studies in Honor of Gerald E. Wade. Madrid: Porrua Turanzas, 1979, 167-77. . "The Bathing Nude in Spanish Golden Age Drama." Romance Notes 2 (1959): 1-4.
. "The Numantia Plays of Cervantes and Rojas Zorrilla: The Shift from Collective to Personal Tragedy." Symposium 14 (1960): 100-120. . "The Spanish Sources of Paul Scarron's Jodelet duelliste." In Hispanic Studies in Honor of Nicholson B. Adams. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966. . "Two Instances of Rojas Zorrilla's Parody of Spanish Ballads." Homenage a Rodriguez-Monino. Vol. 1. Madrid: Editorial Castalia, 1966, 367-70. . "Women and Sexual Love in the Plays of Rojas Zorrilla: Tradition and Innovation." Hispania 62 (1979): 255-65. MacKenzie, Ann L. "A Study in Dramatic Contrasts. The Siege of Antwerp in Alarum for London and El saco de Amberes." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 59 (1983): 283-300. . "£/ saco de Amberes, comedia falsamente atribuida a Calderon. ^Es de Rojas Zorrilla?" {The Sack of Antwerp, a Play Falsely Attributed to Calderon. Is It Rojas Zorrilla's?) Hacia Calderon. Sexto Coloquio Anglogermano. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1983, 151-68. . "Examen de El monstruo de la fortuna: comedia compuesta por Calderon (I), Perez de Montalban (II), y Rojas Zorrilla (III)" (An Examination of The Monster of Fortune: A play Composed by Calderon, Perez de Montalban, and Rojas Zorrilla.) Hacia Calderon. Tercer Coloquio Anglogermano. Merlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1976, 110-25.
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. Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla y Agustin Moreto: Andlisis (Analysis.) Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1994. . ' 'Velez de Guevara as Dramatic Collaborator, with Specific Reference to Tambien la afrenta es veneno (I Velez, II Coello, III Rojas Zorrilla)." In Antiguedad y actualidad de Luis Velez de Guevara: Estudios criticos, ed. C. George Peale et al. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1983, 182-202. Martinez Vidal, Enrique. "Katharsis and Comic Relief in Rojas Zorrilla's Progne y Filomena; Estudios miscelaneos, I." In Josep Maria Sola-Sole: Homage, homenaje, homenatge: Misceldnea de estudios de amigos y discipulos, ed. Antonio Torres Alcala, Victoria Aguera, and Nathaniel B. Smith. Barcelona: Puvill Libros, 1984, 85-90. McVay, Ted E., Jr. "Loss, Language and Politics in Two Golden Age Works: The Progne y Filomena Plays of Guillen de Castro and Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla." In Looking at the "Comedia" in the Year of the Quincentenary, ed. Barbara Mujica and Sharon D. Voros. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1993. Moir, Duncan. "Notes on the Significance and Text of Rojas Zorrilla's Cada cual lo que le toca.'' Studies in Spanish Literature of the Golden Age Presented to Edward M. Wilson. London: Tamesis Books, 1973, 149-59. . Theatro de los theatros de los passados y presentes siglos (Theater of Theaters in Past and Present Centuries.) Prologue, notes, and edition by Duncan Moir. London: Tamesis Books, 1970. Moir, Duncan, and Edward M. Wilson. The Golden Age: Drama 1492-1700, A Literary History of Spain. Vol. 3. London: Ernest Benn; New York: Barnes and Noble, 1971. Ortigoza Vieyra, Carlos. "Del rey abajo ninguno de Rojas Zorrilla estudiada a traves de sus moviles" {Del rey abajo ninguno Studied through Its Motives.) Bulletin of the Comediantes 9 (1957): 1^-. Peter, Arthur. Des Don Francisco de Rojas Tragodie "Casarse por vengarse" und ihre Bearbeitungen in den anderen Literraturen (Casarse por vengarse and Its Presence in Other Literatures.) Dresden: Lehmannsche Buchdruckerei, 1898. Powers, Harriet B. "The Grotesque Vision of Rojas Zorrilla." Bulletin of the Comediantes 23 (1971): 1-6. Reichenberger, Arnold G "Rojas Zorrilla's Del rey abajo, ninguno as Spat-Comedia" {Del rey abajo, ninguno as a Late Play.) Stil-und Formprobleme in der Literatur. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1959, 194-200. . "Recent Publications concerning Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla." Hispanic Review 32(1964): 351-59. Rodriguez-Puertolas, Julio. "Alienation y realidad en Rojas Zorrilla." Bulletin Hispanique 69 (1967): 325-46. Roig, Adrien. "Une Manifestation de catalanophilie litreraire: El catalon Serrallonga, comedia de tres ingenios." (A Manifestation of a Literary Fan of Catalufia: El catalon Serrallonga, comedy by three authors). Melanges de la Casa de Velasquez 26.2 (1990): 153-70. Ruiz Ramon, Francisco. Historia del teatro espanol (desde sus origenes hasta 1900) (History of the Spanish Theater [Origins to 1900]. Madrid: Alienza Editorial, 1967. Shergold, N. D. A History of the Spanish Stage from Medieval Times until the End of the Seventeenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967.
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Stoll, Anita K. "La Gran Comedia de La Baltasara by Tres Ingenios de la Corte." Bulletin of the Comediantes 48.2 (Winter 1996): 329-38. Sureda, Francis. "Algunas tragedias del Siglo de Oro ante el publico valenciano del XVIII" (Some Tragedies of the Golden Age before the Valencian Public of the Eighteenth Century.) Criticon 23 (1983): 117-27. Testas, Jean. "Le Feminisme de Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla" (The Feminism of Rojas Zorrilla.) Melanges offerts a Charles Vincent Aubrun, Vol. 2, ed. H. Vidal Sephiha. Paris: Editions Hispaniques, 1975, 303-22. Ullman, Pierre. "A Theme of Del rey abajo, ninguno, and Its Analogy with limpieza de sangre." Romanic Review 57 (1965): 25-34. Urbina, Eduardo. "Eclipse real: Sol y sombra en Del rey abajo, ninguno" (Royal Eclipse: Sun and Shadow in Del rey abajo, ninguno.) Bulletin of the Comediantes 36.1 (Summer 1984): 101-10. Van Antwerp, Margaret A. "El fenix es: The Symbolic Structure of Del rey abajo, ninguno. " Hispanic Review 47 (1979): 441-54. Wardropper, Bruce W. "The Poetic World of Rojas Zorrilla's Del rey abajo, ninguno." Romanic Review 52 (1961): 161-72. Welles, Marcia. "Rojas Zorrilla's Lucrecia y Tarquino: 'The Taming of Lucretia': Or, the Staging of Perverse Desire." Romance Languages Annual 3 (1991): 622-29. Whitaker, Shirley B. "La Baltasara in Performance, 1634-35: Reports from the Tuscan Embassy." In Antigiiedad y actualidad de Luis Velez de Guevara: Estudios criticos, ed. C. George Peale et al. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1983, 203-6. Whitby, William M. ' 'Appearance and Reality in Del rey abajo, ninguno.'' Hispania 42 (1959): 186-91. Wiltrout, Ann E. "The comedia as Pastiche: Rojas Zorrilla's Lo que queria ver el marques de Villena." In Los hallazgos de la lectura: Estudio dedicado a Miguel Enguidanos, ed. John Crispin, Enrique Pupo Walker, and Luis Lorenzo-Rivero. Madrid: Porrua Turanzas, 1989. Wittman, Brigitte. "Falscher Lorbeer fur Rojas Zorrilla?" (False Fame for Rojas Zorrilla?) Iberoromania 1 (1969): 261-68.
LOPE DE RUEDA (15107-1565?)
Sharon D. Voros
BIOGRAPHY The ingenious gold beater [an artisan who beats gold into sheets or leaves] from Seville, Lope de Rueda, performed actively as an actor/author in the Iberian Peninsula for a period of twenty-five years, from 1540 to 1565.1 The date of his birth is uncertain but is within the first two decades of the sixteenth century.2 Since his biographical information hinges on the imprecise and even contradictory, the transition from batihoja [(gold) leaf-beater] artisan3 to playwright has been the subject of scholarly debate that involves the entire history of comedia and the earliest professional companies. Even authorship of Lazarillo de Tormes has been attributed to him in the early twentieth century (Hermenegildo, 1985, 9-10), given the inclusion of lower classes in his works. Yet, in this era that predates the corrales or established playhouses, artisans, tradesmen, dancers, and musicians joined the ranks of itinerant acting troupes, employed on the spot, as Lope de Rueda himself often did (Shergold, 157). There is no agreement on how Rueda received his training as an actor. Shergold argues that since the Italian company of Mutio was operating in Spain by 1538, Rueda could have possibly learned the performance techniques from him (151). Manuel Diago, however, presents a more convincing argument that since Rueda's first contact with acting was in religious plays, he learned his craft there. The first documented notice on the actor/author is from Seville during the Corpus Christi celebrations in 1542 and in 1543.4 Cesar Oliva also rejects the argument that Rueda learned his stagecraft from the Italians, since the commedia delVarte did not arrive in Spain until 1574, six years after Rueda's death.5 Further, abundant information exists on Rueda's involvement with religious theater, not just the salons of the nobility or the public square (Shergold, 154). He even received an acting award for his performances in Corpus Christi plays (Diago, 44). Rueda's two marriages give further documentation for his biography. Shergold (155-56), Hermenegildo (1985, 10), and Diago (48) discuss his lawsuit
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against the heirs of the Duke of Medinaceli regarding Rueda's wife, the singer and dancer Mariana, who had been in the duke's service for six years. Rueda had been married in 1551 or 1552 (Hermenegildo, 1985, 10), and the lawsuit, dated 1554 in Valladolid, claims Mariana's wages (Shergold, 156).6 Of the witnesses interviewed, Pedro de Montiel, who identifies himself as a silk-weaver/ actor (Diago, 48), gives further proof that the early professional theater companies often drew on artisans as members of the acting company. Rueda lived in Valladolid from 1551 to 1559 and even entertained Prince Philip in 1551 (Hermenegildo, 13). Later, the future Philip II saw Rueda's company perform in 1554 in the house of the Count of Benavente (Shergold, 154), as his reputation as an actor/playwright grew. The play was a biblical one, with comic interludes,7 further evidence that religious works often furnished entertainment for the public. Rueda probably learned his keen sense of comedy and farce not only from the Italians but from a Castilian folk tradition of popular spectacle. By 1561, Rueda had married his second wife, Angela Rafaela Trilles, in Valencia, where he met his future editor, also a playwright, Juan de Timoneda (Shergold, 158; Diago, 46).8 Documentation on performances of this period include many autos for Corpus Christi festivals in Toledo, Seville, and Valladolid (Hermenegildo, 15). In 1561, Shergold cites a debt that Rueda incurred before traveling to Valencia, for which he had to leave clothes behind (158), attesting to the precarious life of the actor/manager/author. Hermenegildo cites his service to the royal family in Madrid in 1563 (15). Even in death, Lope de Rueda is the subject of conjecture. His death occurred between 1565 and 1567, the date of the publication of his works in Valencia. Hermenegildo, realizing that the church condemned the disorderly life of actors, considers his burial in the Iglesia Mayor de Cordoba a tribute to his fame (18), while Diago views that Rueda's constant involvement with religious drama, not just the comic interludes, explains his interment with such honor. DRAMATURGY: MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES While Lope de Rueda's dramatic production is not prolific (Hermenegildo, 1985, 25), his work can be categorized into three types: comic interludes, comedies, and colloquies. Best known for the comic interludes known as pasos, for which at least twenty-four are of his authorship,9 he was not the first to perform comic scenes. Yet, Rueda so perfected and popularized the genre that he is considered "el padre del paso espanol" [the father of the Spanish interlude] (Listerman 1988, 27).10 Rueda authored four comedies in prose, adapted from Italian sources modeled after the commedia erudita [erudite comedy], Comedia Eufemia, Comedia Armelina, Comedia de los enganados [the deceived ones], and Comedia Medora.u All four comedies, in urban settings, include brief, comic interludes to delight and entertain the public; they perhaps even allow a practical side in early stage management so that actors can change clothes between scenes, thus avoiding an empty stage and keeping the stage momentum
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going (Oliva, 68). Finally, Rueda produced a series of colloquies in pastoral settings, with shepherds as main characters, a subject of praise from Cervantes (Hermenegildo, 1985, 17-18). All three categories, however, include the main stock character of the interludes, the ever-popular simpleton, including a wide range of types, servants, lackeys, pages, country bumpkins, and black slaves. Timoneda found the pasos adaptable enough for other actor/authors to include them in their own dramatic works, although, for this reason, Rueda may have been reluctant to publish any of his works in his lifetime (Shergold, 154).12 Since Lope de Rueda is most noted for his creation of comic characters, including minority characters such as gypsies and blacks, both in his pasos and his four comedias, emphasis in this study focuses on these. In his analysis of the distribution of roles in each comedy, Othon Arroniz concludes that Rueda himself played many of these roles, such as Guiomar, the black servant, and Crivello, the lackey, in Los engaitados,13 who delivers the customary closing statement begging the audience's forgiveness for any flaws. In a 1985 performance of Medora by the Venezuelan theater company Tiempo Comun [Common Time] at the Siglo de Oro [Golden Age] Theater Festival at the Chamizal National Memorial in El Paso, Texas, the director, Hugo Marquez, played the key role of the lackey Gargullo, who also holds the privileged position of closing the play. Thus, Rueda's contribution to Spanish dramaturgy lies not only in his verbal wit and lively dialogue but also in those intangible aspects of the acting profession often implicit or explicit in the text, such as popular gestural codes, disguises, and manipulation of gender codes; the simpleton Pajares, for example, gets laughs for his absurd explanation for dressing in a woman's basquina [skirt]: his clothes are being washed, since he took a spill. While the term caer [to fall] is bantered around, it was probably accompanied by some spirited pushing and shoving to delight the audience {Los enganados, 151).14 All pasos are in prose (Gonzalez Olle, 34) and are about 400 lines long (Listerman, 1988, 24). Thematically, comic effects in the interludes center on the misunderstandings of the simpleton, as in the case of Rueda's most famous paso, Las aceitunas [The Olives]. Rueda could have been familiar with the folktale of La lechera, reworked in El Conde Lucanor as Dona Truhana (Gonzalez Olle, 45), in which the milkmaid mentally spends the money from the milk she has not yet sold, only to have it spill.15 Similarly, in Las Aceitunas, the simpleton Toruvio speculates about the olives produced from the trees he has just planted. The hardships of peasant life, coming in soaking wet from the field, firewood so wet it won't light, scarcity of food, all would bespeak a more serious tone, if it were not for the ensuing argument between husband and wife over the price to be asked for olives their daughter Menciguela will get, six or seven years from now (Gonzalez Olle, 180). The mother wants to charge more, the father, less, since the amotazen or almotazen [market inspector] (Listerman, 68)16 will take them to task for overcharging (180). When the mother starts beating her daughter, a neighbor, Aloxa, enters, a role probably played by Rueda himself, since this
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character closes the play.17 The neighbor discovers that the olives are a mere fantasy and that the argument, causing such grief for the daughter, is based on nothing more than an illusion. The notion of illusion created verbally on the stage, in which words are interpreted as reality, carries over into many theatrical works of the Spanish Golden Age, most notably within this genre of the entremes, Cervantes' El retablo de las maravillas. In the four comedies, the themes of illusion, deception, mistaken identity, and questionable virtue emerge. In three of the plays, Eufemia, Los enganados, and Medora, brother-sister pairs are the main characters, fraternal twins in the last two works. In Armelina, a blacksmith, Pascual Crespo, having lost a son, has accepted Armelina as his daughter. Viana, Armelina's father, has cared for Crespo's son Justo, unaware of his origins, and declared him his sole heir. Connections with supernatural figures such as Neptune, who intervenes to reveal true identity, attest to the popularity, early on, of the mythological themes that occur in later Golden Age works. These supernatural appearances also might be staging devices from religious performances, for which Rueda was also known. In Eufemia, Rueda's longest play, twenty-nine folios in the original Timoneda edition of 1567 (Arroniz, 125), the situation of lost feminine virtue borders on tragedy. The story, a lie created by the false testimony of a scheming rival, is another example of dramatic discourse mistaken for truth. In Los enganados, brother-sister twins are separated at birth during the chaos of the Sack of Rome in 1527. When the sister dresses as a man to pursue her would-be husband, she is mistaken for her brother, who arrives in town as a stranger. Medora uses a similar theme, in that brother-sister twins are separated at birth when a gypsy steals the boy and replaces him with her own mortally ill son. Years later, the gypsy returns, only to find her son is mistaken for a local beauty, his own sister, as it turns out. Identity and virtue, then, become the basis for illusion creation on Rueda's stage. These four plays, along with the comic interludes, constitute the main corpus of Rueda's literary production, available in recent editions. In Eufemia, the brother Leonardo has left home in search of fortune,18 and the titular heroine is left to do ' 'aquello que las virtuosas y sabias donzellas que del amparo paterno han sido desposeidas y apartadas suelen hazer'' [that which all virtuous and wise young ladies who from paternal protection have been dispossessed and estranged often do], in other words, remain at home behind closed doors (80 [All quotations from the comedias are from the Hermenegildo edition, Las cuatro comedias: Lope de Rueda, 1985.]). Themes of envy and defamation emerge. When Leonardo becomes the secretary of the noble Valiano (90), the servant Paulo invents a lie that he has seduced Eufemia, whose beauty and intelligence have been so praised by her brother. As proof, Paulo presents a hair, and not a whole one at that, "un pedaco de cabello" [a piece of hair], from the lady's beauty mark on her left shoulder. Since Valiano has shown interest in Eufemia, he feels betrayed and vows revenge against the traitorous brother (102). In reality, Eufemia's maid Cristina gave the hair and the anatomical information to the scheming Paulo, who wished to eliminate his rival the
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"avenidizo Leonardo" [the upstart Leonardo] (107). Eufemia goes in person to plead before Valiano that Paulo has conspired against her brother, with her maid as witness to the deception. Her bravery in telling the truth saves the day. In Armelina, the shortest play in the original edition, the least favored by critics for its mixture of mythological, mundane elements (Arroniz, 126), establishes the theme of lost children and forced marriages. Armelina's titular heroine, the tutor Viana's daughter, is taken away because of a cruel stepmother, captured by pirates, and sold into slavery. She ends up in the hands of the blacksmith Pascual Crespo, whose lost son Justo is Viana's charge. Armelina, betrothed against her will to the shoemaker Diego de Cordoba, escapes. Justo, in the meantime, smitten by the shy Armelina, spends time trying to catch a glimpse of her, oblivious to her low rank. Rueda uses supernatural intervention, first with Medea to reveal to Viana that his daughter resides in this city and then with Neptune to reveal to Armelina, called Florentina, her true identity. When Pascual has Justo arrested as an intruder, Neptune as deus ex machina reveals that Justo is his son. Armelina marries Justo, and Guadalupe, the simpleton, probably played by Rueda himself, closes the play. Los enganados and Medora, like Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, use fraternal twins, brother and sister, indistinguishable in male attire. With Los enganados, the woman, dressed as a man, becomes a stock figure in Spanish Golden Age dramaturgy.19 Both plays are about the same length in the 1567 edition, twentyfour folios for Los enganados and twenty-three folios for Medora. In Los enganados, Verginio flees to Modena after losing his estate after the Sack of Rome. Lelia, his daughter, is sent to a convent, but she has other plans: she is in love with Lauro. The forced marriage theme reappears; Verginio agrees to marry Lelia to the wealthy Gerardo. She dresses as a man, calls herself Fabio, and, as his page, chases after Lauro, now romancing Gerardo's daughter, Clavela. Verginio's lost son Fabricio (155) arrives in Modena (167), unbeknownst to his family. Fabio/Lelia resembles him so much that the two siblings are mistaken for one another. Of course, Clavela is attracted to Fabio/Lelia (156), another comedic situation that has transcendence into Spanish dramaturgy. The first confusion scene occurs in the street when Verginio, searching for his disguised daughter, sees Fabricio: "Topado a Sancho con su rocin" [Sancho has found his old nag], a proverbial saying Cervantes picked up (Hermenegildo, 255). The maid Julieta mistakes Fabricio for Lauro's "page" Fabio, leaving the bewildered boy to wonder if the innkeeper Frula (168), another of Rueda's roles (Arroniz, 87), was right about Modena being a city of deceit (171). When Fabio/ Lelia is accused of intruding into Clavela's house and embracing her, Marcelo, her servant and protector, reveals the truth of the disguise. Lauro claims he will marry her (179), but Fabricio alone makes the final scene, since the male/female twin role is played by the same actress, probably Rueda's wife, Mariana.20 In Medora, the separation of fraternal twins, Angelica and Medoro, also reappears as a thematic situation initiator. Gypsies steal Medoro and place their own sick child in his place. The gypsy child dies, thus eliminating all knowledge of
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the real Medoro. Like Los enganados, Medora brings in cross-dressing as a theatrical guise. Medoro dons female attire when the gypsy company returns to his birthplace. Mistaken identities abound, for Medoro, as Medora, resembles his sister Angelica, whose suitor Casandro confuses them. The play opens with Angelica as the rebellious daughter wishing, as does many a Calderonian heroine, to flee her overprotective parents' "prison" (188). Rueda introduces another theme, from his interlude, Cornudo y contento, adultery, but this time, the transgressor is the father figure, Acario. Gargullo, his lackey, another of Rueda's roles, is the go-between with the maid Estela. The scene switches to Medoro's encounter with Casandro, whom he rebukes for addressing him in such a familiar manner, just as the gypsy, a male role, intervenes (201). The gypsy seeks Medoro's parents and hopes to be paid for raising their son (205). The gypsy tricks Gargullo out of the gold chain given to him by his master, a cape, and a shield (216). The theme of speculating on wealth before it is attained, from Las aceitunas, has its reinvention here as well. The gypsy, responsible for the revelation scene that concludes the play, tells the tale of Medoro, and the identifying birthmark on his forehead confirms his parentage. Angelica has married Casandro in secret, and all sins are forgiven. CRITICAL RESPONSE Critical appraisals of Lope de Rueda begin with his contemporaries, especially Miguel de Cervantes, who praise his abilities as a performer. While Hermenegildo points out the frequency with which Cervantes emphasizes the term representar [to perform] in describing Rueda's artistic merits, he also comments on his witticisms, the roles he played, and even his stage props (17). Taking his cue from Agustin de Rojas' El viaje entretenido, Hermenegildo views Rueda as the principal founder of professional theater and initiator of the performance tradition in Spain (19).21 Carroll B. Johnson (95) and Manuel Diago (51) interpret the famous Cervantine commentary as a critique against Lope de Vega,22 for praise of the actor/author was really a means of establishing Rueda as the creator of the "new" theater, instead of Lope de Vega, although Lope himself credits Rueda as at least as one of the initiators (Diago, 42).23 Juan Rufo says that Rueda never leaves the inn, a comment that Diago interprets not as an attack on the abilities of the Sevillian actor/author but as evidence of the little economic gain in the acting profession (Diago, 50).24 Evidence produced by Shergold of Rueda's debt status certainly confirms this assumption (158). Recent criticism rejects the notion that Rueda is a mere slavish imitator of Italian models, although some scholars still accept the notion,25 especially as regards his acting techniques as influenced by stage practices of the commedia dell'arte. While Italian plays constitute the basis for his dramatic production in the four comedies, Rueda probably read these works instead of seeing them performed (Oliva, 67), since historical data place direct observation of any kind of organized Italian theater companies and productions after Rueda's death
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(Oliva, 65). Diago produces convincing evidence (44), based on the study of Arroniz (203-6), that the early Italian theater companies were mostly courtly performances, from which Rueda probably received GVIngannati, an anonymous work from the Academia de los Intronati from Siena.26 Interpretations of textual evidence from the comedies have given rise to speculation on Rueda's dramaturgy and stage practices. Hugo Rennert, as does Cotarelo, accepts the closing statement of the Eufemia (Shergold, 161) as proof that Rueda performed in public plazas in the morning, since he invites the public to return to see another play after lunch.27 Rueda's creative streamlining of Italian sources, along with his inclusion of comic interludes and popular stock characters from the lower classes, has provoked accusations among scholars of a kind of "dumbing down" of aristocratic theater.28 Scholars, however, also study Rueda's stagecraft as an innovative Hispanization of his material and his reasons for including Italian themes as crowdpleasers (Oliva, 69). While a systematic reassessment of Rueda's dramatic production to provide a clearer understanding of his dramaturgy is now in progress, it is far from complete, since the majority of studies approach Rueda from a historical point of view29 or from the literary perspective of sources and originality.30 Both Oliva and Diago follow a productive course in Rueda criticism by stressing not just the vital historical data regarding the early Spanish theater but also his handling of the stage. Hermenegildo also provides a dramatic focus in his detailed analysis of the implicit and explicit stage directions in Medora, with which he reevaluates Rueda according to what he does best, perform.31 The frequency distribution in semiotic tables presented in this study privilege the role of Gargullo, the lackey, not a surprising role, then, for an actor/director who probably played it himself, since it allowed him the ' 'presencia constante de Gargullo en la manipulation de otros personajes" [the constant presence of Gargullo in the manipulation of other characters] (Hermenegildo, 1989, 170). This kind of analysis of the semiotics of performance provides documentary results that clarify Rueda's stagecraft and furnish a deeper understanding of his dramaturgy with empirical, statistically verifiable data. Theater companies themselves have not neglected Rueda, as witnessed by the live performances at the Siglo de Oro [Golden Age] Theater Festival Chamizal National Memorial in El Paso, Texas, held annually in March.32 My own critical comments center on Medora as a performance text characteristic of the complex structure in Lope de Rueda's combination of an Italian source and a Hispanic paso. As Hermenegildo has pointed out, when we analyze Rueda's writing as a play text, it becomes clear that he has produced significant evidence of a dynamic acting tradition in early modern Spain, not just imitations of Italian models. Rueda's sense of the stage and his ear for popular, witty speech patterns are perhaps his best legacy to this tradition, for the combining of comic repartee and serious drama furnishes a discursive practice that carries over to Quijote's Sancho or Lope de Vega's gracioso. Using this premise, that Rueda's artistic contributions are more in keeping with stage practice than with
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a purely literary dramatic model, this analysis of Medora and its stagecraft focuses on a role of the key situation initiator, the figure of the gypsy, as both a potential authorial role for stage manipulator/manager and product of an Italianate tradition. La Cingana or zingara by Gigio Arthemio Giancarli, dated 1544, on which Medora is based, means "gypsy" in Italian. While Rueda's keen sense of comic flourishes becomes evident in his adaptation of of this work (Arroniz, 94), he is not the first author to cast the gypsy as a dramatic character. Diago alludes to Gil Vicente as a possible source for Rueda's fortune-telling gypsy (54). The Auto de las gitanas [Gypsy Play], whose performance date is documented as 1521 in Evora, before the King of Portugal, Juan III,33 includes both gypsy women and men, although the work is really only part of an entire evening's court entertainment. Diago also emphasizes the reference in Medora to a bullfight, as does Shergold (161-62), proof that theater involved other sorts of entertainment in Rueda's time as well and was probably quite extensive in early modern Spain. Linguistically, Vicente replaces the o with u, and all ssounds are given a z of the Castilian ceceo [lisp]. Similar to Rueda, these gypsy women, who appear all with names as a group of four, ask for alms, clothes, and other items, praise potential benefactors, dance, and sing. Accompanying them are four male gypsies, all carefully named, who engage in a proverbial horse trade. Gypsy singing and dancing were intended to animate the audience and add to the general merriment of the occasion. Rueda's gypsies, all women played by men, provide not only some of the best examples of witty exchange but also gender confusion and cross-dressing, which have become part of the acting tradition of Spanish comedy and farce. Gypsies appear in two plays, in Eufemia and in a central role in Medora. In Eufemia, the gypsy, the typical fortune-teller, functions to inform Eufemia of the danger for her brother Leonardo. This gypsy performs according to the Vicente paradigm, with lisping, requests for alms, and flattery for the potential giver: "jUna limoznica, cara de oro, cara de siempre novia, daca, que Dioz te haga prosperada y te de lo que desseas, buena cara, buena cara!" [Alms, face of gold, face of the eternal bride, here, may God make you prosperous and give you everything you wish, pretty face, pretty face!] (99). For a small amount of change, the gypsy offers to tell Eufemia's fortune. Flattery quickly turns to insults, exchanged between the maid Cristina, who calls her importuna gente [impertinent person], and the gypsy, who, in turn, calls her pico de urraca [magpie mouth] (99), although the fortune-teller knows enough about deviant servant behavior, maids' secrets, food stolen from her mistress, and mysterious cosmetics in the spice cabinet that she sagaciously wins both maid and mistress over. The information conveyed about the future, impending danger for a loved one far away (100), changes the course of dramatic action. Eufemia, understanding that it could all be a joke, is more depressed than the dark night (101). Just as she debates what course of action to take, after describing the gypsy's words as desconsoladas pronosticos [disconsolate prognostications] that have fired her imagination (103), she receives her brother's letter and sees that the prophetic
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words were true. Again, stage language becomes a dramatic reality, comparable to the structure of Las aceitunas. In Medora, the gypsy holds a more pivotal role, as the principal situation initiator in the Introito [Introduction]. According to Arroniz, the gypsy's speech, peppered with strange words of obscure origin, with Hebrew or Aramaic terms, re-creates a kind of dialect, as in Gil Vicente (102). Arroniz sees Medora, with sixteen characters, as having need of only seven actors (123), since actors had to take more than one role. The gypsy, however, is played by one actor only, as is Gargullo, which also means that Rueda could have played either one of those parts, although not in the same work, since they appear in a key scene together as the paso de la gitana y Gargullo (Hermenegildo, 1985, 23). My assumption is that Rueda could also have played the gypsy role in Eufemia as well, since (s)he appears in only one scene with the two other main female characters, Eufemia and Cristina. In Medora, only the gypsy knows the true identities of the twins, Angelica and Medoro, since she had stolen Medoro as an infant and replaced him with her own sick child. As guardian of key information in the play, the gypsy initiates the plot design, complicates it with her return to Medoro's birthplace, and concludes stage action with the revelation scene, in which all dramatic threads of the plot are brought together for a happy ending. Dramatic models, such as Hermenegildo's approach to this play, as a reconstruction of the actor/director's cuaderno de direccion [prompt book], or Oliva's categorization of the lazzi [impromptu comic routines or exercises], point to the appropriateness of using stagecraft, not literary convention, as the basis for analysis of Lope de Rueda's merit. While Oliva quite accurately states that actors take their art with them to the grave (77), with Medora, Rueda has left a legacy of acting tradition, with the text as pre-text for performance. As Keir Elam has emphasized, language in a dramatic text has the dual function of physical as well as auditory signs.34 While the gypsy in Medora, according to Hermenegildo, is the only character to remain nameless, this in no way diminishes her role as dramatically effective, although Hermenegildo's statistical tables show her to be less manipulative than Gargullo. Her role is indeed codified, as Hermenegildo points out (166), but not exclusively, according to "el discurso social dominante del siglo XVI" [the dominant social discourse of the sixteenth century]. Discursive practice, while certainly an issue in Rueda, also includes staging practice, however. Rueda gives a hint as to how this role is to be performed, in the comic interlude with Gargullo. Stage practice involving gender confusion and cross-dressing explains the dramatic comicality of the gypsy, not just her stereotypical role. In fact, in Medora, the gypsy's role excludes one key element of what could pass for dominant social perspectives on minorities, namely, the gypsy's connection with the supernatural, fortune-telling, or predicting the future. In Medora, comic effect in this role is achieved as it is for Medoro, mistaken for his sister whose existence is unknown to him, by using the stage practice of men dressed as women. In the Hugo Marquez production, no attempt
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was made to make the male actor for Medoro even remotely resemble his beautiful sister, except for the very feminine dress, thus producing another level of self-deprecating sartorial signs. There are allusions in other pasos to this technique, as in Rodrigo de Toro, in which the lackey Gutierre plays a trick on the simpleton Rodrigo by dressing as a woman and claiming he proposed marriage to "her" (Listerman, "Introduction," 93). In Medora, Gargullo says: "jValga el diablo a tan estrano habito! <<Es hombre o muger? Un interprete es menester para entendello" [What in the devil is that strange getup! Is it a man or a woman? You need an interpreter to figure it out]. This statement gives a key with which to unravel some of Rueda's acting techniques and comic impact. Just as the simpleton does not correspond to the historical figure but to a stereotype (Gonzalez Olle, 31), the gypsy involves a dress code of gender confusion upon which the comicality of the figure resides. In the Hugo Marquez production, the role of the gypsy was indeed played by a male actor, indicating a reading of Rueda's performance text as heavily weighted toward this crossdressing convention as a typical crowd-pleaser. With her androgynous role, the gypsy becomes an effective negotiator in renting out Medoro for a few hours, so that Angelica can escape from the house to marry Casandro, swindling the master trickster himself, Gargullo, but also in bringing the play to its conclusion. As in Eufemia, the role of the gypsy involves negotiating techniques with a common linguistic structure of nominalization. Gypsies, nameless in both plays, employ key epithets that denote the level and effectiveness of negotiating with other characters. In the paso with Gargullo, a circular structure of nominalization occurs between the gypsy and the lackey. Gargullo begins and ends his referents to her as ladrona: "Estate queda, ladrona" [Stand still, thief] (206) and "<<,No sabia yo que era aquella una ladrona?" [Didn't I know that she was a thief?] (208), when he discovers the sack contains not ducats but coal, information that Rueda shares with his audience, in complicity with the astute gypsy. As in Rodrigo de Toro, Rueda lets his audience in on the planning stages of the deception. The process of nominalization moves characteristically, as it does in Eufemia, from insult to flattery, similar to Gil Vicente's gypsies, who flatter their potential benefactors. The Medoran gypsy displays a dazzling bit of stage manipulation of the very character that Hermenegildo's analysis shows as the prime mover of stage action, Gargullo. (S)he begins with hiding the sack of coal, but speaking loudly enough to be overheard by the greedy lackey in her description of the contents. Yet the strength of her masculinized voice carries long and far, as (s)he protests Gargullo's attempts to grab the sack: "Esta quedo, no me impidas el camino ni me estorbes mi trabajo, hombre honrado, hombre honrado" [Stand still, don't block my path and don't interrupt my work, honorable man, honorable man] (206). This shift in register from insult to flattery with "honorable man" refocuses the tone from hostility to negotiability of the stage action, for Gargullo repeats the flattering term "honorable man" and softens his rhetoric: "Anda aca, hermana, no des voces, que yo soy moco del mercader cuya es la bolsa y vengo en tu seguimiento" [Come over here, sister,
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and don't shout, for I am the servant of the merchant whose purse it is and I have been following you] (206). The gypsy knows that the avaricious lackey has been duped, since she invented the idea of the stolen purse, and he has accepted it as true. They continue discussion using the terms hermano and hermana, linguistic markers of successful negotiation and agreement. Gargullo's stage language then takes on similar exaggeration of reality as he schemes and plans what he will buy with his ill-gotten goods, just as in Las aceitunas. Stage language acquires a physical reality while Gargullo discourses on his newly gained wealth and power, elements of popular beliefs satirized here with ' 'como dizen" [as they say] (208): "Porque, como dizen, en este mundo, tene dineros, que esse es el valer" [Because, as they say, in this world, I will be rich, for that is all that counts] (208). This comic interlude, then, while it interconnects with the main story line, shows characteristic elements of stage management and language, indicating dress, female roles played by males, voice modulation, manipulative flattery, and deceit, key contributing features of Rueda's comic stagecraft. These performance texts carry with them coded information for the benefit of the actors, whose skill, timing, and eloquence all bear the responsibility for dramatic success. As Oliva, Hermenegildo, and Diago have shown, Rueda's dramatic art lies not only in his literary creations but in his sense of spectacle. Fortunately for scholars and audiences of the twentieth century, Lope de Rueda's acting presence has not been entirely lost. The wealth of his coded messages in these performance texts shows a depth and scope of dramatic staging and prompts for actors that merit further analysis. Studies of Rueda's stagecraft both as regards his role as an actor/director and as writer provide information as to the dramatic and discursive techniques of an entire Spanish artistic tradition that combines popular and aristocratic elements. Since popular culture has become an object of scholarly inquiry, Lope de Rueda criticism has brought forth historical information and analysis of his stagecraft. The power of his wit, verbal and nonverbal, shows that Lope de Rueda holds a key position as one of the first major dramatists in early modern Spain. AWARDS Lope de Rueda received at least one award for his skills as an actor in the festival of Corpus Christi plays in Seville. Diago notes that this custom of offering prizes for the best performances was not established until 1556 (44). Rueda received such a prize in 1559 (Reyes Pena, 57; Diago, 44), a tribute to his popularity and skill as an actor in religious drama and indication of the variety of his material in his repertoire. NOTES 1. N.D. Shergold, A History of the Spanish Stage from Medieval Times until the End of the Seventeenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), 153: "It is to Lope de
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Rueda more than to anyone else that the establishment of the professional theater in Spain is due. He and his company were probably producing plays by about 1540 or earlier, and he continued to do so until his death in 1565." 2. Alfredo Hermenegildo, in his introduction to Lope de Rueda, Las cuatro comedias (Madrid: Taurus Ediciones, 1985), 8, prefers to leave the date imprecise, as does F. Gonzalez Olle in his edition to Lope de Rueda, Eufemia y Armelina (Salamanca: Anaya, 1967). 3. See Miguel de Cervantes, Comedias y entremeses, vol 1., ed. Rodolph Schevill and Adolph Bonilla (Madrid: Imprenta de Berbardo Rodriguez, 1915), 5-6: "Me acordava de aver visto representar al gran Lope de Rueda, varon insigne en la representacion y en el entendimiento. Fue natural de Sevilla, y de oficio batihoja, que quiere dezir de los que hazen panes de oro" [I remember seeing perform the great Lope de Rueda, illustrious man in performance and understanding. He was from Seville, a "leaf beater" by trade, which means those who make loaves of gold]. 4. Manuel V. Diago, "Lope de Rueda y los origenes del teatro profesional," Criticon 50 (1990): 46. Diago cites the doctoral thesis of Mercedes de los Reyes Pena, "El 'Codice de Autos Viejos': un estudio de historia literaria," from the University of Seville, 1983, vol 1, 135-38, for this evidence. His conclusion that Rueda learned his acting profession in religious theater appears on p. 48 of this article. 5. Cesar Oliva, "Tipologia de los lazzi en los pasos de Lope de Rueda," Criticon 48 (1988): 65. 6. Shergold, A History, 155; Hermenegildo, Las cuatro, 10; and Diago, "Lope de Rueda," (48) cite Narciso Alonso Cortes, Un pleito de Lope de Rueda. Nuevas noticias para su biografia (Valladolid, 1903), as the researcher responsible for this information. 7. Shergold, A History, 154, and Hermenegildo, Las cuatro, 14, cite Andres Munoz, Viaje de Felipe II a Inglaterra, ed. P. Gayangos (Madrid: Sociedad de BiblionTos Espanoles, 1877), as the source for this information. The original printing is 1554 in Zaragoza. 8. See Randall W. Listerman's introduction to Lope de Rueda, The Interludes (Los pasos) (Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1988), 22. 9. Lope de Rueda, Pasos, ed. Fernando Gonzalez Olle (Madrid: Ediciones Catedra, 1981). See especially p. 11 for a complete list of works by Lope de Rueda, including many works of doubtful origin. There are twenty-four pasos by Rueda according to Gonzalez Olle, 18. All quotations for the pasos in Spanish are from this edition. 10. Mercedes de los Reyes Pena, "Lope de Rueda," in Siete siglos de autores espanoles, ed. Kurt Reichenberger and Roswitha Reichenberger (Kassel: Edition Reichenberger, 1991), 56-58, speaking of the comedies and the colloquies in which interludes are incorporated: "Tantos en estos como en aquellas, el hilo argumental se detiene en ocasiones para dar entrada a unas breves escenas episodicas de caracter comico y dialogo vivaz, protagonizadas en general por los personajes de mas baja condicion social. Son los llamados 'pasos,' que llegaran a independizarse del cuerpo de la obra extensa. Constituyen un genero menor, el 'entremes,' del que el dramaturgo sevillano ha sido considerado como el creador" (58) [In (the colloquies) as in the (comedies), the thread of the argument stops occasionally to give way to brief episodic scenes, of a comic type and lively dialogue, populated in general by characters of the lowest social condition. They are the so-called pasos, which become independent of the corpus of the main work. They constitute a minor genre, the "interlude," of which the Sevillian dramatist has been considered the creator].
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11. For a detailed analysis of Italian sources of Rueda's four comedies, see Othon Arroniz, La influencia italiana en el nacimiento de la comedia espanola. Madrid: Gredos, 1969, 73-134. 12. Shergold cites E. Cotarelo y Mori, ed., Obras de Lope de Rueda, 2 vols. (Madrid: Real Academia Espanola, 1908). 13. Othon Arroniz, La influencia italiana en el nacimiento de la comedia espanola (Madrid: Gredos, 1969), 87. See especially p. 88, in which Arroniz notes that in 1554, Rueda's company consisted of only three regulars, Rueda himself, his wife, Mariana, and the silk-weaver Pedro de Montiel. 14. See Oliva, "Tipologia," 72-75, for a categorization of these lazzi, or comic scenes delivered rapidly. 15. Don Juan Manuel, El conde Lucanor, ed. Alfonso I. Sotelo (Mexico, D. F.: REI, 1987), n. 1, p. 106, describes the plot structure of this folktale: "personaje—situation— planes futuros—castigo de su esperanza sin fundamento solido—reaction" [character— situation—future plans—punishment for aspirations without solid basis—reaction]. See also Carroll B. Johnson, "A Propos of Lope de Rueda's Las aceitunas," Bulletin of the Comediantes 19 (1967): 7-9. 16. See the Diccionario de Autoridades, Edicion Facsimil (Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1990), 236: "Almotazen: El sugeto que por qualquier Pueblo tiene el oficio y obligacion de cuidar de la igualdad y ajuste de los pesos y medidas de qualquier genero que se vende y compra en el" [A person who in any town has the job and obligation of overseeing the equality and adjustments of weights and measures of any sort which are used to sell and buy with]. In addition to populating his cast with tradesmen and artisans, Rueda mentions various administrative types and tradesmen within the context of his drama. 17. I read this name aloxa or aloja as a reference to El conde Lucanor, since in the tale that bears a common structure to Las aceitunas, Dona Truhana carries a pot of honey ["una olla de miel"] (107) on her head. There may be another folk tradition invoked here, since aloxa is a drink made of honey and spices. See the Diccionario de Autoridades, 240. For a discussion of aloja as a drink often served in the playhouses or corrales, see John J. Allen, The Reconstruction of a Spanish Golden Age Playhouse: El Corral del Principe, 1583-1744 (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1983), 2728.1 do not read reference to this drink as a connection to the playhouses, given evidence of Rueda's itinerant lifestyle of performing in a variety of places, predating the corrales. 18. For these itinerant "new" men of the sixteenth century, often associated with Lazarillo de Tormes, like Tomas Rodaja in Cervantes' El licenciado vidriera, see Ruth El Saffar, "The Evolution of Psyche under Empire: Literary Reflections of Spain in the 16th Century," in Cultural and Historical Grounding for Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Feminist Literary Criticism, ed. Hernan Vidal (Minneapolis: Institute for the Study of Ideologies and Literature, 1989), 165-191. 19. Arroniz considers that this is the first time that the cross-dressed woman appears on the stage, {La influencia, 89). 20. Hermenegildo, Las cuatro, notes, quoting Alonso Cortes: "Mariana acompanaba al duque (de Medinaceli) en sus salidas y diversions disfrazada de tal manera, porque 'el Duque se holgaba mucho de vella estar en el habito de hombre' " [Mariana accompanied the Duke in his outings and amusements disguised in this way, because "the Duke took a great deal of pleasure in seeing her dressed in men's clothes"]. 21. See Agustin de Rojas Villandrandno, El viaje entretenido, ed. Jean-Pierre Ressot
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(Madrid: Castalia, 1972), 150: "digo que Lope de Rueda, / gracioso representante / y en su tiempo gran poeta, / empezo a poner la farsa / en buen uso y orden buena'' [I say that Lope de Rueda / witty performer / and in his time a great poet / began to cast the farce / in good use and good order]. Cited by Hermenegildo, Las cuatro, 18. 22. Carroll B. Johnson, "El arte viejo de hacer teatro: Lope de Rueda, Lope de Vega, y Cervantes" [The Old Art of Performance: Lope de Rueda, Lope de Vega, and Cervantes], in Lope de Vega y los origenes del teatro espanol; Actas del I Congreso Internacional sobre Lope de Vega [Lope de Vega and the Origins of Spanish Theater: Proceedings of the First International Congress on Lope de Vega] (Madrid: EDI-6, 1981), 95-102. 23. See also Alberto Blecua, "De algunas obras atribuidas a Lope de Rueda," Boletin de la Real Academia Espanola 48 (1978): 403-34. 24. Juan Rufo, "Alabanzas de la comedia," in Las seiscientas apotegmas y otras obras en verso, original printing, Toledo, 1596, ed. A. G. de Amezua (Madrid: Sociedad de BiblionTos Espanoles, 1923), 309-13. 25. Randall Listerman, "La Commedia dell'arte: fuente tecnica y artisticaen la dramaturgia de Lope de Rueda" [The commedia dell'arte: Technical and Artistic Source of Lope de Rueda's Dramaturgy], in Actas del Sexto Congreso Internacional de Hispanistas, celebrado en Toronto del 22 al 26 de agosto de 1977, ed. Alan M. Gordon and Evelyn Rugg (Toronto: Paul Malak and Son, 1980), 404-6, cites archival evidence from Jose Sanchez Arjona, now discounted by Jean Sentaurens and Diago ("Lope de Rueda," 44), regarding Mutio's presence in Seville (406). 26. See also John Crawford, Spanish Drama before Lope de Vega (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1975), 119. Reprinted from the 1922 edition. 27. Rueda's concluding statement is: "Auditores, no hagais sino comer y dad la vuelta a la placa, si quereis ver descabecar un traidor y libertar un leal y gualardonar a quien en deshazer tal trama ha sido solfcita y avisada y diligente" [Audience, only eat and take a tour around the plaza, if you wish to see beheaded a traitor [Paulo], and freed a loyal man [Leonardo], and rewarded one [Eufemia] who, in concluding such a play, has been solicitous, informed, and diligent] (116). Shergold argues that these references are to the play Eufemia itself and its conclusion, not another dramatic work in which someone is beheaded. The two command forms at the beginning of the statement, no hagais sino comer and dad la vuelta a la plaga, indicate a pause in stage action, to be followed by the events described. My hypothesis here is that some sort of stage action did continue after a kind of break and that perhaps contributions to the actors were solicited among the members of the audience. 28. See the Introduction to Vol. 1, Obras de Lope de Rueda, ed. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori (Madrid: Real Academia Espanola, 1908), lx: "Nada de original tiene Rueda en cuanto a la invention de sus comedias; todas estan, al parecer, tomadas del italiano" [Rueda has nothing original as concerns the invention of his comedies; all are apparently taken from the Italian]. Hermenegildo cites this passage {Las cuatro, 59), and Oliva rejects this notion of Rueda's lack of originality ("Tipologia," 69). See also Agustin de la Granja, "El actor y la elocuencia de lo espectacular," in Actor y tecnica de representacion del teatro cldsico espanol, ed. Jose Maria Diez Borque (London: Tamesis Books Limited, 1989), 99-120, especially p. 101, in which he discusses not only what the actor says but what he does, as part of a successful acting career. 29. Listerman (1980, 404) analyzes the similarities between theater contractual agreements as further proof of Italian influence in Rueda. These contracts, however, correspond
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to legalistic discursive practice in Spain, more than any Italianate form. For a study on the connections between legal conventions and literature, see Roberto GonzalezEchevarria, "The Law of the Letter: Garcilaso's Commentaries and the Origins of the Latin American Narrative," The Yale Journal of Criticism: Interpretation in the Humanities 1 (1987): 107-31. 30. Arroniz provides the most complete information on Rueda's scene-by-scene adaptations of his Italian sources in the four comedies {La Influencia; 73-134). Eugenio Suarez-Galban Guerra states that there is no recent, definitive study on Rueda: "Introduction," in Antologia del teatro del Siglo de Oro (Madrid: Editorial Origenes, 1989), 25. 31. Alfredo Hermenegildo, "Los signos de la representacion: la comedia de Medora de Lope de Rueda," in El mundo del teatro espanol en su Siglo de Oro: Ensayos dedicados a John E. Varey, ed. J. M. Ruano de la Haza (Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions Canada, 1989), 161-76. 32. See the Catalogue of the Video Library of the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater, Inc., 6th ed. Tucson, AZ: the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater, 1994, 14-15, in which there are five entries listed for the Siglo de Oro Festival at the Chamizal National Memorial in El Paso, Texas: Las aceitunas [The Olives], 1991; Cornudo y contento [Cuckold and Content], 1991; Los enganados [The Deceived], 1990; Medora, 1985; and a selection of pasos: La tierra de Juaja [The Land of Joy], La renta atrasada [The Late Rent]; La cardtula [The Mask], Maese Casorla [Master Casorla], and El rufidn cobarde [The Coward Rogue], performed in 1980. 33. Gil Vicente, Auto de las gitanas, in Obras dramdticas castellanas, ed. Thomas R. Hart (Madrid: Clasicos Castellanos, Espasa-Calpe, 1962), 229-36. See Hart's introduction (xlvi): "No hay intriga alguna; tampoco estan nada individualizados los personajes. Es solo una diversion palaciega" [There is no intrigue whatsoever; nor are characters individualized. It is only a palace entertainment]. 34. Keir Elam, Shakespeare's Universe of Discourse: Language-Games in the Comedies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 33.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Editions First Editions Compendio llamado El Deleitoso, en el cual se contienen muchos passos graciosos del excellente poeta y gracioso representante Lope de Rueda, para poner en principios y entremedias de colloquios y comedias. Juan Timoneda. Valencia: Mey, 1567. Registro de representantes, a do van registrados por Joan de Timoneda muchos y graciosos passos de Lope de Rueda y otros diversos autores. Valencia, 1570. Las quatro comedias y dos coloquios pastoriles del excellente poeta y gracioso representante Lope de Rueda. Dirigidas por loan Timoneda al Ilustre Sefior don Martin de Bardaxin. Valencia, 1567. Las cuatro comedias y dos colloquios pastoriles del excelente poeta y gracioso repre-
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sentante Lope de Rueda. Dirigidas por Juan Timoneda al yllustre sefior don Martin de Bardaxin. Seville, 1576.
Modern Editions Las cuatro comedias. Ed. Alfredo Hermenegildo. Madrid: Taurus, 1985. Pasos. Introduction y notas de Fernando Gonzalez Olle. Texto establecido por Vicente Tuson [Text established by Vicente Tuson]. Madrid: Ediciones Catedra, 1981. Obras. Ed. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori. 2 Vols. Madrid: Real Academia Espanola, 1908. Teatro (Eufemia, Armelina, El deleitoso). Ed. Jose Moreno Villa. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1934.
Translations The Interludes (Los Pasos) by Lope de Rueda. Translation with an Introduction and Notes by Randall W. Listerman. Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions Canada, 1988.
Critical Studies Abrams, Fred. "<^Fue Lope de Rueda el autor del Lazarillo de Tormes?" [Was Lope de Rueda the author of Lazarillo de Tonnes!]. Hispania 47 (1946): 258-67. . "The Date of Composition of Lope de Rueda's Comedia Eufemia." Modern Language Notes 76 (1961): 766-70. Alonso Cortes, Narciso. "Lope de Rueda en Valladolid." Boletin de la Real Academia Espanola 3 (1916): 219-20. Arroniz, Othon. La influencia italiana en el nacimiento de la comedia espanola [Italian Influence in the Birth of Spanish Comedy]. Madrid: Gredos, 1969. Asencio, Jose Maria. Itinerario del entremes desde Lope de Rueda a Quinones de Benavente con cinco entremeses ineditos de don Francisco de Quevedo [Itinerary of the Interlude from Lope de Rueda to . . . ]. Madrid: Gredos, 1971. Blecua, Alberto. "De algunas obras atribuidas a Lope de Rueda" [On Some Works Attributed to Lope de Rueda]. Boletin de la Real Academia Espanola 58 (1978): 403-34. Brotherton, John. The "Pastor-Bobo" [Shepherd Simpleton] in the Spanish Theater before the time of Lope de Vega. London: Tamesis Books Limited, 1975. Cattaneo, Maria Teresa. "Al Margine dell' Eufemia di Lope de Rueda" [On the Margin of the Eufemia of Lope de Rueda]. Annali-Sezione romanza. Instituto universitario orientate 1 (1988): 133-36. Cervantes, Miguel de. Comedias y entremeses, ed. Rodolph Schevill and Adolph Bonilla. Vol. 1. Madrid: Real Academia Espanola, 1915. Crawford, John. Spanish Drama before Lope de Vega. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1975. Reprinted from the 1922 edition. Diago, Manuel V. "Lope de Rueda y los origenes del teatro professional" [Lope de Rueda and the Origins of Professional Theater]. Criticon 50 (1990): 41-65. Gonzalez Olle, Fernando. "Una supuesta estancia de Lope de Rueda en Burgos" [An Assumed Stay of Lope de Rueda in Burgos]. Boletin de la Real Academia Espanola 48 (1968): 281-83.
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Hermenegildo, Alfredo. "Estudio Preliminar." In Las cuatro comedias: Lope de Rueda. Madrid: Taurus, 1985, 7-71. . "Los signos de la representacion: la comedia de Medora de Lope de Rueda" [Signs of Performance: The Comedy of Medora by Lope de Rueda]. In El mundo del teatro espanol en su Siglo de Oro: Ensayos dedicados a John E. Varey [The World of the Spanish Theater in Its Golden Age: Essays Dedicated to John E. Varey], ed. J. M. Ruano de la Haza. Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions Canada, 1989, 161-76. Jablou, Kenneth. "The Dates of Composition of Lope de Rueda's Pastoral Colloquies Camila and Tymbria." Romance Notes 41 (1969): 47-54. Johnson, Caroll B. "A Propos of Lope de Rueda's Las aceitunas." Bulletin of the Comediantes 19 (1967): 7-9. . "El arte viejo de hacer teatro: Lope de Rueda, Lope de Vega, y Cervantes" [The Old Art of Performance: Lope de Rueda, Lope de Vega, and Cervantes]. In Lope de Vega y los origenes del teatro espanol, Actas del I Congreso Internacional sobre Lope de Vega [Lope de Vega and the Origins of Spanish Theater, Proceedings of the First International Congress on Lope de Vega]. Madrid: EDI-6, 1981, 403-43. . "Lope de Rueda's Comedia Eufemia: A Prelude to Criticism." Bulletin of the Comediantes 20 (1968): 5-9. Listerman, Randall W. "La Commedia dell'arte'. fuente tecnica y artistica en la dramaturgia de Lope de Rueda" [La Commedia dell'arte: Artistic and Technical Source of Lope de Rueda's Dramaturgy]. In Actas del Sexto Congreso Internacional de Hispanistas celebrado en Toronto del 22 al 26 de agosto de 1977 [Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress of Hispanists held in Toronto August 22-26, 1977], eds. Alan M. Gordon and Evelyn Rugg. Toronto: Paul Malak and Son, 1980, 404-6. . "Introduction and Notes." In The Interludes (Los Pasos) by Lope de Rueda. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Randall W. Listerman. Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions Canada, 1988, 9-32. Oliva, Cesar. ' 'Tipologia de los lazzi en los pasos de Lope de Rueda'' [Typology of the Lazzi in the Comic Interludes of Lope de Rueda]. Criticon 42 (1988): 65-79. Rennert, Hugo Albert. The Spanish Stage in the Time of Lope de Vega. New York: Dover, 1963. Reprinted from the 1909 edition by the Hispanic Society of America. Reyes Pena, Mercedes de los. "Lope de Rueda." In Siete Siglos de Autores Espanoles [Seven Centuries of Spanish Authors], ed. Kurt Reichenberger and Roswitha Reichenberger. Kassel: Edition Reichenberger, 1991, 56-58. Sanchez Romeralo, Jaime. "De los ultimos anos de Lope de Rueda" [On the last years of Lope de Rueda]. Revista de Literatura 41 (1979): 157-68. Shergold, N. D. A History of the Spanish Stage. Oxford: Clarendon, 1967. Tuson, Vicente. Lope de Rueda. Bibliografia critica [Annotated Bibliography]. Madrid: CSIC Cuadernos Bibliograficos, 1965.
TIRSO DE MOLINA (GABRIEL TELLEZ) (15837-1648)
Bruno M. Damiani
BIOGRAPHY Tirso de Molina, pseudonym for Gabriel Tellez, was born in Madrid and in his teens joined the order of Mercedarian friars. Tirso's date of birth and the exact age at which he entered the cloister have been the object of intense scrutiny by countless critics, among them Manuel Duran, Javier de Burgos, Mesonero Romanos, Pedro Munoz Pena, Blanca de los Rios, and Gerald Wade, all distinguished Tirsian scholars. Little is known about Tirso's family background. In his late fragment La vida de Santa Maria de Cervellon (The Life of Santa Maria de Cervellon) he declares himself to be a descendant of the principality of Catalonia, an interesting detail in view of the fact that the Mercedarian order that he joined was of Catalan foundation. Nothing is known about Tirso's parents, and there is only one textual reference to his having had a sister. Thanks to the pioneering archival work carried out by Blanca de los Rios and Manuel Penedo Rey, more is known of Tirso's adult life. The dramatist joined the Mercedarian order as a novice in Madrid in 1600 and was professed on January 21, 1601, in Guadalajara. He subsequently followed an arts course in Salamanca from 1601 to 1603, theology seminars in Toledo and Guadalajara from 1603 to 1607, and an additional two years of theology in Alcala de Henares. His presence is documented briefly in Soria in 1608, in Segovia from 1610 to 1611, and in Toledo from 1612 to 1617. Upon completion of his studies, Tirso took up the task of writing drama. In the 1624 preliminaries to Los cigarrales de Toledo (The Country Houses of Toledo), Tirso refers to the popularity enjoyed by his plays for fourteen years, thus placing the earliest of them in 1610. The first work that can be dated with reasonable certainty is a frivolous comedy, El vergonzoso en palacio (The Shy Man at Court), in 1611. Other plays of the early period of Tirso's writings include dramatized lives of saints as well as lighter comedies, such as Don Gil de las calzas verdes (Don of the Green Breeches) and Marta la piadosa (Pious Martha), both depicting unseemly heroines.
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In spite of ecclesiastical movements to suppress profane drama in the name of morality, Tirso managed to continue to nurture both his spiritual devotion as well as his fondness for popular theater. His talent in the area of drama quickly impressed the Toledan aristocracy, which included not only the duke of Lerma, minister of King Philip III, but also the Cardinal Archbishop Don Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas. Tirso's activities as a dramatic writer came to a standstill, for a while at least, in 1616, when his order sent him, together with five other monks, to join a mission in the West Indies province of Santo Domingo, where he served as preacher and lecturer of theology. The successful performance of his duties gained him the title of Definidor, or member of the governing body of the province. While occupying that office, Tirso participated once in a poetic competition, held on the election of Our Lady of Mercy as the patron saint of Santo Domingo. His poems, later published in his miscellany Deleitar aprovechando (Pleasure with Profit), carefully studied and edited by Lois Vazquez,1 won him prizes and further admiration from the community. This and another miscellany, The Country Houses of Toledo, which also includes some dramatic pieces and verses, are the only largely prose works of Tirso. The Country Houses is particularly noteworthy as one of the first examples of an ingeniously framed collection of stories, modeled on Boccaccio's Decameron, an art form fashionable to the end of the seventeenth century. In Tirso's work, a group of lords and ladies entertain one another with stories and plays. In June 1618 Tirso was recalled to the general chapter of the order of Guadalajara. Now in Spain, he resumed his lecturing, first in Segovia and then in Toledo, an experience that earned him the title of Presentado (a qualification as teacher of theology). By the end of 1620 or early 1621 Tirso was transferred to his provincial house in Madrid, a long-sought goal. A city throbbing with theatrical life and other cultural activities, Madrid was by now the residence of leading figures of the time, among them Lope de Vega, Calderon, Gongora, and Quevedo. Amid the cultural fervor promulgated by these and other writers (e.g., Guillen de Castro, Velez de Guevara, Mira de Amescua, and Ruiz de Alarcon), Tirso competed in poetic contests, participated in activities of the academies, and, more than ever before, felt free to indulge in what he enjoyed the most: writing for the stage. Unfortunately, Tirso's zeal for producing plays was met, in the years that followed, with opposition from the new royal court of Philip IV, a sixteen-yearold monarch, whose affairs of state were being handled by his first minister, the influential Count-Duke of Olivares. The socioeconomic current of the time led both the monarch and Olivares to great levels of unpopularity and scorn, sentiments often reflected by Tirso's plays, resulting in a 1625 edict condemning Tirso, the monk, for the scandal caused by his profane drama, seen as frivolous and immoral for a man of his calling. Numerous theories on the reasons for the animosity against Tirso have been advanced, and these include the resentment
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of Lope de Vega against his fellow dramatist, personal and literary quarrels with Duke Olivares, Tirso's own Mercedarian colleague, Fray Pedro Franco de Guzman (a relative of Olivares), and the Andalusian court poet Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza, a favorite of Olvares. Tirso's rivalries and feuds with the latter are supported by circumstantial evidence and sociohistorical information gathered intelligently by Ruth Lee Kennedy.2 Personal and professional rivalries coupled with the aforementioned edict of the Committee for Reform of the Council of Castile put a virtual end to Tirso's dramatic career. Under pressure from that committee, the Mercedarians in 1626 cast Tirso to the remote southwest area of Trujillo. By 1632 Tirso was once again in the good graces of the order, for another while at least, and was appointed chronicler. In that capacity he wrote his last major work, the History of the Mercedarian Order, only to have it rejected in 1640 by the vicar provincial, Fray Marcos Salmeron, who furthermore deposed Tirso from the office of chronicler, dismissed him to the monastery of Cuenca, and ordered the Mercedarians of Madrid to end all satirical writing against the government. "It had been a strange seesaw of life," writes Margaret Wilson, "with two distinct, and distinguished, careers, and three separate periods of literary achievements, each brought suddenly to a close: the first by the call to Santo Domingo, the other two by silencing and exile." 3 Yet, in spite of all adversity, Tirso produced an impressive quantity of dramatic works by the time he was fortyfive years of age, reached out to the nobility and the masses alike, and ensured everlasting fame for himself and his drama. Tirso died in Almazan, not far from Soria, where he served his last appointment as Comendador of the convent, on or about February 20, 1648. DRAMATURGY: MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES Following the examples set by the Italianate comedy, Tirso, like many of his contemporaries, produced a type of play known as the comedy of intrigue, a drama of disguise, obstacles of love, misinterpretation of facts, and varied complications with a frequently hilarious climax. The first of such plays is El vergonzoso en palacio (The Shy Man at Court), a play laden with incident, with three separate actions, each involving one of the three main characters, Mireno, Magdalena, and Serafina. Growing up as a peasant but believing he is something more, Mireno assumes the name of Don Dionis and goes to seek his fortune at the palace of the duke of Aveiro, Portugal. There the duke's daughter, Magdalena, falls in love with "Don Dionis" while her sister, the wayward, narcissistic Serafina, who hates men and loves acting, falls in love with a portrait of herself dressed in male costume, not recognizing it as her own. For Serafina's exaltation of drama as the image of life, the play has been compared to Shakespeare's play As You Like It, which presents the view of the world as a stage. Another of Tirso's comedies of intrigue is Don Gil of the Green Breeches, a complex farce termed a "silly comedy" by Lope de Vega.4 Here a young phi-
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landerer, Don Martin, seduces Dona Juana in Valladolid and then goes on to Madrid to seek the affection of the richer Dona Ines. In the meantime the shrewd Juana, disguised as a man, arrives in Madrid and makes contact with Ines before Martin can, delighting both Ines and her cousin Clara by her delicate appearance and the green breeches she always wears. Martin is stunned to discover that the character he thought he had created really does exist and is furthermore his rival. This is just the beginning of a convoluted drama of disguise, fabrications, and far-fetched situations and humor. A similarly hilarious situation develops in another drama, La celosa de si misma (Jealous of Herself). In this play, a young man from Leon, Don Melchor, goes to Madrid to contract an arranged marriage with Magdalena, a wealthy lady. On the way to Magdalena's house, he stops at a church, where he is struck by a beautiful white hand of a mysterious-looking woman, hidden behind her cloak. As it turns out, we soon discover that the woman is no one less than Magdalena herself, a fact known to Don Melchor, who continues to cling to an illusion that brings confusion and misery. The play then plunges the reader into an intricate web of deceptions and disguises, witnessing a typical baroque play on illusion and reality, as well as satirical attitudes on Neoplatonic idealism. Satire, both literary and political, is also an important aspect of another of Tirso's comedies of intrigue, La fingida Arcadia (Feigned Arcady).5 A play written for the entertainment of the Pimentels family, influential nobles in the reign of Philip III, this work draws much of the setting from Lope's pastoral novel La Arcadia. Lucrecia, the heroine, is so impressed by the Arcadia that she brings all of her friends to her country estate in the valley of the Po River to emulate the rustic life of the pastoral. While waiting to be openly recognized by Lucrecia as her betrothed, the hero of the play, Felipe, assumes the role of her gardener, Tirso. Her friend Alejandra is not convinced of Tirso's identity, and while holding his hands to determine if they are really those of a working man, Lucrecia looks on with dismay, misinterprets the incident, and accuses Felipe of faithlessness. The plot becomes increasingly complicated as Lucrecia is about to give her hand to another suitor; Felipe rushes in to separate them, and Lucrecia, following a noted pastoral convention, goes mad for love with each subsequent incident. The play delves into the problematic of illusion and reality until the play is finally divested of its illusory elements, and the whole thing is seen as nothing more than a real-life game. In these and other plays Tirso pays careful attention to the settings of his drama, making ample use of both town and country locations with which he was often personally familiar. This can be seen, for example, in La villana de la Sagra (The Village Girl of La Sagra), a comedy of intrigue, cast against the background of the Sagra region of the province of Toledo, where it is likely that Tirso spent considerable time from 1611 to 1615. The play revolves around the main character, Don Luis, a gentleman from Galicia, who rescues the peasant Angelica from the unwanted advances of Don Pedro, only to fall in love with her himself. The main plot soon gives way to an intricate subplot, which, in
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turn, leads to a mad scene in which jealousy causes Don Luis to temporarily lose his reason. As Noel Salomon6 and others have noted, the principal importance of this drama is its use of rustic motifs and local color shown in the representation of religious festivities and pilgrimages, coupled with harvest songs and dancing. Tirso's personal acquaintance with location is reflected too in La gallega Mari-Herndndez (The Galician Mari-Hernandez). The play exalts the figure of a rustic, vivacious, and determined girl, Mari-Hernandez, who wins the love of the weak-willed Don Alvaro. The importance of this drama lies in the integration of dramatic action in an identifiable and vividly represented geographical context. Tirso's fondness for the countryside as the setting for several of his plays was complemented by his interest in the city, the capital, Madrid, where he was born and lived a number of years. In fact, one of the scenes of Pious Martha takes place in the park of the duke of Lerma's palace on the Prado, a popular meeting place for the gentry of Madrid. The play is largely one of humor, an aspect brought forth mainly by the ebullient character Martha, who, in order to avoid marrying an elderly suitor, pretends to have a vocation for chastity and good works. The lively city life of Madrid is once again the setting for another play, Por el sotano y el torno (Through Basement and Hatch). The importance given to the city setting is exemplified by the opening words of this play: "What a fine place Madrid is! What an exciting hustle and bustle!" P. Halkhoree7 has written a brilliant analysis of the meaning and symbolism of this play, which focus on the device of contrasting sisters, the widow Bernarda, guardian of the younger Jusepa. To secure money for her own dowry, Bernarda arranges for Jusepa to marry a wealthy old man from the Indies. The gentleman's obsessive jealousy leads Jusepa to contrive a series of ingenious situations to seek her freedom. Among Tirso's varied plays are those in which characters, rather than plot, take on a primary role. A case in point is the figure of Dona Jeromina, in El amor medico (Love Turned Doctor), who resists her brother's attempt to get her married, since marriage would interfere with her freedom to study—to study medicine, at that, a profession that she criticizes for being in the hands of inadequately trained individuals. The attack here is far more biting than the stock antimedical satire found in works of Cervantes and Quevedo. Here Tirso allows an ingenious Jeromina to voice freely and forcefully her professional ambition and her scorn for the inept men of medicine of her days. Character portrayal continues to be important in El Aquiles (The Achilles), a dramatic rendition of an episode from Achilles' youth. Amid the serious theme of struggle between love and war, Tirso focuses on the question of Achilles' ambiguous identity, drawn from the legendary bisexuality of the epic figure and exemplified in the play by the male character's appearing in women's clothes, as well as by highly suggestive love scenes with Deidameia. Interest in character is clearly noted, too, in the title of El melancolico (The Melancholic). Here a melancholic, studious, and withdrawn Rogerio becomes
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the helpless pawn in the hands of his manipulative and beloved Leonisa. In this play Tirso is once again portraying strongly marked personalities with an ingenious stroke of psychological penetration drawn from literary convention, personal experience as confessor, and keen observation of the world around him. Following the model of the so-called comendador plays of Lope de Vega, where prominent individuals take advantage of their social position and attempt to indulge themselves with girls of humble birth, Tirso produces La dama del Olivar (The Lady of the Olive Grove), in which the abducted girl, Laurencia, rouses the men of her village to take revenge against the abuser. This takes us to one of the most widely treated themes of Golden Age drama, that of privanza (social condition of a privado, a man privy to the king). Often the object of scorn and satire for its blatant abuse of power and influence, privanza is given full treatment in Tirso's Privar contra su gusto (The Reluctant Favorite). In this play, Don Juan de Cardona, a man who had fallen from privanza, is restored to a position of importance by King Fadrique. As the king's own privado, Don Juan acts as conscience to the nation by reminding the monarch of the limits of favors he should set to his noblemen and how deserving couriers should be duly rewarded. The theme of privanza is taken up again in the historical play La prudencia en la mujer (Prudence in Woman). Voicing concern about the political affairs of government, Tirso reminds us of the threats that a monarch faces from selfish and ambitious privados, while Maria de Molina, mother of Ferdinand IV, embodies the qualities of clemency and prudence both "subsumed in its patriotic, religious, and archetypal significance."8 While the historical and social role of women intrigued Tirso, the dramatist was equally drawn to problems caused by political pitfalls, centralized government, and delegated power. J. C. J. Metford, Ruth Lee Kennedy, and Marie Gleeson O'Tuathaigh have examined this facet of Tirso's drama, particularly in such plays as Prudence in Woman, The Reluctant Favorite, and the Pizarro trilogy, this one written between 1626 and 1629 while Tirso was in the Mercedarian convent in Trujillo, founded by Francisco Pizarro's daughter.9 Much of Tirsian drama offers a distinctly comical dimension, as Esmeralda Gijon Zapata has shown.10 The focus of Zapata's study is the gracioso(a), the jocose character who, by virtue of external circumstances of nationality, social category, and office or because of internal traits of intelligence or moral qualities, creates the dynamics of humor in Tirso's plays. Although the principal source of humor is the humble figure of the gracioso, comicality reaches also the characterization of the nobility, such as the king or even the spiritual characterization, as in the portrayal of a saint. Humor cuts across a broad spectrum of literary themes and social concerns and is a part of both male and female characters, as we noted earlier with such plays as The Shy Man at Court, Don Gil of the Green Breeches, Jealous of Herself and Pious Martha. Among Tirso's finest strokes of dramatic art and humor are those that touch on hypocrisy, vanity and gullibility, deception and dishonesty, all vividly portrayed with a profound understanding of human nature.
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The female protagonist is at the core of many of Tirso's plays, which offer a variety of types, among them the forceful woman in such plays as The Galician Mari-Hernandez and Antona Garcia, one a model of quick wit and disguise, the other an intricate pseudohistorical drama. Foremost among Tirso's heroines is Maria de Molina in the historical drama Prudence in Woman, a play that offers a majestic synthesis of character portrayal, historical events, and moral idealism on the part of a determined woman who fights to protect her son's interests from unruly nobles. The figure of the wise and just queen reappears in Irene in La republica al reves (The Republic Turned Upside Down), while a female tyrant dominates La mujer que manda en casa (The Woman Who Rules the Roost), which depicts the character of the biblical Jezabel. Although several of Tirso's plays fall into the category of the amoral comedy of intrigue, there are plays whose titles and content project a distinct moral lesson. Such is the case of El celoso prudente (Jealous but Prudent), where all of the characters are generous and well intentioned: the two sisters and two brothers are motivated by each other's good; the love of Lisena and the prince is tender and constant; and Sancho reflects sensibly on the inadequacy of the code of honor. Similarly focused on idealistic principles is another play, Como han de ser los amigos (True Friendship). Here, as in other works of moral intentions, soliloquies form an important part of the drama, monologues that reflect profoundly on love, friendship, and honor. "A certain sententiousness is to be expected in drama which is so openly didactic," observes Margaret Wilson, ' 'but there is also an unusual richness of metaphor, and one image receives particular emphasis: the diamond strength of true friendship, contrasted with the glass of an attachment that breaks under strain."11 Developing the diamondglass conceit is another exemplary play, El amor y la amistad (Love and Friendship), a drama that underscores the theme of the testing of loyalty. Tirso was particularly attracted to biblical themes. Foremost among Tirso's dramatization of biblical events is La venganza de Tamar (Thamar's Vengeance), drawing on the account in Samuel II of Thamar's rape by her half brother Ammon and the latter's murder of her full brother Absalom. The play is a masterpiece of dramatic craftsmanship, particularly in the area of characterization, a salient aspect of another biblical play, as well, The Woman Who Rules the Roost), acclaimed, in the words of Melveena McKendrick, for the explosive and beguiling presence of its protagonist.12 Unlike Renaissance England and France, Spain retained throughout the Golden Age a distinctly moral and didactic orientation in its literature. This can be seen in significant areas of Spanish drama of the time, which contained abundant religious material and representations of saint lives. Early on in his career as playwright, Tirso produced La pena de Francia (The Rock of France), which recounts the way a naive Frenchman is led to discover a statue of the Virgin on a hill near Salamanca; La eleccion por la virtud (Elected for His Virtue), an encomium of the rise to eminence of Pope Sixtus V; and the Santa Juana trilogy, fully in the medieval piety tradition. And so are also Quien no
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cae no se levanta (Who Never Falls Never Rises), the story of a sinner who becomes saint; La mujer que manda en casa (The Wife Who Rules the Roost), dramatizing the contrast between sin and righteousness; Tanto es lo de mas como lo de menos (Enough Is as Good as a Feast), an allegorical work based on New Testament parables of the Prodigal Son; and Lazarus and the Rich Glutton, a play that skillfully intertwines biblical stories with familiar patterns of sanctity and sinfulness. Considerable scholarly attention has been given to yet another type of Tirso's drama, the so-called comedias de santos (saints' plays). These focus on the conversion or martyrdom of historical as well as legendary saints, whose dramatization addresses here, as in several of Calderon's plays, interesting moral, psychological, and social questions, such as the conversion and salvation of criminals and the temptations and fall of seemingly holy men and women.13 The psychology of sin and repentance is exemplified in the most celebrated of these plays, Damned for Despair. Here Tirso expounds on two prevalent theological concerns of the time, justification by faith or good works and the question of free will and divine grace. Yet, in spite of all of these varied and often poignant plays, Tirso de Molina's reputation as a dramatist rests, to a significant degree, on his El burlador de Sevilla o El convidado de piedra (The Trickster of Seville or the Stone Guest). With this play Tirso gives birth to the immortal figure of the presumptuous Don Juan, a trickster, betrayer of promises, and murderer. His goal is to dishonor and humiliate women, exploiting his social privilege to obtain his ends, ignoring altogether all concerns for divine retribution. His road to the tombstone—and to hell—is marked by four sexual escapades, first with the Duchess Isabela in the king's palace by pretending to be her fiance; then with Tisbea, a fisher-girl, under promise of marriage; later he attempts to take his best friend's place in his mistress Dona Ava's bed, and finally he seduces the bride, Aminta, on her wedding night, under promise of marriage to himself. Remorseless and oblivious to his servant Catalinon's repeated warnings of divine retribution, Don Juan scornfully reacts with a catchphrase, Tan largo me lo fidis ("You certainly allow me extended credit," in the figurative sense of "There is still time to repent"). The play ends in a chapel scene where the sepulchral statue of Gonzalo, the father of one of Don Juan's victims, extends a hand to the compulsive lover who, overpowered by the burning grip, begs for forgiveness but is denied it and is swallowed up into the tomb, a fitting cataclysmic ending to Don Juan's brazen disregard for sin and retribution. CRITICAL RESPONSE The Trickster of Seville has been the object of intense critical scrutiny since its publication. Its religious meaning, literary sources, and even its authorship have all been punctiliously examined by countless critics, among them Gerald Wade,14 A. K. G. Paterson,15 and Alexander Parker.16 Recent years have wit-
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nessed an attempt to question in earnest the authorship of El burlador de Sevilla. The principal study in this regard is by Rodriguez Lopez-Vazguez, who examines historical, contextual, and lexical evidence to support the theory that the author of the famed play is not Tirso but rather Andres de Claramonte.17 Amid the growing body of critical studies on this play certain fundamental aspects of the work continue to be studied and praised, regardless of the question of authorship: complex characterization, moral and spiritual dimensions, crescendo of dramatic suspense, and artistic aspects of staging and stage action. In addition, the extraordinary importance of the play is attested by the fact that the story of Don Juan has been adapted by many writers and artists, Spanish as well as foreign, as we can see in the Romantic play Don Juan Tenorio by Jose Zorrilla, Moliere's Don Juan ou le festin de pierre, and Mozart's widely acclaimed opera Don Giovanni, not to mention the influence that Tirso's hero exerted on Byron, Pushkin, Dumas, and George Bernard Shaw, among others. Understandably, Ion Tudor Agheana stresses that among the giants of Spanish Golden Age drama, Tirso de Molina is the only Spanish dramatist to create characters of universal interest and scope comparable to those of Shakespeare.18 Tirso's artistic individuality has been studied perceptively by Agheana, who examines scrupulously three crucial aspects in Tirso's drama: the presence of singularly intelligent characters, the experimental utilization of dialogues, and a metaphorical system underlying traits of human behavior.19 The uniqueness of the Don Juan figure as a creation of a priest/playwright received considerable attention in the late 1950s by Mario Penna, who undertakes the task of unfoiling what he calls the "mistero di Don Giovanni" (the mystery of Don Juan)20 deeply rooted in the complex psychological makeup of its creator, the Mercedarian friar. Seen as a whole, much of Tirso's drama suggests that religious and spiritual considerations were frequent elements in the theater of the priest/playwright. The regularity and frequency of religious imagery in Tirso's plays indicate, as Ann Nickerson Hughes has noted, "that his interest was to use the theater not only as a medium of artistic expression but as a vehicle to communicate religious precepts and explore Christian philosophical concepts."21 Religious elements in Tirso's drama are ably discussed by Hughes, who examines the presence of religious imagery in Tirso's five autos sacramentales (one-act allegorical representations of the sacrament of the Eucharist), twelve hagiographic plays, five biblical dramas, four historic-religious plays, and two philosophic-religious masterpieces.22 Hughes divides imagery into three general categories, verbal, allegorical, and scenic, and applies each category systematically to her reading of all of these plays. Among these are El colmenero divino (The Divine Beekeeper), 1613, Tirso's first auto, performed in honor of the feast of Corpus Christi; the Santa Juana (St. Joan) trilogy, excellent example of hagiographic drama; La venganza de Tamar (Tamar's Vengeance), 1621, a story of incest and murder, directly inspired by the Bible and, El caballero de Gracia (The Knight of Grace), 1620, a dramatized account of the pious life of
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the Italian ascetic Jacobo de Gratis (1517-1619). This last play is a skillfully conceived work that combines religion and politics on a relatively equal plane. Tirso's best plays fall in the category of philosophic-religious drama dealing with the theological problems of spiritual salvation, and these are Damned for Despair, 1614-1615, and The Trickster of Seville, c. 1620. Each revolves around the concept of free will, by which man can save himself through a positive desire to seek forgiveness, and the responsibility of individuals to account to God for their actions. In Damned for Despair, Enrico is forgiven a life of crime through faith and repentance, while Paulo, the hermit, is condemned because he believed in predestination. Tirso's licentious character Don Juan, on the other hand, does not lack faith in God but assumes that there will always be time to repent, only to discover that, suddenly, it is too late to seek forgiveness. The religious and doctrinal dimensions of Tirso's drama have received the further attention of Mario Trubiano.23 In his volume titled Libertad, gracia y destino en el teatro de Tirso de Molina, Trubiano gives us a major study of the complex spiritual and theological questions inherent in Tirso's drama. The eight chapters of this volume focus principally on man's free will, divine grace, and destiny. The first chapter, titled "El problema de la libertad y la gracia en tiempo de Tirso," provides an excellent introduction to the entire volume by reviewing basic biohistorical facts as well as fundamental intellectual and doctrinal teachings found in scholastic humanism, in the writings of the Counter Reformation, and in controversial attitudes characteristic of the Spanish Inquisition. From a general overview of the points cited earlier, Trubiano moves on to focus sharply on the concepts of free will and divine grace present in Tirso's theater. A common theme in the literature of the Renaissance and Golden Age is that of conversion, and Tirso, like Malon de Chaide and others, deals with it in a play titled Los lagos de San Vicente (The Miraculous Lakes of Saint Vincent). This work, which dramatizes the life and conversion of St. Casilda, is the object of scrutiny by the Mercedarian dramatist, who expounds the teachings of the Catholic Church with respect to the use of reason and the intervention of divine grace in the attainment of salvation, according to scholastic and Tridentine principles. Our critical understanding is enriched by further textual examples taken from Tirso's trilogy known as Saint Joan, a work that points out the affinities as well as the differences between Tirso's doctrinal views and those set forth by the theologian Zumel. Trubiano has contrasted the teachings of Zumel and those of Protestant reformers that were rejected by Tirso. Tirso's rejection of Protestant doctrine is exemplified further in the three stages in the life of St. Bruno, dramatized in El Mayor desengano (The Greatest Deception). The religious drama of Tirso de Molina is well represented by the six autos attributed to him. These one-act dramatic sketches succinctly, but effectively, synthesize the problem of predestination in relationship to free will and divine grace. Two of these autos, La madrina del cielo (The Godmother of Heaven) and La ninfa del cielo (The Nymph of Heaven), point out the manner in which Tirso departs
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from the allegorical structure of the traditional auto sacramental and introduces a more lyrical or even realistic dimension to the auto, which he imbues with a profoundly emotional and psychological realism. The autos pave the way for the best expressions of spirituality found in Tirso's drama, namely, Damned for Despair and The Trickster of Seville. Both plays reiterate and strengthen stated views on Tirso as a major exponent of ethical and moral teachings of his times. As a whole, Tirso's drama represents the bridge between Lope's popular stage and Calderon's intellectual theater. Social and political questions, often dealt with indirectly by other dramatists, are treated with vigor and explicit language by Tirso, who recognizes the need for changes in the way drama is written to combine a mature balance of entertainment, social commentary, and morally edifying instruction. The didactic dimension is often achieved by Tirso's advances over previous Spanish playwrights in the art of psychological penetration and by his profound understanding of the variety and peculiarities of human nature. Tirso's originality lies in his ingenious and often unusual treatment of themes, in his flair for creating and handling complex situations, and in his ability to create remarkable characters: assertive women like Mari Hernandez and Antona Garcia, a sublime figure like Maria de Molina, poignant protagonists like Amon and Thamar, and the bombastic and overconfident Don Juan Tenorio. In Don Juan's dramatic habitat The Trickster of Seville Tirso converges in one play Christian ideas and eternal human preoccupations, dramatic cohesion and sustained tension, linguistic versatility and unity of vision.
NOTES 1. Tirso de Molina, Poesia lirica: Deleytar aprovechando (Madrid: Narcea, 1981). Estudio, notas y comentarios de texto por Lois Vazquez. 2. Ruth Lee Kennedy, "Literary and Political Satire in Tirso's Lafingida Arcadia," in The Renaissance Reconsidered, Smith College Studies in History, 44 (Northhampton, MA, 1964). 3. Margaret Wilson, Tirso de Molina (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1977), 28. 4. Letter of July 25-26, 1615, in Epistolario de Lope de Vega, vol. 3, ed. A. Gonzalez de Amezua y Mayo (Madrid, 1935-43), 206. 5. Kennedy, "Literary," 44. 6. Noel Salomon, Lo villano en el teatro del Siglo de Oro. Madrid: Catedra, 1985. 7. P. Halkhoree, cited by Wilson, Tirso, 64, 148. 8. Wilson, Tirso, 94. 9. J. C. J. Metford, "Tirso de Molina and the Conde-Duque de Olivares," Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 36 (1959), 15-27; Ruth L. Kennedy, "La perspectiva politica de Tirso en Privar contra su gusto, y la de sus comedias posteriores," in Homenaje a Tirso de Molina (Madrid: Revista Estudios, 1981), 199-238; Marie Gleeson O'Tuathaigh, "Tirso's Pizarro Trilogy: A Case of Sycophancy or Lese-Majesty?" Bulletin of the Comediantes 38 (1986), 63-82.
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10. Esmeralda Gijon Zapata, El humor en Tirso de Molina (Madrid: Universidad de Madrid, 1958). 11. Wilson, Tirso, 82. 12. Melveena McKendrick, Theater in Spain (1490-1700) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 117. 13. Cf. Alexander Parker, "Bandits and Saints in the Spanish Drama of the Golden Age," Critical Studies of Calderon's Comedias, ed. J. E. Varey, vol. 19 of The Comedias of Calderon, ed. D. W. Cruickshank and J. E. Varey (London: Tamesis, 1973), 151-68. 14. Gerald Wade and Robert Mayberry, "Tan largo me lo fidis and El burlador de Sevilla," Bulletin of the Comediantes 14 (1962), 1-16. 15. Alan K. G. Paterson, "Tirso de Molina: Two Bibliographical Studies," Hispanic Review 35 (1967), 43-56, 57-68. 16. Alexander Parker, "Santos y bandoleros en el teatro espanol de Siglo de Oro, Arbor 13 (1949), 395-416. 17. Alfredo Rodriguez Lopez-Vazguez, Andres de Claramonte y ((El Burlador de Sevilla" (Kassel: Reichenberger, 1987). 18. Ion Tudor Agheana, The Situational Drama of Tirso de Molina (Madrid: Plaza Mayor, 1972), 11. 19. Ibid., 44. 20. Mario Penna, Don Giovanni e il mistero di Tirso Turin: Rosenberg and Sellier, 1958. 21. Ann Nickerson Hughes, Religious Imagery in the Theater of Tirso de Molina (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1984), 149. 22. Ibid. 23. Mario F. Trubiano, Libertad, gracia y destino en el teatro de Tirso de Molina (Madrid: Ediciones Alcala, 1985).
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Editions El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra. Ed. Gerald E. Wade. New York: Scribner's, 1968. Cigarrales de Toledo. Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1968. Comedias escogidas de Fray Gabriel Tellez. Ed. Juan E. Hartzenbusch. In Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles, vol. 5. Madrid: Rivadeneyra, 1848. Comedias de Tirso de Molina. Ed. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori. In NBAE, vols. 4 and 9. Madrid: Bailly-Bailliere, 1906-7. El condenado por desconfiado. Ed. Daniel Rogers. Toronto: Pergamon, 1974. Don Gil de las calzas verdes. Ed. Ricardo Domenech. Madrid: Taurus, 1969. Obras. Ed. Maria del Pilar Palomo. In BAE, vols. 236-39, 242, 243. Madrid: Ediciones Atlas, 1970-71. Obras dramdticas completas. Ed. Blanca de los Rios. 3 vols. Madrid: Aguilar, 1946, 1952, 1959. La Villana de Vallecas. Ed. Jean Le Martinel and Gilbert Zonana. Paris: Ediciones Hispano-Americanas, 1964.
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Translations of El Burlador de Sevilla The Love Rogue. Trans. Harry Kemp. New York: Lieber and Lewis, 1923. The Rogue of Seville. Trans. Robert O'Brien. In Spanish Drama, ed. A. Flores. New York: Bantam Books, 1962. The Trickster of Seville. Trans. Roy Campbell. In Masterpieces of the Spanish Golden Age, ed. A. Flores. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1957.
Biographies and Critical Studies Agheana, Ion Tudor. The Situational Drama of Tirso de Molina. New York: Plaza Mayor, 1972. Castro, Americo. Tirso de Molina. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1932. Kennedy, Ruth Lee. Studies in Tirso, I: The Dramatist and His Competitors, 1620-26. Chapel Hill: North Carolina Studies in Romance Languages and Literatures, 1974. Mancini, Guido, et al. Studi tirsiani. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1958. Maurel, Serge. L'univers dramatique de Tirso de Molina. Poitiers: Universite de Poitiers, 1971. McClelland, I. L. Tirso de Molina: Studies in Dramatic Realism. Liverpool: Institute of Hispanic Studies, 1948. Munoz Pena, Pedro. El teatro del maestro Tirso de Molina. Valladolid: Hijos de Rodriguez, 1889. Penedo Rey, Fray Miguel, ed. Historia general de la Orden de Nuestra Sefiora de las Mercedes. 2 vols. Madrid: Provincia de la Merced de Castilla, Coleccion Revista Estudios, 1973-74. Ruiz Ramon, Francisco. Historia del teatro espanol. Madrid: Catedra, 1988. Salomon, Noel. Lo villano en el teatro del Siglo de Oro. Madrid: Catedra, 1985. Sanz y Diaz, Jose. Tirso de Molina. Madrid: Campania Bibliografica Espanola, 1964. Sullivan, Henry W. Tirso de Molina and the Drama of the Counter Reformation. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1976. Vossler, Karl. Lecciones sobre Tirso de Molina. Madrid: Taurus, 1965. Wilson, Margaret. Tirso de Molina. Boston: Twayne, 1977.
Bibliographies Hesse, Everett W. "Catalogo bibliografico de Tirso de Molina (1648-1948), incluyendo una seccion sobre la influencia del tema de Don Juan." Estudios 5 (1949), 781— 889. Williamsen, Vern G, et al. An Annotated Analytical Bibliography of Tirso de Molina Studies, 1627-1977. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1979.
BARTOLOME DE TORRES NAHARRO (14807-1530?)
John Lihani
BIOGRAPHY Since pertinent records bearing dates prior to 1572 have been destroyed in various ways, the clues to the life of Bartolome de Torres Naharro (henceforth BTN) are deduced mainly from his own literary productions. It is believed BTN was born in the first half of the 1480 decade in Torre de Miguel Sesmero in Extremadura, Spain. Scholars connect him to various faiths, including Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. The latest speculative research explains his multifaith and multilingual background as deriving from the diversity brought together by his Valencian mother and his Extremaduran father. Presumably, BTN lived out his childhood in his native semiarid area of western Spain not far from the city of Badajoz. After attending the local parochial school, being an exceptionally bright boy, he may have gone on to the University of Salamanca, as a capigorron, a servant to a wealthy boy who himself was a student there. His presence in Salamanca, unfortunately, is uncertain, because existing records at the university begin only in 1546. He could have stayed there long enough to fulfill the necessary requirements for ordination later as a priest in Rome. While in Salamanca and still in his teens, he seems to have been awarded a third of a position as cantor at the Cathedral of Salamanca. He may have had tutelage in the dramatic art at this time from Juan del Encina and Lucas Fernandez. Lines from the latter's plays crop up occasionally in BTN's work. Both Encina and Fernandez served sequential terms as directors of palatial entertainments at the household of the Duke of Alba in the nearby town of Alba de Tormes, where BTN may have performed. BTN is thought to have put his ecclesiastical robes aside temporarily and to have served in the armed forces of the Catholic Monarchs. His military responsibilities seem to have taken him to Seville, Valencia, and parts of Catalonia, where he tarried long enough to improve his domestically acquired knowledge of the Valencian dialect. Somehow, he seems also to have picked up some
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rudiments about sailing ships, as the references in his works to sea voyages and to duties aboard ship tend to testify. He evidently undertook travel to Rome in 1502; but along the way he was captured by Islamic pirates and had to be ransomed. He completed his journey to Rome the following year. Thereafter, he seems to have served in the military outfits maintained by Cesare Borgia (1475-1507) in Faenza, Forli, and Rimini, and seems to have partaken in the Battle of Cirinola (1503). It has even been suggested that he may have figured as one of Lucrecia Borgia's (1489-1519) "courtly lovers" (Forcadas, 611-12). During the first decade of the sixteenth century BTN probably joined in providing different entertainments during important festivities, like marriages, distinguished visits, and assumptions of political power in the Spanish colony, which at that time numbered some 10,000 people in Rome. His talents may have helped him acquire a patron in the noble Medici family. As a young man, in 1513, he was still in Italy, no longer as a soldier, but rather serving the Spanish colony as a priest, poet, playwright, and director of entertainment. In Italy, he was exposed to the prevailing humanistic environment, which Erasmus also encountered (Zimic, vol. 1, 69). This joined both Italian and Latin dramatic influences to the native Spanish ones in his work. In 1516 he left the Medicis to serve in the household of the Spanish Cardinal Bernardino de Carvajal but soon left him, as well, for a position in Naples with Fabrizio Colonna, who had been a general for Pope Julius II. In Naples in 1517, BTN published his book of poems and plays, the Propalladia, and dedicated it to his patron Fabrizio Colonna. All of his plays therein were composed and performed in Italy. His restless spirit drew him back to his native land when in 1520 in Seville he published an edition of the Propalladia with two more plays. No record of his death has been found, but since there is no further evidence about his whereabouts, it is believed that his demise came by the end of the third decade in the sixteenth century. DRAMATURGY: MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES BTN's plays fall into three categories: (1) pastoral, (2) documentary, and (3) fictional. All of them were composed to celebrate special occasions. Their dates are still debatable. The play in the first category was a two-part Christmas and wedding play; all the other plays are divided into five parts or jornadas. The initial play in the second category seems to have been used to celebrate an assumption of office, while the second and third plays were to celebrate a banquet and a visit from the Portuguese nobility; the third category contains plays that seem to have been produced primarily as part of the celebrations for important weddings. All of BTN's dramas show a certain amount of social discontent, criticism, didacticism, and a desire for better distribution of wealth, but their stories revolve around the themes of love and family honor. The plots are
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on two levels: one entailing nobles, and the other, their servants, with alternation of serious and comic scenes. Pastoral Plays Didlogo del nascimiento and the Addicion al didlogo [Christmas Play and the Addition to the Christmas Play] (1505-1507) share some characteristics with the comedia a noticia. The short (1,111 lines) pastoral play represents BTN's first essay on the scene as a playwright. The Didlogo del nascimiento and its Addicion al didlogo both dealt with the theme of the miraculous mysteries of Christ's birth. Patrispano [from the "Hispanic land"], a pilgrim on the way to Rome from Jerusalem, meets Betiseo [from Betis, "Andalusia"], a pilgrim coming from Santiago. Betiseo has just been attacked by thieves and is consoled by Patrispano. As they depart singing, they are joined, in the Addicion part, by two other shepherds, Herrando and Garrapata, whose repartee about wayward clergy is cause for merriment. They all agree to attend midnight mass, and the scene ends in Latin and Spanish songs in praise of the Virgin. In this play, particularly in the second part, BTN follows the pastoral tradition of Encina and Fernandez, including their characteristic sayagues dialect. Documentary Plays The three plays in this category, comedias a noticia, are vignettes of life in Rome on the noble and the servant levels, exposing the widening differences between the social classes. Comedia Soldadesca [The Military Comedy] (1510). Begins with Guzman decrying the sad state of affairs in the eternal city and in the world in general. At the behest of a captain, he recruits soldiers for the pope's army and hires a drummer to spread the word. Along with peasant recruits, a friar also decides to exchange his habit for a better life in a soldier's uniform. In the next act, the Spanish recruits are billeted in Italian peasant homes and cause a bilingual altercation with the owners from whom they demand food. The next two acts deal with the corruption that runs rampant among all ranks of the soldiers. As the corrupt leaders continue fomenting their schemes, the Italian peasants rise in revolt against the Spanish soldiers, but when the captain speaks to them, he soothes their feelings to the point that they also ask to enlist. Detailing his plan for exploiting the soldiers with Guzman's cooperation, the captain marches the soldiers off for training, four by four, to the rhythm of a popular song. This play has been considered the oldest picture of outrageous customs of a dissolute soldiery that is only too eager to exploit its own members. As a vignette, it has no delineated plot or denouement. While there is no visible pro-
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tagonist or growth in characterization, it is seen as a strong satire of the pope's powerful, but corrupt, office. In the late 1970s, a modernized version of the play was staged in Zaragoza, and it was subsequently presented in Madrid as a musical. Comedia Trophea [The Triumphant Comedy] (1514). After the rustic, speaking in his say agues dialect, expressed his erotic memories of a love-flame, he praises the Portuguese king. Then, Fama recounts the virtues of the king, including his prowess as conqueror of the Moors and of the newly discovered islands of the East. Two rustics then arrive to clean the hall that is to hold a celebration to honor King Manuel of Portugal (1469-1521). Twenty pagan kings appear to pay mute homage to Manuel, as an interpreter conveys their intentions. The two rustics return to offer gifts to the heir prince Joao: a fox and rooster, symbolizing astuteness and gentility; a lamb, symbolizing humanitarianism; and an eagle, exemplifying altruism. The rustic scenes, in the eyes of some critics, tend to subvert the festive air of the play, while others see it as a reinforcement of it. The final act has allegorical and mythological figures, Apollo and Fama, who recite praises and prognostications of Prince Joao. After the eulogy, song sheets are handed out, and the audience joins in singing a song in honor of the Portuguese royalty. This festive pageant of a series of disjointed scenes, which patriotically extol the Portuguese king and his conquests in Africa, India, and the East Indies, was presented in Rome before the church dignitaries and the Portuguese ambassadorial entourage that came to the papal court bearing gifts from the new Portuguese domains. Comedia Tinellaria [The Mess Hall Comedy] (1516). A documentary comedy of manners. It takes place in a servant's small dining room in a Roman palace. The first act introduces servants of the palace, who vie with each other in pilfering food from the pantry. The next act depicts the period just before the next day's meal among the multilingual servants. The Portuguese and Spaniard spar verbally, while a Frenchman, German, Basque, Italian, and Valencian join in. The talk turns to complaints about the food. One of the servants reports that twenty others are intoxicated in the cook's room. Act 3 depicts the actual meal, which is found to be grossly lacking in quality, giving rise to further arguments and several reciprocal threats of reporting each other's fraudulent ways to the castle's ruler, the cardinal. During the repast, arguments center on missing piece of meat and then on missing bread. Following the meal, in the next act, other servants come to make their claims and threaten to blackmail their superior for his stealing if he doesn't pay their due. Pandemonium ensues, and the last act takes place in late afternoon. Wine is brought in from the tavern; other servants arrive too late to eat and are turned away, while some favorites are admitted for more drinking. Darkness falls; a
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candle is lit, and inebriated confusion turns into turbulent merrymaking, with dancing in a drunken orgy. The play ends with words of caution to the noble audience in attendance at the Spanish cardinal's palace or at the palace of his previous patron, Giulio de' Medici (Aliprandini, 73), exposing the "traitors" who often do their patrons harm and disservice. The author designed this play in six languages, with its 2,463 lines, as a twohour performance. BTN proved to be very adept at handling its large cast of twenty-two and versatile in depicting its languages. It is a polychromatic labyrinth of voices attuned to the psychology, character, and social rank of each participant that reinforces the dramatic situations in the work. The Babel therein is a sign of BTN's cosmopolitanism fired by the Italian humanism. Its series of disconnected scenes, as in the Soldadesca, displays a humanitarian thought and a satirical vision, with a moral intent to correct the notorious abuses fostered by the servants' very master and patron, the cardinal. The play criticizes favoritism, cronyism, and nepotism, wherein the undeserving are the ones who paradoxically reap the rewards. When it was published separately in 1516 (and later bound with works by other authors), it was dedicated to Bernardino de Carvajal.
Fictional Plays Fame, love, and family honor are the principal, interrelated themes of these marriage plays in the comedias a fantasia category. They have plot, intrigue, and gravity interlaced with levity. With these, BTN becomes the dominant early Spanish dramatist, presaging the modern, lengthy, complex play by developing the tripartite technique of prefiguration, activation, and recapitulation, which abrogates the restrictions inherent in the classical unities. Comedia Seraphina [The Seraphic Comedy] (1508-1509). The audience is forewarned by the rustic introit speaker that this is a difficult play because of its four languages: Latin, Italian, Castilian, and Valencian. In it, love is intermingled with corrective social awareness. Floristan loves Seraphina, with whom he has been intimate, but he learns that his father has already married him off by proxy to an Italian girl named Orphea. The solution, as Seraphina sees it, is for Floristan to kill Orphea. Servants enter the picture and on their level imitate their masters' pursuits of love. A hermit and his student-servant also figure in arranging the servants' affairs while they evoke complex, comic, even farcical scenes. Following Seraphina' s suggestion, when Floristan is about to strike the fatal blow, Orphea's proclamation of innocence, unjust death, and steadfast love for him makes him relent. When Seraphina then disdains Floristan, he reconsiders life with Orphea. The situation brightens at the sudden appearance of his brother, Policiano, who returns as a wealthy man from the New World, after just a three-year absence. The brothers are happily reunited, and a multiple marriage ends the play. Flor-
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istan marries Seraphina, and Policiano takes Orphea, who was, after all, his young secret love. This is the longest play (2,536 lines) in the first edition of the Propalladia. Among the myriad of interwoven sources, one can also detect lines that evoke the comedies of Lucas Fernandez. It departs from the Salmantine school's pastoral schemes seen in his Didlogo and adheres to the humanistic ones by establishing the setting in an urban environment. Forcadas (611-12) and McGrady (1989, 35) connect the Valencian character, Seraphina, with Lucrecia Borgia. This situation comedy, with farcical overtones, shares its multilingualism with the Trophea, Soldadesca, and the Tinellaria, while its plot resembles that of the Himenea, Calamita, and Aquilana. Comedia Jacinta [The Hyacinth Comedy] (1509). Unhappy, restless, and unemployed, Jacinto, a valet of German origin, seeks a new master. He laments the injustices of the world. Pagano, Divina's servant, is sent to befriend Jacinto and assure him of Divina's aid in her castle. In the second act a second wayfarer, Precioso, a Roman squire, disgruntled with the world, is seeking a friend. Encountered by Pagano and Jacinto, he is convinced to go with them before Divina. The third act brings Phenicio, a Spaniard, who sees only discontent in the world. He is urged to accompany the others to Divina's palace. Act 4 is one of self-study and revelation among the wayfarers, who cement their friendship and concur in praising women. In the last act, Divina herself approaches the wayfarers and invites them to dwell in her castle: two of them will be her brothers, and the third will be her husband, while Pagano will be their patron. A fairy-tale type of ending is achieved with a song in praise of Divina. Except for the "Christmas Play," this is the shortest of BTN's plays (1,301 lines), and he terms it a comedieta. It occupies the middle ground between documentary and fictional plays in that it has a storybook ending, appropriate for a marriage play, but it also reports on the current affairs in Spain and of Spaniards in Italy. Like that of the Soldadesca, its message, in part, is one of social discontent and a concomitant desire to have the wealthy share more of their good fortune with those who live and work in deprivation. Comedia Calamita [The Calamita Comedy] (1519). Jusquino, servant to Floribundo, is to deliver a letter to Calamita, his master's beloved, while Jusquino, for his part, courts Libina, Calamita's sister-in-law, who is married to a fool, Torcazo. He discovers that a student is vying for her attentions, and she manages to arrange to sleep with the student, disguising him as a female cousin coming to visit her. Prompted by jealousy, Jusquino reports to Libina's husband that she is keeping company with a student. Her husband physically punishes her for this, whereupon she swears vengeance on Jusquino. In a comic interlude, Libina's husband is attracted to her student lover for "her feminine charms." In the
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episode he discovers that by a "miracle," "she" has been saved from his advances by being "turned into a man." Calamita and Floribundo realize their reciprocal attraction and pronounce their marriage vows before both her sisterin-law, Libina, and his servant, Jusquino, as witnesses. When Floribundo's adopted father, Empticio, learns of this "inequitable" marriage, he seeks to kill his son. In a following comic interlude, Libina's husband is told by Jusquino to test his wife's love by pretending to be dead. Her lamentations over the "body" help her pass the test, but her student-lover is trapped into making statements over the ' 'dead'' husband, which are heard by the husband, Torcazo, and cause the student's banishment from Torcazo's household. Torcazo's father, Trapaneo, returns from Sicily and recounts the noble Sicilian birth of Calamita. Calamita was the sole survivor of the noble family that vanished in a plague. Floribundo and Calamita's marriage can now be blessed by his father. This is the most ribald comedy of BTN, although sex is used for comedy in other plays as well, especially in their introitos. In this comedia the plot is carefully planned and well developed. Juan de Valdes (108) praises this play and the Aquilana for their unaffected and clear style. There is some parody of courtly love, and there are poetic sentiments that seem to be taken from the Coplas por la muerte de su padre of Jorge Manrique. Other influences include Latin and Italian plays, like the Calandria of Cardinal Bibbiena. Because it is longer than the Himenea (1,698 lines), the Calamita (2,796 lines) has a good deal more prefiguration and recapitulation. It has elements of romanticism and intrigue, and, like others of BTN's plays, it is suffused with social awareness. Comedia Aquilana [The Aquiline Comedy] (1520-1523). A Hungarian prince, Aquilano has been disguised for some time as a squire in the court of the Spanish king Bermudo, hoping to win the love of Princess Felicina on his personal, rather than on ancestral, merits. He has been raised in the household of Bermudo, who hopes that someday Aquilano will become his successor. Bermudo, however, not knowing Aquilano's true identity, wants to marry his daughter off, coincidentally to a Hungarian prince, for political purposes. At a rendezvous between midnight and one o'clock in the morning, the lovers, Aquilano and Felicina, agree to meet again in secret the next day. In a humorous interlude, two comic characters lament the status of life, as they promote equality of mankind and equitable distribution of wealth. Felicina's maid, Dileta, summons Faceto, Aquilano's servant, and agrees to receive him in her abode, thus providing a subplot of the servants mimicking their masters. When Aquilano comes to his appointed meeting at Princess Felicina's window, she unexpectedly departs, leaving him heartbroken. The gardeners discover him and report to the king. Bermudo summons three royal doctors to cure his titular heir. His illness is diagnosed as love for Felicina. Faceto uncovers the
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true state of affairs to Bermudo, pointing out Aquilano's noble lineage. Meanwhile, since Felicina has heard that Aquilano is dying, and she cannot live without him, she attempts suicide. Dileta hinders her and also reveals the true aristocratic identity of Aquilano. The lovers then seek out each other and, at King Bermudo's urging, embrace as betrothed. Their wedding will be celebrated on the morrow. The Aquilana is the last and longest (3,125 lines) of BTN's plays—a culmination of his art, a compendium of his ideas—and of sources: Latin (Plutarch's Lives, Ovid), Italian (Bibbiena's Calandria), and Spanish {Celestina, Manrique's Coplas), and so on. The social subversion, the technical recapitulation, and the well-drawn master's counterpoint, the gracioso, are all brought to blossom in this play, showing BTN to be a superb master of structure, satire, and irony. Although the longest and the most ambitious of his plays is the Aquilana, scholars have reserved the highest acclaim for the Comedia Himenea as the most artistic of his plays. While in the last two decades the plays that have received more scholarly attention are the Soldadesca, Calamita, and Aquilana, the Himenea remains the critics' favorite. It is compact and attractively orchestrated, producing the greatest effect on the theater of the following centuries. Comedia Himenea [The Hymen Comedy] (1516). Himeneo unsuccessfully seeks to serenade his beloved, Phebea, whose chastity for family honor is zealously guarded by her brother, the marques. At Himeneo's second attempt to serenade her on the next night, she obligingly appears at her window. Himeneo is successful then in arranging a tryst with her for the following night, whereupon he departs just in time to escape the vigilant rounds of the marques. The brother plans to surprise the lovers and to kill them both to save the family honor. In the following act, the servants of Himeneo and of the marques dominate the stage, and both of them attempt to seduce Phebea's maid, Doresta, who is more obstinate than her mistress. On the appointed third meeting, while Himeneo is with Phebea, his servants flee at the approach of the marques and his servant. The marques breaks down the door to Phebea's house in pursuit of the lovers. By the time the marques reaches his sister, Himeneo has already made his escape. As the marques hears his sister's confession before her execution by his hand, Himeneo opportunely returns to declare that Phebea is his betrothed. Upon hearing this, the brother blesses the lovers and lets them join in matrimony. The play concludes with a song that proclaims love victorious. This work marks the high point of BTN's dramatic art. It sets the pace for the so-called cape-and-sword plays with its intrigue of love and honor, its tightly structured main and secondary plots, and its serious and comic scenes that chart new directions for the Spanish Golden Age theater of the following century.
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CRITICAL RESPONSE The critics' appraisal of BTN's plays started with renewed interest in the nineteenth century with Leandro Fernandez de Moratin and then by Marcelino Menendez Pelayo, who edited and commented on the Propalladia. The twentieth century has witnessed the publication of the thoroughly researched version with voluminous notes by J. E. Gillet, which will be raw material for scholars for some time to come. Since Gillet's work, editions of BTN's selected plays have come out, particularly for classroom use by H. Lopez Morales, D. W. McPheeters, and M. A. Perez Priego. Miguel Romera-Navarro did an outstanding study of the extraordinary artistic impact of the Himenea in the evolution of the Spanish Renaissance theater with its innovation of love and honor themes and with gravity and humor intermingling in judicious proportions. In the secondary plot on the servant level, the gracioso and soubrette reflect their respective masters and guide much of the plot as they parody the primary love interest. BTN incorporated the device of false accusation and made it the play's pivotal point. While the five-act structure was reduced in Spain to four by Juan de la Cueva and then to three by Lope de Vega, it continued to be used in England by, among others, Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Pelle. The play has symphonic fullness and depth seen earlier only in Rojas' Celestina, which, in part, inspired this drama by BTN. The techniques of prefiguration and recapitulation that started with Celestina, were developed by BTN, and were perfected by the Golden Age playwrights continue to be the key to telling a good story with conflict and a variety of themes. BTN was a polished playwright, a superb master of structure, satire, and irony. While in the Calamita and the Aquilana BTN reaches his literary maturity, Himenea remains his most brilliant play, establishing BTN as an outstanding dramatist without equal in Spain until the age of Lope de Vega. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY A list and description of the publications by BTN, along with an extensive bibliography of studies about those publications can be found in the following four-volume work: Gillet, Joseph E. (ed.). "Propalladia" and Other Works of Bartolome de Torres Naharro. Vols. 1-3. Bryn Mawr: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1943-51; vol. 4, Torres Naharro and the Drama of the Renaissance. Transcribed, edited, and completed by Otis H. Green. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1961. Editions and Translations Aliprandini, Luisa de', ed. BTN, Comedia Tinellaria. Riproduzione fotomeccanica della "editio princeps." Parma: Arnaldo Fani, 1985.
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Angliviel de La Beaumelle, Agnes, trans. Imenee. In Chefs d'oeuvres des theatres Grangers. Vol. 20. Paris: Chez Ladvocat, 1829. Chambers, H. H., trans, and Alfred Bates, ed. In The Hymen Drama. Vol. 6. London: Athenian Society, 1903. Gille, Bernard, ed. and trans. La Comedia Hymenee. In Theatre espagnol du siecle, ed. Robert Marrast; general introduction by Jean Canavaggio. Paris: Gallimard, 1983. Lopez Morales, Humberto, ed. BTN, Comedias. Madrid: Taurus, 1986. Soldadesca, Ymenea, Aguilana. McPheeters, Dean W., ed. BTN, Comedias Soldadesca, Tinelaria, Himenea. Madrid: Castalia, 1981. Perez Priego, M. A., ed. BTN Obra completa. Madrid: Turner Libros, 1994.
Critical Studies Canonica de Rochemonteix, Elvezio. "Del plurilinguismo al bilingiiismo: El camino hacia la verosimilitud en las comedias de Torres Naharro." In Estudios de literatura y lingiiistica espanolas. Misceldnea en honor de Luis Lopez Molina, ed. I. Andres-Suarez et al. Lausanne: 1992, 115-29. Carinena, Mariano, ed. BTN, Los mercenarios. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1979. Cirillo, Teresa. "Plurilinguismo nelle commedie di Torres Naharro." Annali: Instituto Universitario Orientate, Sezione Romanza 30.1 (1988): 173-222. . Plurilinguismo in commedia: Bartolome de Torres Naharro e G. B. della Porta. Napoli-Milano: Morano Editore, 1992. Conti, Marina. "Alcune osservazioni sulla Tinellaria di Torres Naharro." Rivista di Cultura Classica e Medioevale 24 (1982): 103-26. Davis, Nina Cox. "Torres Naharro's Comic Speakers: 'Tinellaria' and 'Serafina.' " Hispanic Review 56.2 (1988): 139-55. Fernandez de Moratin, Leandro. Origenes del teatro espanol. In Obras, vol. 2, Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles. Nueva edicion. Madrid: Real Academia Espanola, 1944, 184-87. Forcadas, Albert M. "Bartolome de Torres Naharro, amante de Lucrecia Borja segun las implicaciones de la Comedia Seraphina.'' Boletin. Sociedad Castellanense de Cultura 68 (1992): 603-24. Garcfa-Varela, Jesus M. "El discurso marginado en la obra dramativca de Torres Naharro." Diss., Indiana University, 1989. Dissertation Abstracts International 50A: 3972. . "Soldadesca o la derogation de la epica." Romance Languages Annual 2 (1990): 414-18. . "Calamita: la parodia del amor cortes." Cuadernos de ALDEEU 8.1 (1992): 33-41. Hughes, John B. "La lozana andaluza and the Comedia Jacinta." Essays on Hispanic Literature in Honor of Edmund L. King, ed. Sylvia Molloy and Luis Fernandez Cifuentes. London: Tamesis, 1983, 97-121. Laitenberger, Hugo. "Bartolome de Torres Naharro: Poeta y dramaturgo del amor cortes." In Teatro del Siglo de Oro: Homenaje a Alberto Navarro Gonzalez, by V. Garcia de la Huerta. Reprint, Kassel: Reichenberger, 1990, 321-45.
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Lihani, John. Bartolome de Torres Naharro. Boston: Twayne, 1979. . "Play-Audience Relationship in Bartolome de Torres Naharro." Bulletin of the Comediantes (1979): 95-102. . " L a contienda social en la Comedia Aquilana.'' In Josep Maria Sola-Sole, Homage, ed. Antonio Torres-Alcala. Vol. 2. Barcelona: Puvill, 1984, 199-209. Malinak, Edward M. "Torres Naharro's Innovative Dramaturgic Contributions to the Spanish Theater." In Estudios alfonsinos y otros escritos en homenaje a John Esten Keller y a Anibal A. Biglieri, ed. and prologue by N. Toscano. New York: National Endowment for the Humanities, National Hispanic Foundation for the Humanities, 1991, 140-48. McGrady, Donald. "More on the Image of the 'Rose among Thorns' in Medieval Spanish Literature." La Cronica 17.2 (1989): 33-37. . "Italian Influences on Torres Naharro's Comedia Calamita." Bulletin of the Comediantes 35 (1983): 181-88. Menendez Pelayo, Marcelino. Estudios y discursos de critica historica y literaria. In Edicion nacional de las obras completas de Menendez Pelayo, ed. Enrique Sanchez Reyes. Santander: Aldus, 1941, 269-377. This is an introduction to the edition of the Propaladia in Libros de Antano, Madrid: Libreria de los bibliofilos, 1900. Novella, Cecilia. "Elementos carnavalescos bajtinianos en dos obras de Bartolome de Torres Naharro." Actas del X Congreso de la Asociacion Internacional de Hispanistas. 4 vols. Ed. A. Vilanova. Barcelona: Promociones y Publicaciones Universitarias, 1992. Rodriguez Monino, Antonio. El teatro de Torres Naharro. 2d ed. Almendralejo: Escuela Universitaria, 1976. Romera-Navarro, Miguel. "Estudio de la Comedia Himenea de Torres Naharro." Romanic Review 12 (1921): 50-73. Surtz, Ronald E., and Nora Weinerth. " 'Algun diabro de fiesta': la Comedia Trophea de B T N . " La Torre, n.s. \3-A (1987): 575-83. Teijeiro Fuentes, Miguel A. " E l teatro extremeno en el siglo XVI, La Calamita de Torres Naharro." Revista de Estudios Extremenos 46.2 (1990): 415-28. Ulysse, Georges. " L a Soldadesca de BTN et la comedie italienne de son temps." La fete et Vecriture, Theatre de cour, cour-thedtre en Espagne et en Italie 14501530, ed. Jeanne Battesti Pelegrin and Georges Ulysse. Aix-en-Provence: University of Provence, 1987, 163-82. Valdes, Juan de. Didlogo de la lengua, ed. Rafael Lapesa. Zaragoza: Ebro, 1946. Weinerth, Nora. " B T N ' s Didlogo del nascimiento: a converso Christmas Play." Rev. de Estudios Hispdnicos 9 (1982): 249-54. Zimic, Stanislav. El pensamiento humanistico y satirico de Torres Naharro. 2 Vols. Santander: Sociedad Menendez Pelayo, 1978.
LOPE FELIX DE VEGA CARPIO (1562-1635)
Alix Ingber
BIOGRAPHY The life of Lope Felix de Vega Carpio is a jumble of uncertain dates and conjecture punctuated by bits of conflict, scandal, and, at times, bitter disappointment. Widely recognized as the creator of the comedia—the Spanish national drama of the Golden Age and roughly the chronological and artistic equivalent of the Elizabethan theater in England—Lope was also a prolific author of poetry and prose. Cervantes, his longtime rival and grudging admirer, called him a "freak of nature" [monstruo de la naturaleza], and to this day he is still referred to as the Phoenix [el Fenix]. During his own day his name was equated with the best: the expression "es de Lope" [It's a Lope] indicated a creation of the highest quality. In addition to the scarcity of solid documentary evidence of Lope's early life, his propensity for inserting himself into his works has led to a proliferation of information about his youth that cannot always be taken at face value. Some of his assertions are in conflict with each other, and none are necessarily true. The son of a master embroiderer who had recently moved to Madrid, Lope was born in November or December 1562. He was apparently a prodigious learner, is said to have been translating Latin poetry at the age of ten, and may have studied at the University of Alcala sometime between 1577 and 1582 (Rennert and Castro, 27). Sometime during the 1580s Lope began selling plays to autores [producer/ directors of theater companies]. By 1585 he already had a reputation as a young poet in Madrid. At the same time he became involved in the first of a series of love affairs (twice interrupted by marriages) that would continue throughout much of his life. Elena Osorio was the daughter of one of the major autores of the day and the wife of an actor. The affair itself may, in fact, have had far less impact on Lope's life than its aftermath: in 1588, not long after Elena broke off the relationship, Lope was arrested for having written and circulated two exceedingly libelous poems, in which Elena and her family were mercilessly sat-
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irized. Judged guilty by the court, Lope was sentenced to eight years' exile from Madrid and two years from the kingdom of Castile. In accordance with the sentence Lope left Madrid for Valencia, though he may have returned briefly to kidnap a young woman, Isabel de Urbina ("Belisa" in Lope's poetry), whom he married by proxy shortly thereafter. Within a matter of months he set off to participate in the disastrous expedition of the Armada and then returned to Valencia to continue the term of his exile from Castile. When, in 1590, he was able to return to Castile, he became secretary to the Duke of Alba, whom he served until 1596. In 1594 Isabel died giving birth to a daughter (who also died within a matter of months). The following year the remainder of Lope's sentence of exile was suspended at the request of Elena Osorio's father, who was clearly not pleased at missing out on all the plays Lope had been providing to other companies. Lope returned to Madrid, took up for a brief time with a woman named Antonia Trillo, and ended up being charged with concubinage in 1596. Around 1598 he began a relationship with an illiterate married actress, Micaela de Lujan. If Elena Osorio was to appear in Lope's work as "Fills" and "Dorotea," Micaela would be his "Camila Lucinda" or "Lucinda." The relationship lasted many years, and Micaela bore him seven children (Rennert and Castro, 104-5)—though during most of that time Lope was also married to Juana de Guardo, the daughter of a prosperous meat and fish merchant. He apparently lived simultaneously with both women in various cities (Madrid, Seville, Toledo) and also began a relationship with Jeronima de Burgos ("La sefiora Gerarda"), a good friend of Micaela. Juana de Guardo died in 1613; within a few weeks Lope was back with Jeronima. In 1605 Lope entered the service of the Duke of Sessa, who at that time was twenty-three years old. His duties were secretarial and seem to have consisted largely in catering to the young duke's interests in poetry and women. Lope's work for the duke frequently involved writing love letters for Sessa. At the same time he began a lengthy personal correspondence with the duke, and these letters form the basis for much of what we know about Lope's later years. In 1614, at the age of fifty-two, Lope decided to enter the priesthood. He was ordained in Toledo that year, lodging with Jeronima de Burgos during the entire process and complaining about the fact that the bishop required him to shave off his moustache. Lope's confessor insisted that he stop soliciting women for the Sessa, but there is no evidence that Lope ever complied. He certainly continued to write plays and to associate with theater people following his ordination. The year 1616 marks the beginning of Lope's affair with Marta de Nevares ("Amarilis," "Marcia Leonarda"), the one great love of his life. Marta was married to Roque Hernandez, about whom Lope wrote with considerable contempt until his death around 1618 and who is officially listed as the father of Lope's first child with Marta: Antonia Clara, born in 1617. Marta became blind
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sometime after 1623 and several years later went mad, but Lope remained with her until her death in 1632, at about the age of forty-five. Lope was a major participant in the beatification (in 1620) and canonization (in 1622) of Saint Isidro, the peasant cleric and patron saint of Madrid. He organized and officiated at the poetry competitions for these events, which included entries by a certain Master Burguillos, who, in fact, was Lope himself. Throughout his life Lope sought favor in high places and positions of honor at the court. The results were generally disappointing. He never gained membership in one of the three great military orders, though he was eventually made a Knight of St. John. He was a minor officer of the Inquisition but was turned down for the post of Royal Chronicler. He asked the Duke of Sessa to make him his chaplain or even his official secretary (apparently his chores for Sessa did not put him on a regular salary), but Sessa declined. Lope was very well paid for his plays, but he was always short of funds, always writing to the duke for some small gift to help him make ends meet. It may be that Lope's behavior was simply too scandalous to allow for overt recognition, or perhaps Lope was too embroiled in those squabbles and rivalries that permeated seventeenthcentury literary life in Spain. Lope's final years were fraught with tragedy and personal loss. Marta de Nevares died in 1632. The following year Lope lost his son (by Micaela de Lujan) and protege, Lope Felix, who drowned during a pearl-gathering expedition to Venezuela. In the same year his daughter (by Juana de Guardo) Feliciana married a civil servant. Then, in 1634, Antonia Clara was abducted at the age of seventeen by a courtier who was under the protection of members of the highest nobility. Lope died on August 27, 1635, following a brief illness. Rennert and Castro note that the king did not send his personal physician to Lope's bedside, nor did he show any interest in the poet's health or even come through with the post he had promised Feliciana's husband (335). Only the Duke of Sessa stood out as Lope's friend and longtime supporter, and it was he who paid for the funeral—which took a detour to pass by the Trinitarian convent where Lope's daughter (by Micaela) Marcela was a nun. DRAMATURGY: MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES Lope's literary production was staggering for both its volume and its incredible variety. Plays at that time were not considered literature; they were part of the commerce of popular entertainment and were written more for profit than for the praise of one's peers. Lope called them the "wildflowers" [flores silvestres] in his garden (Rennert and Castro, 340), and while he eventually took pride in his "invention" of the comedia, he always insisted that he wrote his dramatic works quickly and only for subsistence. Plays, of course, were written for theater companies rather than for publication, and none of Lope's plays were published before 1604. A total of twenty-five volumes of his plays (Partes)— each containing twelve works—would eventually be published, though Lope
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was not personally involved in the preparation of the first eight, and the last five were published posthumously. Lope's literary production was not limited to the theater. He produced a huge body of lyric poetry, including thousands of sonnets as well as romances and such Renaissance forms as epistles and eclogues. The themes are numerous: his own life, love, religion, mythology, contemporary literature. His poetic styles are equally varied, running the gamut from the heartfelt emotions of the poet himself to satirical reflections on the life and art of his times. Major collections of his lyric poetry include Rimas humanas [Human Poems] (1602); Rimas sacras [Sacred Poems] (1614); La Circe [Circe] (1624); and Rimas humanas y divinas de Tome de Burguillos [Human and Divine Poems by Tome de Burguillos] (1634). His major works of narrative poetry include La Dragontea [Drake] (1598), an epic poem that recounts the exploits of the English pirate Francis Drake; El Isidro (1599), a celebration of Madrid's patron saint in which he uses traditional Spanish meters (the eight-syllable line) rather than the more erudite eleven-syllable line of Renaissance poetry; La hermosura de Angelica [Angelica's Beauty] (1602), based on Ariosto's Orlando Furioso; La Jerusalen conquistada [Jerusalem Regained] (1609), based on Torquato Tasso's Gerusalemme; and La Gatomaquia [The War of the Cats] (1634), a burlesque chivalric epic in which all of the characters are cats. Major prose works include La Arcadia (1598, probably written between 1592 and 1594) (Zamora Vicente, 120), a pastoral novel; Los pastores de Belen [Shepherds of Bethlehem] (1612), in which a pastoral structure is used to treat a religious theme; El peregrino en su patria [A Pilgrim in His Own Land] (1604), a lengthy tale full of suspenseful adventures; the Novelas a Marcia Leonardo, which contains four stories or novellas, the first published in 1621 and the other three in 1624; and La Dorotea (1632), described by Lope as an "action in prose" [accion en prosa] in which he recounts, using the structure of Fernando de Rojas' Celestina, his disastrous youthful relationship with Elena Osorio. In 1604 Lope published in El peregrino en su patria a list (219 titles) of plays he had written by that date (claiming, at the same time, to have written 230 plays). He would periodically update the count, which in 1609 stood at 483, in 1618 at 800, in 1620 at 900, in 1625 at 1,070, and in 1632 at 1,500. Juan Perez de Montalban, writing in 1636, tops off the count at 1,800 (Rennert and Castro, 344^4-5). Today we are aware of 726 titles and actually have the texts to 470 of these. It is impossible to say just when Lope began writing plays, but we do know that by the time he met Elena Osorio, when he was about seventeen, his works were already popular with producers. In his New Rules for Writing Plays. . . [Arte nuevo de hacer comedias. . . ] (1609) Lope himself claims that he began his career as a dramatist at the age of eleven or twelve, and according to Cervantes he was Spain's most popular dramatist by the time of his exile in 1588 (Rennert and Castro, 86). Only two plays written before 1593 are still in existence: Los hechos de Garcilaso de la Vega y mow Tarfe [The Deeds of Gar-
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cilaso de la Vega and the Moor Tarfe], in four acts, and El verdadero amante [The Real Lover], which Lope claims to have written at the age of twelve (Rennert and Castro, 87-88). Las bizarrias de Belisa [Belisa's Pluck], possibly Lope's last play, was written in 1634, the year before his death. No single play or even a handful of plays can be said to exemplify Lope's dramatic production. Rather, one must recognize that he produced, over a period of about sixty years, a widely varied body of dramatic work that set the standard for the theater of his day, while never reducing itself to mere formula. Each play has three acts, and a wide variety of versification is used, depending on the nature of the action at any particular moment. Many plays include a gracioso: a comic figure, generally a servant, who often parallels in a parodic mode the words and actions of his master. Some of the most common motifs that appear in his plays are love, honor, Spanish history, Spanish values, peasant versus noble, and what might today be termed "popular culture," with many plays based on traditional ballads, popular sayings, or well-known bits of poetry. Lope's plays are frequently classified in terms of the type of action they involve, with categories including religious plays, plays based on classical themes, plays taking place in other countries, plays based on Spanish history, plays based on stories (particularly those of Bandello and Boccaccio), and plays dealing with contemporary customs and mores. Many dramatists followed Lope's example, and Golden Age theater during the first half of the seventeenth century is generally referred to as the "school" or "cycle" of Lope de Vega. Major dramatists of the Lopean dramatic tradition include Tirso de Molina, Guillen de Castro, Luis Velez de Guevara, Juan Ruiz de Alarcon, and Antonio Mira de Amescua. Toward the latter part of the century tastes changed, and a second dramatic cycle—exemplified by the baroque intricacies of the plays of Pedro Calderon de la Barca—took hold of the Spanish imagination. During the eighteenth century Spain's flirtation with neoclassic views of decorum resulted in a general rejection of what was seen as the comedia's aesthetic of excess. The Romantics, however, refocused the Spanish imagination on the comedia, and many of Lope's plays have, since the nineteenth century, continued to enjoy considerable popularity with scholars and audiences alike. CRITICAL RESPONSE Much comedia criticism has tended to be generic, considering broad characteristics of the genre and, at times, making little distinction between dramatists and even less between the works of a single dramatist (e.g., Reichenberger, Parker). While Lope did not invent the comedia, he is recognized as the dramatist who set the three-act structure as the basis for Spanish drama and who established the comedia as a truly national genre in the sense that it reflected and responded to the values and beliefs of the masses, who constituted, by their
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sheer numbers, the largest component of his audience. There seem to be two primary bases to this assertion. First, Lope is seen as the most genuine of Golden Age writers, in the sense of both his lack of baroque artifice and his expression of personal experience and emotion in all of his works. Second, Lope's drama is seen to be incredibly "in tune" with the values of his society. In terms of such values, different critics emphasize different kinds of values, from Reichenberger's discussion of honor and faith as the ideological pillars of the comedia (308), to the assertion by such critics as Maravall and Diez Borque that the comedia served as a kind of social and political propaganda to uphold the power of the monarchy, to the view of Castro and Marquez that Lope's comedia, in particular, reinforced Golden Age Society's obsession with blood purity. Marquez adds an interesting twist to this view, maintaining that Lope should be seen more as the creator of this value system than as its vehicle or disciple (e.g., 125-26). Today, Lope's best-known plays include Peribdfiez y el Comendador de Ocafia [Peribdfiez and the Knight Commander of Ocafia], El caballero de 01medo [The Knight from Olmedo], Fuenteovejuna, and El castigo sin venganza [Punishment without Revenge]. All four illustrate Lope's view, best stated in his New Rules. . . that honor conflicts make the best themes, since they have a powerful impact on all spectators ("Los casos de la honra son mejores, / porque mueven con fuerza a toda gente"). Perhaps the best definition of honor in the comedia comes from Lope himself. In his play Los Comendadores de Cordoba [The Knights Commander of Cordoba] a character defines honor as something that resides in others {"honra es aquella que consiste en otro"), because it is based on reputation: the way an individual is perceived and treated by those around him. Honor is thus awarded rather than earned and is often derived more from appearances than from fact or actual behavior. Honor is typically seen as a "possession" of men. One important aspect of a man's reputation, however, was dependent on the women in his family: any suspicion of sexual impropriety on the part of wives, daughters, sisters, and even mothers could cause a man's honor to be irretrievably lost—and with it a man's place in society. Critical studies of honor plays tend to focus on works that contain conjugal honor conflicts: cases in which a wife is, rightly or wrongly, suspected of adultery, and a husband must attempt to regain his reputation through means that range from comical deception to wife murder. These conjugal honor plays all recognize a "code of honor," by which a man must protect his reputation by any means necessary and must also—even more important, perhaps—keep absolutely secret both the suspected offense and his means of dealing with it. It is not entirely clear, however, just what Lope meant by "honor conflict." My own view is that Lope's use of the theme was far broader and more generalized and that explorations of honor can be seen as a major cornerstone of much of his dramatic work. I also believe that a close examination of Lope's plays leads us to challenge the prevailing view of Lope—stated most clearly by
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Amado Alonso—as the great poet of Spanish conformity ("el mas grande poeta de la conformidad," 195). Both Peribdfiez. . . and El castigo sin venganza contain conjugal honor conflicts. In the first play a newly married peasant sees his honor threatened when the local Comendador [Knight Commander, a sort of feudal lord given authority over an area by the military order to which he belongs] falls desperately in love with the peasant's wife. Here the husband's need to take action comes into conflict with the rules governing interaction between the social classes: a peasant offended by a nobleman could take vengeance on his wife, but not on the noble offender. At the end of the play Peribanez does manage to kill the Comendador, but only after the Comendador has granted him a knighthood (hoping to thus gain his cooperation with the wife). In his dying words the Comendador forgives Peribanez, accepting the legitimacy of the vengeance not in terms of justice, but based on Peribanez' new social status. The plot of El castigo sin venganza is based on a story by Bandello. In this play the Duke of Ferrara, whose unfaithfulness has driven his young wife to an affair with his illegitimate son, manages to kill both wife and son without his dishonor's ever being revealed. While such an action clearly adheres to the dictates of the honor code, it is an act based on trickery and deceit taken by a character known by all to be an inveterate womanizer. Futher ironies reside in the fact that the duke marries only to improve his reputation with his subjects, and in the situation of the son, who—though deprived of honor by his illegitimacy—is clearly protrayed as the more sympathetic of the two characters. Though the play's title is generally translated as "Justice without Revenge," the more literal "Punishment without Revenge" would seem far more accurate. Neither El Caballero de Olmedo nor Fuenteovejuna contains a conjugal honor conflict. Both plays, however, focus on situations in which an obsession with honor provokes conflict and violence. El caballero de Olmedo tells the tale of Alonso, a brave young nobleman murdered on the road by a rival. The story itself was well known, since it was the subject of a popular verse and an earlier play. Lope adds suspense by changing the historical period of the play and adding a plot structure based on the Celestina, as Alonso enlists the help of Fabia, an elderly bawd said to be adept in the practice of witchcraft. Rodrigo, whose primary characteristic is his sense of insecurity, is ultimately driven to murder by what he insists on seeing as a series of honor offenses: the fact that Ines (the woman he loves) prefers Alonso, Alonso's use of a disreputable gobetween to facilitate his communication with Ines, and Alonso's extroardinary success in a jousting tournament attended by the king—who also sees Alonso save Rodrigo's life. By focusing on the participation of Fabia, Rodrigo is able to convince himself that Alonso's death is justifiable, since Fabia's involvement has brought dishonor to Ines' father. Lope's interweaving of multiple sources allows him to present a society in which any disappointment can be attributed to a dishonoring act, thus provoking a violent reaction that would seem to be mandated by each man's need to protect his honor.
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Fuenteovejuna is probably Lope's best-known play, though there is evidence to suggest that this was not the case during Lope's day—there seems to be no information on its reception by the Golden Age public or on any performance during that period. Even so, the play serves as an excellent point of departure from which to review Lope's dramatic themes and discuss the way criticism has dealt with the analysis of a specific play. Fuenteovejuna was published in 1619, the last of the plays included in the twelfth Parte, and Morley and Bruerton think it was probably composed between 1612 and 1614 (330-31). According to Lopez Estrada, nothing else is known about the play until, in 1845, Schack translated it into German and gave it his highest praise in his history of Spanish drama (Fuente Ovejuna, 9). In the next few decades it was published by Hartzenbusch in volume 41 of the Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles and praised by Menendez Pelayo, who also noted how strange it seemed that the play was not well known in Spain (Lopez Estrada, Fuente Ovejuna, 9-10). The play, like so many of Lope's, is based on a historical source, a chronicle of the military orders of Spain (Chronica de las tres Ordenes y Caballerias de Santiago, Calatrava y Alcantara), written by Francisco de Rades y Andrada and published in 1572. The play, which follows the episode in the chronicle rather closely, tells the story of a town of peasants who brutally murder their Comendador after being subject to his constant abuse, including the seduction of many women. Lope broadens the plot by including the Catholic monarchs (Ferdinand and Isabella) in the plot and by having his Comendador involve the young leader (Maestre) of his military order in a plot to secure the Spanish throne for the king of Portugal. He also adds a love interest in the relationship between the peasants Frondoso and Laurencia. When the Comendador attempts to seduce Laurencia, Frondoso stops him by threatening him with his own crossbow (it was a crime for a peasant to bear arms); when the two peasants marry at the end of the second act, the Comendador interrupts the ceremony, takes Laurencia for himself, and has Frondoso arrested for treason. Laurencia eventually escapes and goads the village elders to commit the ultimate act of vengeance with insults to their manhood. When the king attempts to investigate the murder of the Comendador, he has his judges torture the entire village, but the only answer they will give is a communal one: "Fuenteovejuna did it." In the end the king is forced to pardon the whole town and place it under his own personal protection until he can find another suitable Comendador to "inherit" it. Menendez Pelayo describes the play as the most democratic in all of Spanish drama ("no hay obra mas democrdtica en el Teatro castellano" 157). Critical reactions to the play have been varied. Some focus on the notion of the collective protagonist and the development of political awareness among the townspeople (e.g., Donald R. Larson). Others, convinced that Lope could not possibly advocate the supremacy of the peasantry over the nobility, focus instead on Platonic and poetic elements of the work, stressing the notion that the play's main action moves from disharmony to harmony (e.g., Spitzer), or cite the historical alliance between the monarchy and the peasantry against the powerful
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military orders as Lope's primary motivation (e.g., Anibal). Still others see the play as clear evidence that the greatest honor in Golden Age Spain rests in the peasantry, whose blood purity was considered unassailable (e.g., Castro). Honor is clearly a crucial motif in Fuente Ovejuna, and, in my view, the play's action reveals a society virtually immobilized by the universal fear of losing honor. The Comendador's assault on the women of Fuenteovejuna is an affront against the honor of their fathers, brothers, and husbands; and his assault on the authority of the Catholic monarchs is likewise a profoundly dishonoring act. Further examination of the way honor functions in this play, in fact, suggests that Menendez Pelayo's affirmation of the play's "democratic" nature was true in a sense very different from the one he intended: Lope treats the obsession with honor democratically, across class lines, to produce a work in which all conflict is based on an obsession with honor by all involved, and each conflict is resolved by a kind of cynical face-saving in which each character seeks to restore lost honor without having to admit that honor has ever been lost. The two primary means by which this is accomplished is through the use of discourteous or insulting language and through the incorrect assigning of motives for a dishonoring situation. As Donald R. Larson has noted (13), "Honor depends on the ability to impress one's will on others." In the play's opening scene, the Comendador achieves control over his superior, the young Maestre, by suggesting that he may be too young for his office, contrasting the Maestre''s white sword (shining, but also unused) with the red cross that adorns the uniform of Calatrava: Unsheath that unstained sword; which you will turn, in war, to red just like the Cross; for I can never call you Master of the crimson Cross that your breast bears, so long as your own sword gleams white (11. 129-135)' In the third act, Laurencia uses a similar technique to get the peasants to take action against the Comendador, who is about to have Frondoso executed. Her language is intended to dishonor by calling into question the manhood of the town's elders: Cowardly hares you are, savages, not Spanish men. Chickens, whose wives you just allow to be enjoyed by other men! Put spindles in your belts! How dare you bear those pikes! I swear to God I'll see that women alone reclaim
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That such language is indeed effective is evident when in each case it has the desired consequences: the Maestre commits the Order of Calatrava to an uprising against the Catholic monarchs, and the peasant elders of Fuenteovejuna go out and murder their Comendador. In a similar fashion, all classes make sure that their honor is restored without any implication that it had ever been lost. When the Comendador has Frondoso arrested, he claims that Frondoso has offended the Maestre of Calatrava and the whole order by threatening the order's Comendador—never once referring to himself in the first person. At the same time Esteban, Laurencia's father, speaks out for Frondoso as a father-in-law—never once referring to Laurencia as his daughter. In perhaps the most egregious example of "passing the buck" the peasants, when they finally revolt, do so in the name of supporting the Catholic monarchs against traitors—never once mentioning, in their rallying cries, the Comendador's abuses against themselves. As the play draws to a close, the king himself saves face, pardoning the village because specific culprits cannot be found—never once mentioning the fact that the peasants have made fools of his own investigating judges. In a very real sense, then, Lope reveals a Spanish society united in an obsession that is likely to lead to destructive acts. The significance of this conclusion is important in terms of the common view of Lope as a mouthpiece for the social ideologies of Golden Age Spain. It is quite possible, based on this type of analysis of Fuenteovejuna—as well as many other plays—that Lope used his profound understanding of Spanish values not just to entertain a broadly diverse public but also to suggest that the value system he appeared to exalt was not without some serious flaws.
THE LOPE DE VEGA PRIZE The Lope de Vega Prize was established in 1932 by the municipal government [Ayuntamiento] of Madrid to recognize unpublished dramatic works written in Spanish. Its first recipient was Joaquin Dicenta, hijo (Jr.) for his play Eleanor ofAquitaine [Leonor de Aquitania]. Awards were made through 1934. The prize was reinstated in 1948, following a break of fourteen years. Recipients have included Alejandro Casona (1933), Antonio Buero Vallejo (1948), Luis Emilio
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Calvo Sotelo (1969), Jose Martin Recuerda (1975), Fernando Fernan Gomez (1977), Ediberto Garcia Amat (1986), and Francisco Javier Prada (1991). NOTES 1. Lope de Vega, Fuente Ovejuna, Act 1, lines 129-35. Sacad esa blanca espada; que habeis de hacer, peleando, tan roja como la Cruz; porque no podre llamaros Maestre de la Cruz roja que teneis al pecho, en tanto que teneis blanca la espada. 2. Fuente Ovejuna, Act 3, lines 1768-83. Liebres cobardes nacistes; barbaros sois, no espanoles. jGallinas, vuestras mujeres sufris que otros hombre gocen! jPoneos ruecas en la cinta! jPara que os cenis estoques? jVive Dios, que he de trazar que solas mujeres cobren la honra, de estos tiranos, la sangre, de estos traidores! jY que os han de tirar piedra, hilanders, maricones, amujerados, cobardes! jY que manana os adornen nuestras tocas y basquinas, solimanes y colores!
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY A complete bibliography for Lope de Vega would include thousands of titles. The entries here are, therefore, by no means exhaustive, though I have attempted to make them representative and include as many of the more recent titles as possible. Items in the criticism section are, for the most part, limited to books (most exceptions are works cited in this chapter). I have included a number of collections of critical articles, which should provide an excellent starting point for serious reading about Lope's dramatic works, as well as additional bibliographical data.
Selected Editions and Translations Arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo. Ed. Juana de Jose Prades. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1971. El caballero de Olmedo. Ed. A. Hermenegildo. Salamanca: Colegio de Espana, 1992. El caballero de Olmedo. Ed. Francisco Rico. 3d revised ed. Madrid: Catedra, 1981. El caballero de Olmedo. Ed. J. W. Sage. London: Grant and Cutler, 1974.
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Cartas. Ed. Nicolas Martin. Madrid: Castalia, 1985. El castigo sin venganza. Ed. Antonio Carreno. Madrid: Catedra, 1990. Los comendadores de Cordoba. Ed. Alex Rolando Quiroga. La Paz: Urquizo, 1985. A Critical and Annotated Edition of Lope de Vega's Las almenas de toro. Ed. Thomas E. Case. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1971. Epistolario de Lope de Vega Carpio. Ed. Agustin G. de Amezua y Maro. Madrid: Real Academia Espanola, 1989. Originally published 1935-43. Five Plays. Trans. Jill Booty. New York: Hill and Wang, 1967. Includes Peribanez, Fuenteovejuna, The Dog in the Manger, The Knight from Olmedo, Justice without Revenge. Four Plays. Trans. John Garrett Underhill. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1973. Includes A Certainty for a Doubt, The King, the Greatest Alcalde, The Gardner's Dog, Fuente Ovejuna (The Sheep Well). Fuente Ovejuna. Ed. and trans. Victor F. Dixon. Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1989. Fuenteovejuna. Ed. J. B. Hall. London: Grant and Cutler, 1985. Fuente Ovejuna (dos comedias). Ed. Francisco Lopez Estrada. Madrid: Castalia, 1969. Fuente Ovejuna. Ed. Juan M. Marin. Madrid: Catedra, 1981. Fuente Ovejuna. Ed. Donald McGrady. Barcelona: Critica, 1993. Fuente Ovejuna. Ed. Francisco Ruiz Ramon. Salamancia: Colegio de Espana, Clasicos Almar, 1991 (Introd., 9-85). Justice without Revenge [bilingual edition of El castigo sin venganza] Ed. and trans. C. J. Davies. Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1994. La moza de cdntaro. Ed. Jose Maria a Diez Borque. Madrid: Espasa Calpe 1990. La moza de cdntaro. Ed. Louis C. Perez. Valencia: Albatros/Hispanofila, 1990. Obras. Ed. Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo. 15 vols. Madrid: Real Academia Espanola, 1890-1913. Obras. Ed. Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo. Vols. 7 and 29 (BAE vols. 158 and 234). Madrid, 1963 and 1965. Obras completas. Comedias. 6 vols. Ed. Jesus Gomez and Paloma Cuenca. Madrid: Turner, 1993. Contains ten plays per volume in chronological order; covers through 1600. Obras (nueva edicion). Ed. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori et al. 13 vols. Madrid: Real Academia Espanola, 1916-30. Peribdfiez and the Comendador of Ocafia. Trans. Lloyd James. Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1990. Peribanez y el comendador de Ocafia. Ed. Jose M. Ruano de La Haza. Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1991. El perro del hortelano. Ed. Antonio Carreno. Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1991. El remedio en la desdicha. Comedia morisca sobre el Abencerraje. Ed. Francisco Lopez Estrada and M. T. Lopez Garcia Berdoy. Barcelona: PPU, 1991. A Study and Critical Edition of Lope de Vega's El amor enamorado. Ed. John B. Wooldridge. Madrid: Porrua Turanzas, 1978.
Critical Studies Alonso, Amado. Lope de Vega y sus fuentes. Bogota: Instituto Caro y Cuervo, 1953. Anibal, Claude E. "The Historical Elements of Lope de Vega's Fuente Ovejuna." PMLA 49 (1934): 657-718.
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Arco y Garay, Ricardo del. La sociedad espanola en las obras dramdticas de Lope de Vega. Madrid: Escelicer, 1941. Astrana Marin, Luis. Lope de Vega. New York: Las Americas, 1963. Casalduero, Joaquin. Estudios sobre el teatro espanol: Lope de Vega, Guillen de Castro, Cervantes, Tirso de Molina, Ruiz de Alarcon, Calderon, Moratin Larra, Duque de Rivas, Valle Incldn, Bufiuel. Madrid: Gredos, 1967. Case, Thomas E. Lope and Islam: Islamic personages in His "Comedias." Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 1993. Castillejo, David. Las cuatrocientas comedias de Lope: catdloga critico. Madrid: Ediciones de Arte y Bibliofili, 1984. Castro, Americo. De la edad conflictiva. Madrid: Taurus, 1972. Criado de Val, Manuel, ed. Lope de Vega y los origenes del teatro espanol. Madrid: EDI-6, 1981. Diez Borque, Jose Maria. Sociologia de la comedia espanola del siglo XVII. Madrid: Ediciones Catedra, 1976. . Sociedad y teatro en la Espafia de Lope de Vega. Barcelona: Bosch, 1978. . "La comedia de Lope de Vega como propaganda politica y militar." Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos 322-23 (1977): 150-67. Drake, Dana B. Studies in the Spanish Golden Age: Cervantes and Lope De Vega. Miami, FL: Ediciones Universal, 1978. Entrambasaguas, Joaquin de. Vida de Lope de Vega. Barcelona: Editorial Labor, s.a., 1936. . Vivir y crear de Lope de Vega. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1946. Forastieri Braschi, Eduardo. Aproximacion estructural al teatro de Lope de Vega. Madrid: Hispanova, 1976. Fox, Dian. Refiguring the Hero: From Peasant to Noble in Lope de Vega and Calderon. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991. Froldi, Rinaldo. Lope de Vega y la formacion de la comedia: En torno a la tradicion dramdtica valenciana y al primer teatro de Lope. Salamanca: Anaya, 1968. Ganelin, Charles, and H. Mancing, eds. The Golden Age Comedia: Text, Theory, and Performance. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1994. Gatti, Jose Francisco, ed. El teatro de Lope de Vega: articulos y estudios. 2d ed. Buenos Aires: EUDEBA, 1967. Gitlitz, David M. La estructura lirica de la comedia de Lope de Vega. Valencia: Albatros, 1980. Hayes, Francis C. Lope de Vega. New York: Twayne, 1967. Hershberger, Robert. "Fuente personal de una defensa de la honra colectiva en Fuenteovejuna. Un acercamiento estructuralista." Looking at the "Comedia" in the Year of the Quincentennial, ed. Barbara Mujica and Sharon Voros. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1993. 135-40. Kossoff, A. David, and Jose Amor y Vasquez, eds. Homenaje a William L Fichter: Estudios sobre el teatro antiguo hispdnico y otros ensayos. Madrid: Castalia, 1971. Larson, Catherine. Language and the Comedia: Theory and Practice. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1991. Larson, Donald R. The Honor Plays of Lope de Vega. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977.
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Lazaro Carreter, Fernando. Estilo barroco y personalidad creadora: Gongora, Quevedo, Lope de Vega. Madrid: Ediciones Catedra, 1984. Lefebvre, Alfredo. La fama en el teatro de Lope, un aspecto de elaboracion dramdtica. Madrid: Taurus, 1962. Marin, Diego. Uso y funcion de la versificacion dramdtica de Lope de Vega. Valencia: Castalia, 1962. . La intriga secundaria en el teatro de Lope de Vega. Mexico City: Ediciones De Andrea, 1958. Marquez Villanueva, Francisco. Lope—vida y valores. Rio Piedras, P. R.: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1988. McCrary, William C. The Goldfinch and the Hawk: A Study of Lope de Vega's El caballero de Olmedo. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966. Menendez Pidal, Ramon. De Cervantes y Lope de Vega. 5th ed. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1958. Menendez y Pelayo, Marcelino. Estudios sobre el teatro de Lope de Vega. Ed. E. Sanchez Reyes. 6 vols. Santander: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1949. Montesinos, Jose F. Estudios sobre Lope de Vega. Salamanca: Anaya, 1969. Morley, Sylvanus Griswold. Los nombres de personajes en las comedias de Lope de Vega: estudio de onomatologia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. Morley, Sylvanus Griswold, and Courtney Bruerton. Cronologia de las comedias de Lope de Vega. Rev. ed. Trans. Maria Rosa Cartes. Madrid: Gredos, 1963. Mujica, Barbara, ed. Texto y espectdculo: Selected Proceedings of the Symposium on Spanish Golden Age Theater. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1989. Nagy, Edward. Lope de Vega y la Celestina: perspectiva seudocelestinesca en comedias de Lope. Xalapa, Mexico: Universidad Veracruzana, 1968. Parker, Alexander A. "The Approach to the Drama of the Golden Age." Tulane Drama Review 4 (1959): 42-59. Parker, Jack H., and Arthur M. Fox. Lope de Vega, Studies 1937-1962: A Critical Survey and Annotated Bibliography. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964. Pedraza Jimenez, Felipe B. Lope de Vega. Barcelona: Teide, 1990. Perez de Montalban, Juan. Fama postuma a la vida y muerte del doctor Frey Lope Felix de Vega Carpio. In Lope de Vega, Obras escogidas, ed. Federico Carlos Sainz de Robles. 4th ed. Vol 2. Madrid: Aguilar, 1964. 1515-26. Perez y Perez, Maria Cruz. Bibliografia del teatro de Lope de Vega. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1973. Reichenberger, Arnold. "The Uniqueness of the Comedia." Hispanic Review 27 (1959): 303-16. Rennert, Hugo Albert. The Spanish Stage in the Time of Lope de Vega. New York: Hispanic Society of America, 1909. Rpt. New York: Dover, 1963. Rennert, Hugo Albert, and Americo Castro. Vida de Lope de Vega. In part a translation of The Life of Lope de Vega, by Hugo A. Rennert; in part a new work by Americo Castro. Salamanca: Anaya, 1969. Rodriguez Baltanas, Enrique J. "Amor, honor y poder: Tres valores renacentistas en el teatro tragico de Lope de Vega." Bulletin of the Comediantes 43.1 (1991): 5 1 69. Rozas, Juan Manuel. Estudios sobre Lope de Vega. Madrid: Catedra, 1990. Salomon, Noel. Lo villano en el teatro del Siglo de Oro. Madrid: Castalia, 1985. Trans-
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lation of Recherches sur le theme paysan dans la ' 'comedia'' au temps de Lope de Vega. Sanchez Romeralo, A., ed. Lope de Vega: El teatro. 2 vols. Madrid: Taurus, 1989. Contains twenty-five important, previously published essays. Schack, Adolfo Federico Conde de. Historia de la Literatura y del Arte ramatico en Espana. Trans. Eduardo de Mier. 2 vols. Madrid, 1885. Simon Diaz, Jose, and Juana de Jose Prades, eds. Lope de Vega: Nuevos estudios. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1961-62. Sirera, Josep Lluis. El teatro en el siglo XVII: el cielo de Lope de Vega. Madrid: Editorial Play or, 1983. Spitzer, Leo. "A Central Theme and Its Structural Equivalent in Lope's Fuenteovejuna." Hispanic Review 23 (1955): 274-92. Stern, Charlotte. "Lope de Vega, Propagandist?" Bulletin of the Comediantes 34.1 (1982): 1-36. Surtz, Ronald E. The Birth of a Theater: Dramatic Convention in the Spanish Theater from Juan del Encina to Lope de Vega. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979. Trueblood, Alan S. Experience and Artistic Expression in Lope de Vega: The Making of La Dorotea. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974. Vossler, Karl. Lope de Vega y su tiempo. Trans. Ramon Gomez de la Sema. Madrid: Revista de occidente, 1933. Vosters, S. A. Lope de Vega y la tradicion occidental. 2 vols. Madrid: Castalia, 1977. Wardropper, Bruce W. "The Implicit Craft of the Spanish 'Comedia.' " Studies in Spanish Literature of the Golden Age Presented to Edward M. Wilson, ed. R. O. Jones. London: Tamesis, 1973. 339-56. Yarbro-Bejarano, Yvonne. Feminism and the Honor Plays of Lope de Vega. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1994. Zamora Vicente, Alonso. Lope de Vega; su vida y su obra. Madrid: Gredos, 1969. Ziomek, Henryk. A History of Spanish Golden Age Drama. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. Zuckerman-Ingber, Alix. El bien mds alto: A reconsideration of Lope de Vega's Honor Plays. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1984.
LUIS VELEZ DE GUEVARA (1578/79-1644)
C. George Peale
BIOGRAPHY The life and works of Luis Velez de Guevara are riddled with lacunae that may never be satisfactorily filled. Because documentary evidence is sometimes ambiguous and layered with irony, it is not easy to ascertain some of his life's circumstances. Similarly, because his works were never collected for publication, less than one-fourth remain of the some 400 plays he claimed to have written, and less than half of those have been edited. As a consequence, critical assessments of his oeuvre to date have been limited in scope. Born in 1578 or 1579—the evidence here is contradictory—in the Andalusian city of Ecija, Luis Velez was the second child of middle-class parents, Diego Velez de Duenas and Francisca Negrete de Santander. He studied at the University of Osuna, graduating Bachiller en Artes in 1596. Soon thereafter he entered the service of Don Rodrigo de Castro, Cardinal-Archbishop of Seville. Velez left his patron in June 1599 and joined the military, serving in Italy and the Levant. On returning to Spain in mid-1602, he lived briefly in Seville before moving to the royal court in Valladolid. In 1606, Velez followed the king and government to Madrid, where he enjoyed the favor and patronage of nobility and royalty until his death in 1644. Critics have unanimously portrayed Velez de Guevara as a wheedler and bothersome hanger-on. Credit problems were constant throughout the playwright's life—a fact noteworthy, but not unusual, especially when considered against the sociological context in which seventeenth-century artists and writers lived and worked. Clearly, more insight on the dramatist is gained from his relationship to social and artistic power than from his penurious condition. Velez was highly regarded both as a courtier and as a poet. He was never far from the center of power in Spain's political and artistic life. His first patron, Don Rodrigo de Castro, was, after all, the duke of Lerma's uncle as well as a member of the Holy Inquisition's Supreme Council. His presence in the royal retinue, from the moment of Philip IPs death in September 1598 until the conclusion of
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the Cortes in Barcelona following Philip Ill's marriage to Margarita of Austria the following year, was doubly powerful, owing to his dual role as prelate and as personal counselor to his nephew, the newly appointed privado to King Philip. Events during those months were a political, social, and cultural watershed that the twenty-year-old future playwright was able to observe close up in the company of his new friend and mentor, Lope de Vega. Later, until 1623, Velez served in the households of two of the court's most powerful figures, the Count of Saldana until 1618 and then the Marquis of Penafiel. Besides being the Duke of Lerma's second son, Saldana was an influential patron whose salon, or "academy," was attended by nearly all the court's nobility and virtually the entire pantheon of Golden Age poets—it will be remembered that it was in the "distinguished company" of Saldana's academy that Lope aired his Arte nuevo de hacer comedias. From 1623 onward, Velez enjoyed a succession of appointments from the Count-Duke of Olivares, first as steward to the Prince of Wales during his six-month sojourn of courtship in Madrid, then briefly as majordomo for King Philip's uncle, the Archduke Charles of Austria, and finally as doorkeeper of the royal chambers, a lifetime appointment signed by King Philip in 1625. Among Philip IVs poet-pensioners, Velez enjoyed unparalleled access to the corridors of power, but only as an observer and with nothing even slightly approaching the honors bestowed on Calderon and Rojas. In 1642, two years before his death, Velez retired from his post in the royal household, succeeded by his son, Juan, who by then was also a playwright of note. DRAMATURGY: MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES Velez de Guevara's theatrical career coincides with the regimes of Lerma and Olivares. He was closely linked to both, so it is natural that he would compose plays on the theme of privanza and that those works would have especially distinctive features. His earliest dramatic effort, El espejo del mundo (1602-3), is the Comedia Nueva's most succinct dramatic statement on the topic. Don Pedro Miago, attributed until recently to Rojas Zorrilla, is the first work to bring Gongorism to the stage; it is also the direct textual source for Lope de Vega's masterpiece, El villano en su rincon. The song "Duro escollo de hiedra armado" in Act 3 of El lucero de Castilla y Luna de Aragon [Castilla's shooting star and the moon of Aragon] was one of the great "hits" of the century. Calderon incorporated it into four of his own plays. El Conde don Pero Velez y don Sancho el Deseado was commissioned by the Duke of Lerma for an after-dinner performance in the gardens of his palace at Lerma on St. John's Eve, 1615, before the most privileged circle of the royal court. Drawing his plot from one of the best-known stories and songs of traditional balladry, Velez ingeniously took advantage of the site and time of its staging, utilizing the palace service staff, the architecture and landscaping of the newly constructed dining pavilion, the duke's table and silver service, and even the moon's phase on that particular evening to confect a highly theatrical, original work. Another privanza play, A
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lo que obliga el ser rey, is artistically quite unsatisfactory, yet it offers a problematic "insider's" view of palace life, and the play's "bureaucratic" solution to the honor problem, in which the villain is dispatched not by blood but by official bulletins posted by the perpetrator himself, is an engaging parodic counterpoint to the Comedia Nueva's traditional honor play. As with Lope de Vega and Guillen de Castro, the center of gravity of Velez's oeuvre lies in Spain's history and legends as handed down by tradition from chronicles, balladry, folklore, and proverbs. Whether the poet appropriated entire stories or only small elements from his sources, the cultural bindings of his plays were always tied closely to the audience's knowledge and sensibilities. In this sense, Velez's comedies, even those in a more courtly vein, have a decidedly "popular" and "authentic" feel, as in Los hijos de la Barbuda; La nifia de Gomez Arias; La serrana de la Vera; La montanesa de Asturias; El Alba y el Sol; La Luna de la Sierra; El alcalde de Zalamea; Los novios de Hornachuelos; El diablo estd en Cantillana; Si el caballo vos han muerto; and Mds pesa el rey que la sang re. A number of Velez's plays portray recent history. Some, like La mayor desgracia de Carlos V y Jornada de Argel, La Jornada del Rey don Sebastian en Africa, El cerco de Penon de Velez, and Los amotinados de Flandes theatrically re-create historical events both large and small. Others paint spectacular, dramatic portraits of heroes in Spain's recent history: El Hercules de Ocafia (Don Gonzalo de Cespedes), El hijo del dguila, and El Aguila del Agua (Don Juan of Austria). Las palabras a los reyes y gloria de los Pizarros, like Tirso de Molina's well-known trilogy, was commissioned by the conquistadors' descendants as part of their concerted campaign to revive the family's fortunes at court. The play essentially reteaches the story of the Peruvian conquest by drawing heavily upon recorded history and official documents; its didacticism is manifest in frequent restatements and paraphrases to clarify American words and empirical realities whose significance would not be immediately understood by audiences in Madrid; its dramatic structure creates a "historiography" in which the Pizarros' deeds are woven tightly into the grand imperialistic design of Charles V and his successors. Velez did not confine his repertoire to Spanish history; he penned foreign histories as well: Julian Apostata; Atila, azote de Dios; El cerco de Roma por el rey Desiderio; El renegado de Jerusalen; La nueva ira de Dios, Gran Tamorldn de Persia; El capitdn prodigioso, principe de Transilvania; La cristianisima Us; El jenizaro de Albania; El principe esclavo, I; El principe esclavo, II; El gran Jorge Castrioto y Principe Escanderbec. The latter four are noteworthy because they document the entire evolution of Velez de Guevara's dramatic vision and craft applied to a single theme, the life of Balkan hero Scanderbeg. The first was written for public venues. The poet reworked his play for performance in the royal palace under the title El principe esclavo', its success prompted a second part and also a recast for the corrales, El gran Jorge Castrioto, which exists in two different versions.
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Velez's novelesque plays, in the main, have a decidedly courtly flavor. El Caballero del Sol [The Knight of the Sun] was commissioned for the king's privado and staged with elaborate special effects before Philip Ill's court and the international diplomatic corps in the palace gardens at Lerma in 1617. There are two eyewitness accounts of the performance. Large platforms were constructed on each side of the Esla River, one for the players, the other for the audience, both projecting into the river like quays. Revolving sets enable the company to make rapid scene changes, from Naples to Plymouth, from solemn interiors to mountain scenes with clouds, thunder, lightning, rain, hail, and mist. Trapdoors were variously used to swallow characters or sweep them up into the heavens. A ship sailed up the river and was used several times in the course of the action to transport characters from one place to another. Ostensibly an allegorical romance of chivalry, El caballero del Sol takes place outside empirical space and time; the sweep of its plot is immense. Velez took full advantage of the park setting and of his technical resources to make the impossible appear not only plausible but real. On a less grandiose scale, there are Velez's capa y espada [cloak and dagger] plays. Critical consensus has long held that Velez did not write in that vein, but Los sucesos en Ordn por el Marques de Ardales and Correr por amor fortuna were clearly conceived and executed in the capa y espada tradition. Also Cumplir dos obligaciones, which, like the Castrioto plays, was revised by Velez for a later palace production as Cumplir dos obligaciones y duquesa de Sajonia, and revised yet again for the corral, probably in the 1620s, with the title La obligacion a las mujeres. In these, Velez fuses capa y espada conventions with the grotesqueries of Calderonian wife-murder plays. A number of Velez's novelesque works revolve around the identity of princes and nature of kingship: El Rey en su imaginacion; El nino diablo; El rey muerto; El principe vinador; El Rey naciendo mujer; Virtudes vencen sehales (1617); Amor es naturaleza (1617-18); El Conde don Sancho Nino (composed before 1628). The latter three are noteworthy for their explicit connections to Calderon's La vida es sueno: the Segismundo character in Virtudes is black; the "Segismundo" of Amor is a woman; Sancho Nino clearly appears to parody scenes from Calderon's masterpiece in a quid pro quo manner, which raises serious questions about La vida es sueno's date of composition. Velez was especially renowned for his religious plays. His dramatizations of biblical stories—La hermosura de Raquel, I and //; Santa Susana; La Magdalena; El nacimiento de Nuestro Sefior—of the lives of saints—El negro del Serafin (Rosambuco); La bienaventurada madre Santa Teresa de Jesus; El mejor rey en rehenes (St. Louis the King); El lego de Alcala (Fray Julian of Alcala); La rosa alejandrina (St. Catherine); El milagro imposible, Santa Rita de Casia—and of moral issues with allegorical figures—La devocion de la misa; Las tres edades del mundo; Los tres portentos de Dios; La corte del demonio; La abadesa del cielo; La mesa redonda—showcase the art and craft with which Velez so successfully animated Catholic orthodoxy onstage: inventive, original
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twists on well-known dramatic premises, spectacular special effects, and a rich mix of pathos, insightful lyricism, and ironic humor. Velez's extant short works number five loas and dances—Loa curiosa (prologue to La hermosura de Raquel, I); Bade de la Colmenaruela (epilogue to La hermosura de Raquel, I); Loa curiosa y de ingenio (prologue to La hermosura de Raquel II); Bade de los moriscos (epilogue to La hermosura de Raquel, II); Loa sacramental—and six interludes, Antonia y Perales, Los atarantados, La burla mds sazonada, La sarna de los banquetes, Los sordos, and El hambriento. Collaborative composition is one of the fascinating and little-understood practices of the Spanish comedia''s second generation. Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla and Velez de Guevara figure prominently in the rosters of known collaborated plays. Perhaps they were the catalysts of the phenomenon by reason of their palace appointments as well as their talent. The two collaborated on Tambien tiene el sol menguante. With Coello, Velez and Rojas wrote La Baltasara, Tambien la afrenta es veneno, and El Catalan Serralonga y bandos de Barcelona. The two also composed El pleito que tuvo el demonio con el cura de Madrilejos in collaboration with Mira de Amescua. Velez collaborated once with Calderon and Cancer, on Enfermar con el remedio, and he participated in the extraordinary seriatim composition of two plays, each involving nine authors: Algunas hazanas de las muchas de don Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza, Marques de Canete (Act 1 by Mira de Amescua, el Conde del Vasto, and Luis de Belmonte; Act 2 by Ruiz de Alarcon, Velez de Guevara, and Fernando de Ludena; Act 3 by Jacinto de Herrera, Diego de Villegas, Guillen de Castro, and Belmonte) and La luna africana (Act 1 by Belmonte, Velez de Guevara, and his son, Juan; Act 2 by el Maestro Alfaro, Moreto, and Antonio Martinez; Act 3 by Sigler de Huerta, Cancer, and Pedro Rosete). Velez's undisputed masterpiece and one of Spanish literature's truly great works is Reinar despues de morir. The lyrical tragedy re-creates the story of Dona Ines de Castro and Don Pedro of Portugal. Drawn from earlier works by Antonio Ferreira and Jeronimo Bermudez, the play is superbly crafted, reflecting a composition whose poetics are more akin to Calderon's than to Lope's: every character is strongly delineated; the plot is exceptionally taut and well paced; the poetry and music are exquisitely fused; the internal structure is unified around a finely nuanced cluster of metaphors. So singularly effective is Velez de Guevara's Reinar despues de morir that it is the wellspring for many of the dramas, operas, and ballets that have recast one of Europe's great modern myths. In general, Velez's plays can be distinctly characterized by their theatricality; his trademarks are, in the words of Cervantes, "pomp, tumult, pageantry, and grandeur." Because of these qualities and his fondness for special effects, Velez's name is synonymous with the comedia de ruido. His protagonists are bold and strong-willed individuals whose actions and introspection frequently belie the notion that Velez de Guevara's characters lack psychological depth, for example, Gila in La serrana de la Vera, Filipo in Virtudes vencen senales, Ines
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in Reinar despues de morir; Velez moves even Attila and Desiderius onto an ethical point. The comic figures in his plays are quite distinct from the standard gracioso. In Velez they are usually not dependent servant types but characters whose social role is not clearly identifiable and who move and act with far greater autonomy than their counterparts by other playwrights. Critics have recognized in Velez's poetry a refinement that is more courtly and artificial than in Lope's. As noted before, Velez introduced Gongorism into the comedia. But whether popular or culterano, risque or elegant, mordantly ironic or tenderly moving, his versification is always masterfully facile, and no playwright was as adept as he at incorporating popular balladry and music into scenes. Two features that uniquely characterize Velez's oeuvre derive directly from his life experiences. One is his fondness for Andalusia, especially Ecija: evocations of the Andalusian landscape and of its famous horses abound, and Ecija and her infamous pillory are mentioned frequently. The other feature stems from his years of military service: Velez's knowledge of Levantine geography and history is quite apparent in many of his court plays, and his scenes with soldiers or sailors have a distinctly authentic ring. Another distinctive feature of Velez de Guevara's dramaturgy is his penchant for spectacular execution scenes: La serrana de la Vera and Reinar despues de morir close with a discovery scene depicting the execution of their respective heroines; El alcalde de Zalamea stages a double hanging; La nueva ira de Dios, a double suicide; Atila, azote de Dios, a double crucifixion. The discovery at the conclusion of La Jornada del Rey don Sebastian reveals the execution of the cast's three galanes, the heads, respectively, of Portugal's monarchy, clergy, and nobility. But it is in El capitdn prodigioso where Velez takes the execution motif to its macabre extreme. His stage direction speaks for itself: "sounds of chains and fire offstage, a curtain opens and OTOMAN appears from the waist up, sitting on a tomb, wearing a tunic, mask and black wig. Burning torches on each side of the tomb, and on its steps all of the Sultan's brothers, as many as possible—[fourteen of them speak]—each one shown in the way in which his death was commanded by the Grand Turk MAHOMETO."
CRITICAL RESPONSE In his time, Luis Velez de Guevara was universally acclaimed as one of Spain's foremost poet/playwrights. Quevedo cited Velez with Lope and Calderon as the three great figures of the Spanish comedia. Cervantes, Lope, and Montalban praised his wit and poetry with glowing terms of affection and admiration. Ironically, Velez is known today primarily for his only venture into prose fiction, El Diablo Cojuelo (1641). It is commonly stated that the popularity of Velez's works waned after his death. In fact, a substantial number of his plays remained in the repertoire and were performed widely, and numerous suelta editions were published through the end of the eighteenth century. Following Lista, Mesonero Romanos, La
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Barrera, Menendez y Pelayo, and Cotarelo y Mori, all of whom criticized the playwright for his "lack of originality" and "carelessness" with plots, twentieth-century historians have continued to place Velez de Guevara in the first rank of the Golden Age's second-rate dramatists. While the perception of carelessness may be due, in no small part, to Velez's tendency to rhetorical excess, especially in his court plays, the perception may also be due to the flawed state of texts that have come down to us, usually in multiple versions, all of them at least twice, and usually thrice or more removed from the author. Only since 1965 have analyses of Velez de Guevara's dramaturgy from philological and theoretical approaches begun to displace assessments based on moralistic readings of his biography. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Plays Plays unpublished to date. Dates of composition are indicated whenever possible. Los agravios perdonados El Alba y el Sol A lo que obliga el ser rey (1625-26) Amor es naturaleza (1617-18) Los amotinados de Flandes Atila, azote de Dios Bade de la Colmenaruela (epilogue to La hermosura de Raquel, I) Baile de los moriscos (epilogue to La hermosura de Raquel, II) El Caballero del Sol (1617) Celos, amor y venganza Los celos hasta los cielos y desdichada Estefania El cerco del Penon de Velez (before 1634) La conquista de Ordn La corte del demonio Correr por amor fortuna La cristianisima Lis Cumplir dos obligaciones Cumplir dos obligaciones y Duquesa de Sajonia Disparates del Rey don Alfonso, el de la mano horadada (1621-22) El espejo del mundo (1602-3) El genizaro de Albania (before 1613) El gran Jorge Castrioto y Principe Escanderbec (c. 1625)
251
Luis Velez de Guevara El
hambriento
La hermosura de Raquel, Primer a parte (before 1615) La hermosura de Raquel, Segunda parte (before 1615) El hijo del dguila (before 1617) Julian
Apostata
El lego de Alcala (after 1618) Loa curiosa (prologue to La hermosura de Raquel, I) Loa curiosa y de ingenio (prologue to La hermosura de Raquel, II) El lucero de Castilla y Luna de Aragon (1613-1614, also known as El duque de Arjona* and El privado perseguido) La
Magdalena
El Marques de Vasto El mayor triunfo de Ciro, saber vencerse a si mismo El mejor rey en rehenes El milagro imposible, Santa Rita de Casia El negro del Serafin (1612-15) La nina de Gomez Arias (1611) El nino diablo (before 1631) La nueva ira de Dios, gran Tamorldn de Persia La obligacion a las mujeres (1606-10) Las palabras a los reyes y gloria de los Pizarros (1626)* El primer Conde de Orgaz, y Servicio bien pagado* El principe esclavo, Primera parte (also known as El principe
Escanderbey)
El principe esclavo, Segunda parte (before 1629, also known as El principe El renegado de
Escanderbey)
Jerusalen
El rey muerto El rey naciendo La rosa Santa
mujer
alejandrina
Susana
Si el caballo vos han muerto, y Blason de los Mendozas (after 1617) Los sucesos en Ordn por el Marques de Ardales (after 1607) Las tres edades del mundo Los tres portentos de Dios *Editions by C. George Peale are forthcoming (1988).
Editions In the following list full citations are only given for editions not documented in Mary G. Hauer's Luis Velez de Guevara: A Critical Bibliography nor in her "Addendum,"
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published in AntigUedad y actualidad de Luis Velez de Guevara, ed. C. George Peale et al., pp. 254-98. Complete data on editions listed here in brief can be found in Cotarelo, Spencer, and Schevill, or in the aforementioned bibliographies by Hauer. La abadesa del cielo. See Autos. El Aguila del Agua. In Michael G Paulson and Tamara Alvarez-Detrell. Lepanto: Fact, Fiction and Fantasy, with a Critical Edition of Luis Velez de Guevara's ' El aguila del agua, " a Play in Three Acts. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1986. . Ed. William R. Manson and C. George Peale. Estudio introductorio de C. George Peale. Fullerton: California State/Fullerton Press, 1997. El aguila del agua y batalla naval de Lepanto. Ed. A. Paz y Melia. El alcalde de Zalamea [attributed to Lope de Vega]. Ed. Juan Alcina Franch. Barcelona: Juventud, 1970. [attributed to Lope de Vega]. Ed. Max Krenkel. In Klassische Behnendichtungen der Spanier. HI. Calderon. Der Richter von Zalamea, nebst dem gleichnamigen Stucke des Lope de Vegas. Leipzig: Johann Ambrosium Barth, 1887. [attributed to Lope de Vega]. Ed. Juan Loveluck. Santiago de Chile: Zig-Zag, 1955. [attributed to Lope de Vega]. In Obras de Lope de Vega, ed. Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo. Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles Ac, 12. Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, 1899. Algunas hazanas de las muchas de don Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza, Marques de Canete [written in collaboration with Antonio Mira de Amescua, el Conde del Vasto, Luis de Belmonte, Juan Ruiz de Alarcon, Fernando de Ludefia, Jacinto de Herrera, Diego de Villegas, and Guillen de Castro]. In Comedias de don Juan Ruiz de Alarcon, ed. Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch. Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles 20. Madrid: M. Rivadeneyra, 1855; Atlas, 1946. . In Obras de Guillen de Castro y Bellvis, ed. Eduardo Julia Martinez. Vol. 3. Madrid: Tip. de la"Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos," 1927. El amor en vizcaino. Ed. Maria Grazia Profeti. El amor en vizcaino. El principe vifiador. Ed. Henryk Ziomek. Antonia y Perales. In Flor de entremeses y sainetes de diferentes autores (1657), ed. M[arcelino] M[enendez y] P[elayo]. . In Ramillete de entremeses y bailes nuevamente recogidos de los antiguos poetas de Espana. Siglo XVII, ed. Hannah E. Bergman. El asombro de Turquia y valiente toledano. El ollero de Ocafia. El Diablo Cojuelo. Ed. Jose Sanchez Perez. Los atarantados. In Flor de entremeses y sainetes de diferentes autores (1657), ed. M[arcelino] M[enendez y] P[elayo]. Autos [La abadesa del cielo, Auto del nacimiento, La mesa redonda]. Ed. Angel Lacalle. . Baile de los moriscos. See El verdugo de Malaga, ed. Maria Grazia Profeti. La burla mds sazonada. In Flor de entremeses y sainetes de diferentes autores (1657), ed. M[arcelino] M[enendez y] P[elayo]. . In Antologia del entremes (desde Lope de Rueda hasta Antonio de Zamora). Siglos 16 and 17, ed. Felicidad Buendia. Madrid: Aguilar, 1965. . In Antologia del entremes barroco, ed. Celsa Carmen Garcia Valdes. Barcelona: Plaza y Janes, 1985.
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El capitdn prodigioso, principe de Transilvania. In Adolf Schaeffer, Ocho comedias desconocidas de don Guillem [sic] de Castro, del Licenciado Damidn Salustio del Poyo, de Luis Velez de Guevara etc., tomadas de un libro antiguo de comedias, nuevamente hallado, y dadas a luz por. . . [Also published as El prodigioso principe transilvano, attributed to Lope de Vega.] El Catalan Serrallonga [sic] y bandos de Barcelona [written in collaboration with Antonio Coello and Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla]. In Comedias escogidas de don Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla, ed. Ramon de Mesoneros Romanos. El cerco de Roma por el rey Desiderio. Ed. Henryk Ziomek and Ann N. Hughes. Kassel: Edition Reichenberger, 1992. El Conde don Pero Velez y don Sancho el Deseado. Ed. Richard Hubbell Olmsted. . Ed. William R. Manson and C. George Peale. Estudio introductorio de Thomas E. Case. Fullerton: California State/Fullerton Press, 1997. El Conde don Sancho Nino. Ed. Robert J. Bininger and Ricardo L. Landeira. La creacion del mundo. Ed. Henryk Ziomek and Robert White Linker. La devocion de la misa. In Adolf Schaeffer, Ocho comedias desconocidas, vol. 2. El diablo estd en Cantillana. In Dramdticos contemporaneos de Lope de Vega, II, ed. Ramon de Mesonero Romanos. . See Reinar despues de morir. . Ed. Enrique J. Rodriguez Baltanas. Alcala de Guadaira: Guadalmena, 1990. Don Pedro Miago [attributed to Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla]. In Comedias escogidas de Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla, ed. Ramon de Mesonero Romanos. BAE 54. Madrid: M. Rivadeneyra, 1861; Atlas, 1952. . Ed. William R. Manson and C. George Peale, Estudio introductorio de C. George Peale. Fullerton: California State/Fullerton Press, 1997. El embuste acreditado [attributed to Velez de Guevara]. El espejo del mundo. Ed. William R. Manson and C. George Peale. Estudio introductorio de Maria Grazia Profeti. Fullerton: California State/Fullerton Press, 1997. Enfermar con el remedio [written in collaboration with Pedro Calderon de la Barca and Geronimo Cancer]. In Comedias escogidas de don Pedro Calderon de la Barca, ed. Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch. El Hercules de Ocafia. In Adolf Schaeffer, Ocho comedias desconocidas, vol. 2. Los hijos de la Barbuda. In Dramdticos contemporaneos de Lope de Vega, 11, ed. Ramon de Mesonero Romanos. . Ed. M. G. Profeti. Loa sacramental. In Maria Grazia Profeti, "Una 'loa sacramental' en jerga morisca," Segismundo 35-36 (1982): 59-77. La Luna de la Sierra. In Dramdticos contemporaneos de Lope de Vega, II, ed. Ramon de Mesonero Romanos. . Ed. Luis Revuelta. . In Seleccion de comedias del Siglo de Oro, ed. Alva V. Ebersole. . See Reinar despues de morir. Mds pesa el Rey que la sangre, ed. Frank J. Bianco. . In Dramdticos contemporaneos de Lope de Vega, II, ed. Ramon de Mesonero Romanos. . Ed. Henryk Ziomek. La mesa redonda. See Autos. La montanesa de Asturias. Ed. M. G Profeti.
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Spanish Dramatists of the Golden Age
La nina de Gomez Arias. Ed. Ramon Rozzell. . Ed. Carmen Iranzo. El nino diablo [attributed to Lope de Vega]. In Obras de Lope de Vega, ed. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori. Los novios de Hornachuelos. Ed. John M. Hill. . Ed. John M. Hill and Frank O. Reed. [attributed to Lope de Vega]. In Comedias escogidas de Lope de Vega, III, ed. Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch. [attributed to Lope de Vega]. In Obras de Lope de Vega, ed. Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo. [attributed to Lope de Vega]. In Obras esocogidas de Lope de Vega, Teatro, ed. Federico Carlos Sainz de Robles. Vol. 1. Madrid: Aguilar, 1946. El ollero de Ocafia. In Dramdticos comtempordneos de Lope de Vega, II, ed. Ramon de Mesonero Romanos. . See El asombro de Turquia. Las palabras a los reyes, y Gloria de los Pizarros. Ed. William R. Manson and C. George Peale. Estudio introductorio de Glen F. Dille. Fullerton: California State/ Fullerton Press, 1997. El principe vinador. See El amor en vizcaino. El prodigioso principe transilvano [attributed to Lope de Vega]. In Obras de Lope de Vega, ed. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori. [Also published as El capitdn prodigioso, attributed to Velez de Guevara.] Reinar despues de morir. In Dramdticos contemporaneos de Lope de Vega, II, ed. Ramon de Mesonero Romanos. . In Poetas dramdticos espanoles, ed. Gerardo Diego. Vol. 1. Barcelona: EspasaCalpe, 1960. . In Spanish Drama of the Golden Age: Twelve Plays, ed. Raymond R. MacCurdy. . Ed. Giuseppe Carlo Rossi. . Ed. Francisco Yndurain. . Reinar despues de morir. El diablo estd en Cantillana. Ed. Manuel Munoz Cortes. . Reinar despues de morir. La Luna de la sierra. Ed. A. Valbuena Prat. . Reinar despues de morir. La Luna de la Sierra. In Federico Carlos Sainz de Robles, El teatro espanol, historia y antologia (Desde sus origenes hasta el siglo XIX), Vol 4. El Siglo de Oro. Dramaturgos de segundo orden de los Ciclos de Lope y de Calderon. El Rey don Sebastian. In Adolf Schaeffer, Ocho comedias desconocidas, vol. 2. . Ed. Werner Herzog. El Rey en su imaginacion. Ed. J. Gomez Ocerin. . Ed. William R. Manson and C. George Peale. Estudio introductorio de Thomas Austin O'Connor. Fullerton: California State/Fullerton Press, 1997. La romera de Santiago [attributed to Tirso de Molina]. In Comedias de Tirso de Molina, II, ed. Emilio Cotarelo. Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles 9. Madrid: BaillyBailliere, 1907. [attributed to Tirso de Molina]. In Obras dramdticas completas, ed. Blanca de los Rios. Vol. 2. Madrid: Aguilar, 1952. La sarna en los banquetes. In Flor de entremeses y sainetes de diferentes autores (1657), ed. M[arcelino] M[enendez y] P[elayo].
Luis Velez de Guevara
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. In Antologia del entremes (desde Lope de Rueda hasta Antonio de Zamora). Siglos 16 and 17, ed. Felicidad Buendfa. Madrid: Aguilar, 1965. La serrana de la Vera, ed. R. Menendez Pidal and M. Goyri de Menendez Pidal. . Ed. Enrique Rodriguez Cepeda. . 2nd ed. enteramente revisada. Madrid: Catedra, 1982. . Ed. William R. Manson and C. George Peale. Estudio introductorio de James A. Parr y Lourdes Albuixech. Fullerton: California State/Fullerton Press, 1997. Tambien la afrenta es veneno [written in collaboration with Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla]. In Comedias escogidas de don Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla, ed. Ramon de Mesonero Romanos. El verdugo de Malaga. Bade de los moriscos. Ed. Maria Grazia Profeti. Virtudes vencen senates. Ed. M. G Profeti.
Prose Fiction Since Hauer's "Addendum," three important editions of El Diablo Cojuelo have been published, each with extensive, and distinctly focussed, critical introductions and complete bibliographies: El Diablo Cojuelo, ed. Enrique Rodriguez Cepeda. Madrid: Catedra, 1984. . Ed. Enrique Miralles. Barcelona: Planeta, 1986. . Ed. Angel Raimundo Fernandez e Ignacio Arellano. Madrid: Castalia, 1988. "£7 Juicio final de todos los poetas espanoles muertos y vivo (MS. inedito) y el Certamen poetico de 1638," ed. Hannah E. Bergman. In Boletin de la Real Academia Espanola 55 (Sept-Dec. 1975): 551-610.
Poetry Entrambasaguas, Joaquin de. "Un olvidado poema de Velez de Guevara." Revista de Bibliografia Nacional 2 (1941): 91-176. [Elogio del juramento del serenisimo Principe don Felipe Domingo, cuarto de este nombre]. Rodriguez Marin, Francisco. "Cinco poesfas autobiograficas de Luis Velez de Guevara." Revista de Archivos Bibliotecas y Museos 19 (1908): 62-78.
Translations The translations and adaptations of Reinar despues de morir from the eighteenth century on are too numerous to cite (see Roig's Inesiana), but particular note should be taken of Henri de Montherlant's La Reine morte. Likewise, El Diablo Cojuelo (see Hauer's Critical Bibliography and the bibliographies compiled by Rodriguez Cepeda, Miralles, and Fernandez and Arellano in their respective editions), with special note taken of Rene Lesage's Le diable boiteux.
Critical Studies Bolanos Donoso, Piedad, and Marina Martin Ojeda, eds. Luis Velez de Guevara y su epoca. Seville: Excmo. Ayuntamiento de Ecija-Fundacion El Monte, 1996.
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Cotarelo y Mori, Emilio. "Luis Velez de Guevara y sus obras dramaticas." Boletin de la Real Academia Espanola 3 (1916): 621-52; 4 (1917): 137-71, 269-308, 41444. Ferrer, Teresa. La prdctica escencia cortesana: De la epoca del Emperador a la de Felipe III. London: Tamesis Books/Valencia: Institucio Valenciana d'Etudis i Investigacio, 1991. Hauer, Mary G "An Addendum to Luis Velez de Guevara: A Critical Bibliography." In Peale, et al., pp. 254-98. . Luis Velez de Guevara: A Critical Bibliography. North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures, 5. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Department of Romance Languages, 1975. Peale, C. George, et al. (William R. Blue, Joseph R. Jones, Raymond R. MacCurdy, Enrique Rodriguez Cepeda, William M. Whitby), eds. AntigUedad y actualidad de Luis Velez de Guevara: Estudios criticos. Purdue University Monographs in Romance Languages, 10. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1983. Profeti, Maria Grazia. "Note critiche, sull'opera di Velez de Guevara." Miscellanea di Studi Ispanici 10 (1965): 47-174. Roig, Adrien. Inesiana, ou Bibliografia geral sobre Ines de Castro. Coimbra: Biblioteca Geral da Universidade, 1986. Spencer, Forrest Eugene, and Rudoph Schevill. The Dramatic Works of Luis Velez de Guevara: Their Plots, Sources, and Bibliography. University of California Publications in Modern Philology, 19. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1937.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Abellan, Manuel. Censura y creacion literaria en Espana. 4 vols. Madrid: Peninsula, 1980. Alborg, Juan L. Historia de la Literatura espanola, vol. 1. Madrid: Gredos, 1970. Alcala Galiano, Alvaro. Impresiones de Arte. Madrid: Libreria de Vicente Suarez, 1910. Alenda y Mira, Jenaro. Relaciones de solemnidades y fiestas public as de Espana. Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, 1903. Andrews, T. Juan del Encina: Prometheus in Search of Prestige. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959. Arco y Garay, A. La idea de imperio en la politica y la literatura espanolas. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1944. Arellano, Ignacio. Historia del teatro espanol del S. XVII. Madrid: Catedra, 1995. Arroniz, Othon. Teatros y escenarios del Siglo de Oro. Madrid: Gredos, 1927. Asencio, Eugenio. Itinerario del entremes. Madrid: Gredos, 1965. Aubrun, Charles Vincent. La Comedia espanola (1600-1680). Madrid: Taurus, 1968. Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Trans. W. R. Trask. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971. Bataillon, Marcel. Erasmo y Espana: Estudios sobre la historia espiritual del siglo XVI. French Original ed. 1937. Spanish eds. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economico (FCE), 1966. Canet Valles, Jose Luis. De la comedia humanistica al teatro representable. Serie: Textos dramdticos hispdnicos del Siglo XVI. Valencia: Universitat de Valencia Press, 1993. Casalduero, Joaquin. Estudios sobre el teatro espanol. Madrid: Gredos, 1972. Castro Guisasola, Florentino. "Observaciones sobre las fuentes literarias de 'La Celestina'." Revista de Filologia Espanola 24 (1924), Appendix 5. Chandler, Richard R., and Kessel Schwartz. A New History of Spanish Literature. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1961. Cilveti, Angel and Ignacio Arellano. Bibliografia critica para el estudio del Auto Sacramental con especial atencion a Calderon [An Annotated Bibliography for the Study of the Sacramental Plays with Special Reference to Calderon]. Kassel: Reichenberger, 1994.
258
Selected Bibliography
Cotarelo y Mori, Emilio. Bibliografia de las controversias sobre la licitud del teatro en Espana. Madrid: Archivos, Bibliotes y Museos, 1904. . "Ensayo historico sobre la zarzuela o el drama lirico espanol desde su origen a fines del siglo XIX." Boletin de la Real Academia Espanola 19 (1932), 62571, 753-817; 20 (1933), 97-147, 271-315, 469-506, 601-42, 735-87. Crawford, J. P. W. Spanish Drama before Lope de Vega. Revised ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1967; Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1975. Reprinted from 1922 ed. . The Spanish Pastoral Drama. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1915. Deleito Y Pinuela, Jose. Origen y apogeo del genero chico. Madrid: Rev. de Occidente, 1949. Diaz de Escovar, Narciso. Intimidades de la fardndula: coleccion de articulos referentes a la escena, comediantes y escritores dramdticos desde el siglo XVI hasta el dia. Cadiz: Espana y America, 1916. Diez Borque, Jose Maria. Sociedad y teatros en la Espana de Lope de Vega. Barcelona: Bosh, 1978. . Sociologia de la comedia espanola del siglo XVII. Madrid: Catedra, 1976. . Teoria, forma y funcion del teatro espanol de los Siglos de Oro. Palma de Mayorca: Jose. J de Olaneta, 1996. Donovan, Richard. The Liturgical Drama in Medieval Spain. Toronto: Pontifical Institute, 1958. Dupont, Pierre. La Langue du Siecle d'Or. Syntaxe et lexique de Tespagnol classique, 3d ed. Paris: Sorbonne Nouvelle University Press, 1990-91. Ebersole, Alva Vernon. Sobre arquetipos simbolos y metateatro. Valencia: Albatros, 1988. Entrambasaguas, J. de, and Manuel F. Nieto. Lope de Vega y su tiempo. Estudio especial de "El villano en su rincon." Barcelona: Teide, 1961. . Noticias referentes a los anales del teatro en Sevilla desde Lope de Rueda hasta fines del siglo XVII. Seville, 1898. Etreros, Mercedes. La sdtira politica en el siglo XVII. Madrid: Fundacion Universitaria Espanola, 1993. Falconieri, J. "Historia de la Commedia delT Arte en Espana." Revista de Literatura 11 (1957), 3-37; 12, 69-90. Fernandez de Moratin, Leandro. Comedias. Con una resena historica sobre el estado del teatro espanol y la literatura dramdtica en el siglo XVU. Paris: Gamer, 1892. . Origenes del teatro espanol. Buenos Aires, 1946. . Teatro completo. Textos Hispdnicos modernos. Madrid: Editorial Nacional, 1977. Froldi, Rinaldo. Lope de Vega y la formacion de la comedia. Salamanca: Anaya, 1968. Ganelin, Charles. Re-writing theater: The Comedia and the XlX-Century refundicion. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press; London: Associated University Presses, 1994. Gitlitz, David. La estructura lirica de las comedias de Lope de Vega. Valencia: Albatros Hispanofila, 1980. Gomez-Moriana, Antonio. Discourse Analysis as Sociocriticism. The Spanish Golden Age. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.
Selected Bibliography
259
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INDEX Academia de los montafieses de Parnaso, 52 Academia de los Nocturnos, 51, 52 Academia Poetica, 52 Las aceitunas (Lope de Rueda), 190, 193, 196 Addicion al didlogo (Torres Naharro), 220 "Adjunta al Parnaso,'" 71 Adrian VI, Pope, 97 Adversa fortuna de don Alvaro de Luna (Mira), 109, 111-12 La adversa fortuna de don Bernardo de Cabrera (Mira), 111, 112, 114 Aenid (Virgil), 58, 153 El Aguila del Agua (Velez), 246 Alarcon y Mendoza, Juan Ruiz de: biography of, 18-19; La Celestina and, 192; critical response to, 23-26; fortune theme and, 25; imitation by, 83; Lope de Vega and, 233; major works and themes of, 19-21; Mira and, 109; Moreto and, 136; Rojas Zorrilla and, 181; social themes and, 9, 25-26; Velez and, 248 Alatorre, Antonio, 19 Alba, Duke of, 96, 99, 218, 230 Alborg, J. L., 159 Alcala de Henares, Spain, 63 El alcalde de Zalamea, 40, 249 Alcazar theaters, 8 Aleman, Mateo, 154
Alexander VI, Pope, 1, 97 Alfaro, Maestro, 248 Algiers, 63-64 Alia van leyes do quieren Reyes (Castro), 52 Almazan, Spain, 207 Las almenas de Toro (Castro), 52 Alonso, Amado, 235 A lo que obliga el ser rey (Velez), 24546 Alvarez, Leonora, 145 Alvaro de Luna, D., 11 Los amantes de Teruel (Montalban), 127, 128 Amatorias, 32 Amescua y Mira, Melchor, 107 El amo criado (Rojas Zorrilla), 180 El amor constane, 52, 59 Amor es naturaleza (Velez), 247 Amor, honor y poder (Calderon), 39 El amor medico (Tirso), 209 El amor y la amistad (Tirso), 211 Los amotinados de Flandes (Velez), 246 Anibal, C. E., 113, 118 El anticristo (Alarcon), 20-21 Antona Garcia (Tirso), 211 Antonio de Vargas, Don Manuel, 140 Antonucci, Fausta, 60 Apluleious, Lucio, 153 El Aquiles (Tirso), 209 La Arcadia (Lope de Vega), 208, 232 Arellano, Ignacio, 31
264 Ariosto, Lodovico, 232 Aristotle, 5-6, 153 Arjona, J. H., 60 Armada, 5, 11 El arpa de David (Mira), 113, 114, 118 Arroniz, Othon, 190, 192, 194 Ars Armandi (Capellanus), 153 Arte de poesia castellana (Encina), 98 Arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo (Lope de Vega), 5, 7, 28, 65, 232, 245 Arthemio Giancarli, Gigio, 195 Art of Love (Capellanus), 167 Arunjuez, Spain, 8 As You Like It (Shakespeare), 207 El ataud para el vivo y el talamo para el muerto (Claramonte), 76, 78, 79, 80 Atila, azote de Dios (Velez), 249 Auctos (Encina), 2 Austrian National Library, 88 Auto de las gitanas (Vicente), 195 Auto del nacimiento de nuestro Sefior (Mira), 114 Auto de los Reyes Magos (Manrique), 103 Auto del Polifemo (Montalban), 125 Auto de repelon, 100 Auto famoso del Nacimiento de Cristo nuestro bien, y sol a medianoche (Mira), 114-15 Autos, 4; by Calderon, 13-14; by Encina, 3; by Lope de Rueda, 108; by Mira, 114-15; by Tirso, 214-15 Autos sacramentales, 12-13; by Bances Candamo, 29, 30; by Calderon, 10, 13, 14, 42; by Claramonte, 76; by Montalban, 126; by Rojas Zorrilla, 278; by Tirso , 2 1 3 Bacon, George W., 125 Badajoz, D. S. de, 2 Baeza, Spain, 29 La Baltasara, 111, 248 Bances Candamo, Felix Leandro Jose, 29 Bances Candamo, Francisco Antonio de: biography of, 28-30; collaborative works by, 14; critical response to, 3 1 -
Index 32; historical themes and, 10; imitation by, 14, 16; major works and themes of, 30; Moreto and, 132; political themes and, 11, 32; Rojas Zorrilla and, 180; as theoretician of theater, 32-33 Bances Candamo, Maria, 28 Banez, Domingo, 9, 21-22 Los banos de Agrel (Cervantes), 66, 67 Barbadillo, Salas, 154 Barbieri, Asenjo, 98 Barcelo Jimenez, Juan, 83 Batallion, Marcel, 161 Battle, John W., 89 Battle of Cirinola, 219 Battle of Lepanto, 63 Bella, Jose M., 114 La bella poeta (Mira), 108 Belmonte Bermudez, Luis, 128 Below the King All Men Are Equal (Rojas Zorrilla), 178 Benavente, Count of, 189 Berber pirates, 63 Bergman, Hannah E., 142 Bermudez, Jeronimo, 248 Bernardo del Carpio (Cueva), 88 The Best Mayor [is] the King (Lope de Rueda), 6 Bible, 153, 213-14 Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles, 16, 128, 131, 236 Las bizarrias de Belisa (Lope de Vega), 233 Boccaccio, Giovanni, 22 Boethius, Anicius, 13, 153 Book of Good Love, 153-54 Borgia, Cesare, 219 Borgia, Lucrecia, 219, 223 Bruerton, Courtney, 60, 236 Bruno, Saint, 214 Bucolicas (Encina), 98 Buen Retiro Palace, 8. See also Coliseo in Buen Retiro Palace Buero Vallejo, Antonio, 238 Burgos, Javier de, 220 Burgos, Jeronima de, 230 Burgos, Spain, 151 El burlador de Sevilla y El convidado de piedra (Tirso), 24, 75, 77, 84, 212-13
Index Burton, David G, 89, 90 The buscon (Quevedo), 154 caballero bobo (Castro), 52 caballero de Gracia (Tirso), 213-14 caballero del Sol (Velez), 247 caballero de Olmedo (Lope de Vega), 234, 235 Cada cual lo que te toca (Rojas Zorrilla), 178, 180 The Cain of Catalufia (Rojas Zorrilla), 179 Caldera, Ermanno, 136 Calderon de la Barca, Diego, 39 Calderon de la Barca, Jose, 39 Calderon de la Barca, Pedro: Alarcon and, 9, 22, 24; Bances Candamo and, 32; biography of, 39^40; La Celestina and, 161; court plays by, 41-42; critical response to, 44-46; culteranist style by, 5; death of, 4; dominance of, 1214; historical themes and, 11, 41; honor theme and, 13, 40-41; influence of, 15, 16; Lope de Vega and, 128; major works and themes of, 40^1-4; Mira and, 109, 118; Montalban and, 128; Moreto and, 16, 132, 133; musical play by, 13-14; nationalist period and, 8; non-dramatic works by, 46; protaganists of, 6; religious themes and, 10, 44; Rojas Zorrilla and, 177; social themes by, 4 5 ^ 6 ; status of, 12; Tirso and, 9; Velez and, 245, 247, 248, 249 Calderon de la Barca Prize, 46 The Calderonian Decadents (Jack), 16 Calvin, John, 9 Calvo, Lain, 51 Calvo Sotelo, Joaquin, 46 Calvo Sotelo, Luis Emilio, 238-39 Camargo, Ignacio de, 29 Canavaggio, Jean, 70-71 Cancer y Velasco, Jeronimo, 133 Cancer, Geronimo, 248 Cancionero (Encina), 96, 97, 98-99, 100 Cancionero musical de palacio (Barbieri),
El El El El
98 Canizares, Jose de, 17, 30
265 Cantalapiedra, Fernando, 75 Capellanus, Andreas, 13, 167 El capitdn prodigioso (Velez), 249 Caprotta, James, 59 Carlos, Baltasar, 178 Carlos, Prince, 10 Carlos de Borja, Don, 52 Carvajal, Bernadino de, 219, 222 Casa, Frank, 16 La casa de los celos (Cervantes), 69 Casa de Pilatos, 89 Casalduero, Joaquin, 70 Casilda, Saint, 214 Casona, Alejandro, 155, 238 El castigo sin venganza (Lope de Vega), 129, 130 Castaneda, James, 108, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114 Castile, Spain, 2-4, 230 Castillo Solorzano, Alonso de, 182 Castro, Americo, 159, 161, 231, 234 Castro Guisasola, Florentino, 152, 153 Castro y Bellvis, Guillen de: ballads by, 58-59; biography of, 51-53; Claramonte and, 81; critical response to, 5860; Encina and, 101; historical themes and, 10, 53; honor theme and, 54-57, 59; Lope de Vega and, 11, 58, 59, 60, 128; love themes and, 53-57; major works and themes of, 53-58; Mira and, 108; Moreto and, 15, 134; mythological themes and, 57-58, 60; power theme and, 59; Rojas Zorrilla and, 179; Velez and, 248 Castro y Virues, Beatriz de, 76 El Catalan Serralonga y bandos de Barcelona, 248 Catalina de Salazar y Palacios, 64 Catalonia, Spain, 39, 133, 205, 218 Cathedral of Slamanca, 218 Catholic Monarchs, 218 La catolica princesa Leopolda, 76 Cebrian Garcia, Jose, 89, 90 Cejador, Julio, 160 Celestina (Pedrell), 155 La Celestina (Fernando de Rojas): authorship problem and, 151-53; characterization in, 147^-9; Comedia
266 Himenea and, 226; critical response to, 157-68; Golden Age dates and, 4; honor theme in, 165; influence of, 154— 57; language and style of, 149-50; legacy of, 154-55; literary genre of, 152— 53; location of setting of, 146; Lope de Vega and, 232; major themes of, 146— 47; mythological themes in, 162-64; realism in, 164-65; religious themes in, 159-61, 165-67; F. de Rojas' grandson and, 145^46; sin/punishment and, 167; sources of, 153-54; text of, 150-51 Celestina's Daughter or the Ingenious Elena (Barbadillo), 186 La celosa de si misma (Tirso), 208 Celos aun del aire matan (Calderon), 41 El celoso prudente (Tirso), 211 La cena del Rey baltazar (Calderon), 42 The Centurion's Speech (Rojas), 150 El cerco de Numancia (Cervantes), 65, 66 El cerco de Penon de Velez (Velez), 246 El cerco de Tremecen, 60 Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de: biography of, 63-64; Castro and, 53 Encina and, 100; La Celestina and, 152, 154, 155, 157, 160; freedom and captivity motif and, 67; Golden Age dates and, 4; interludes of, 69-71; Lope de Rueda and, 190, 193; Lope de Vega and, 6465, 67, 67-68, 70, 71, 229, 232; love theme and, 67, 68-69, 70; major works and themes of, 64-70; Rojas Zorrilla and, 11, 179; social themes and, 68-70; Velez and, 248, 249; visual effects and, 13 Chamizal National Memorial, 190, 194 Charles, Prince, 2, 126 Charles I, King, 4, 10 Charles II, King, 4, 14, 29 Charles V, King, 4, 10 Christmas, 99, 114-15. See also Autos sacramentales The Chronicle of Alfonso X, 153 Chronicle of King Don Pedro (Lopez), 135 Le Cid (Corneille), 56
Index Los cigarrales de Toledo (Tirso), 125, 205 La Circe (Lope de Vega), 232 La Cisma de Inglaterra (Calderon), 12 Cisneros, Cardinal, 2 Clara, Antonia, 126 Claramonte y Corroy, Andres de: acting by, 76; biography of, 75-76; characterization approach by, 79-80; collaborative writings by, 14; critical response to 75, 82-84; fate theme and, 80-82; love theme and, 77-78, 79, 81; major works and themes of, 77-82; paradoxes and, 80, 82; poetry by, 76; poison remedy images by, 80; question of authorship and, 75, 77, 84; Tirso and, 16, 213 Cleopatra's Serpents (Rojas Zorrilla), 179 Cloak & dagger plays, 247 Coello, Antonio, 177, 248 Coello, Juan, 177 Coello, Pedro, 178 Colegio Imperial, 39, 107 Coliseo in Buen Retiro Palace, 12, 14, 29, 41, 107, 178 Colloquies, 189, 190 El colmenero divino (Tirso), 213 Colonna, Fabrizio, 219 Columbus, Christopher, 1 Los Comendadores de Cordoba (Lope de Vega), 234 Comedia (Comedy), 5; autos and, 12-13; Bances Candamo and, 32; Calderon and, 12-14, 40-41; La Celestina and, 149, 156; Cervantes and, 63; Claramonte and, 76, 77-79, 80-81, 84; Cueva and, 88, 90; dramatic evolution and, 1; durability of, 17; Lope de Vega and, 5-6, 64-65, 231, 233-234; Lope's disciples and, 8-9; Moreto and, 15-16, 132-33, 134; neoclassic period and, 17; political themes and, 9; Protestant Reformation and, 9; Rojas Zorrilla and, 180, 182; 16th century and, 4; stagnation of, 15; themes of, 5-7 (see also
Index specific themes)', Tirso and, 205, 207-9; Velez and, 245^16, 249-50 Comedia a notica, 220 Comedia Aquilana (Torres Naharro), 22425 Comedia Armelina (Lope de Rueda), 189, 191, 193 Comedia Calamita (Torres Naharro), 22324 Comedia de Calisto y Melibea (Rojas), 150 Comedia de la constancia de Arcelina (Cueva), 88-89 Comedia de la libertad de Espana por Bernardo del Carpio (Cueva), 88, 89, 90 Comedia de la libertad de Roma por Mucio Cevola (Cueva), 88 Comedia de la muerte del rey Don Sancho y reto de Zamora por don Diego Ordonez (Cueva), 88, 90 Comedia del degollado (Cueva), 88, 89 Comedia del infamador (Cueva), 88-89, 90, 92-93 Comedia de los enganados (Lope de Rueda), 189, 190, 191, 193 Comedia del principe tirano (Cueva), 8889 Comedia del saco de Roma y muerte de Borbon y coronacion de nuestro invicto emperador Carlos Quinto (Cueva), 88 Comedia del tutor (Cueva), 88-89, 90 Comedia del viejo enamorado (Cueva), 88-89 Comedia de ruido, 248 Comedia Eufemia (Lope de Rueda), 189, 191-92, 195-96 Comedia Himenea (Torres Naharro), 224 Comedia historical, 30 Comedia Jacinta (Torres Naharro), 222 Comedia Medora (Lope de Rueda), 189, 190, 191, 192-93, 194-95, 196-97 Comedias a fantasia, 222 Comedias palatinas, 13 Comedias de privanza, 110-11, 118 Comedias de santos y bandoleros, 115, 212
267 Comedias escogidas del Dr. Juan Perez de Montalban, 128 Comedia Seraphina (Torres Naharro), 222-23 Comedia Soldadesca (Torres Naharro), 220-21 Comedia Tinellaria (Torres Naharro), 221— 22 Comedia Trophea (Torres Naharro), 221 Comedies of intrigue, 207-9 Committee for Reform of the Council of Castile, 207 Como han de granjearse las damas (Castro), 51 Como han de ser los amigos (Tirso), 211 Como se curan los celos y Orlando furioso (Bances Candamo), 29 Comunidades, 97 El conde Alarcos (Mira), 114 El Conde don Sancho Nino (Velez), 247 El Conde don Pero Velez y don Sancho el Deseado (Velez), 245 El conde Lucanor (Juan Manuel), 69, 190 El condenado por desconfiado, 10, 114, 117, 118 Conlon, Raymond, 182 Las conversiones (Martin), 155 Coplas por la muerte de su padre (Manrique), 98, 224 Corneille, Pierre, 23-24, 56 Cornudo y contento (Lope de Rueda), 193 La corona merecida (Lope de Vega), 81 Corpus Christi plays, 126, 188, 189, 198, 213 Correr por amor fortuna (Velez), 247 Cotarelo y Mori, Emelio, 17, 108, 109, 180, 250 Cotarelo y Valledor, Armando, 70 The Country Houses of Toledo (Tirso), 206 Counter Reformation, 20, 26, 214 Criado del Val, Manuel, 155 Critical canon, 23 Cross-dressing, 114, 181, 192-93, 195, 196-97, 209, 223-24
268 La crueldad por el honor (Alarcon), 19, 25 iCudl es afecto mayor, lealtad, sangre o amor? (Bances Candamo), 29 Cuenca, Spain, 89 Cuervo-Arango y Gonzolez Carvajal, Francisco, 31 Las cuetro comedias. Lope de Rueda (Hermenegildo), 191 La cueva de Salamanca (Alarcon), 23, 181 Cueva, Claudio, 89 Cueva, Juan de la: biography of, 89-90; Comedia Himenea and, 225; critical response to, 89-93; evolution of drama and, 12; historical themes and, 3, 10: honor theme and, 92; irony by, 93; Lope de Vega and, 89; love theme and, 90-93; major works and themes of, 8889; Phillip II and, 89; quoted on comedy, 90 Cumplir dos obligaciones y duquesa de Sajonia (Velez), 247 El curioso impertinente (Castro), 53, 60
La dama del Olivar (Tirso), 210 La dama duende (Calderon), 40-41 Damiani, Bruno M., 10 Damned for Despair (Tirso), 212, 214, 215 Darst, David, 19 D'Averant, William, 180 De Armas Frederick A., 70-71, 79, 80, 81, 83, 84 Decameron (Boccaccio), 206 Decima, 58 Defamation theme, 191 The Defender of His Father's Honor (Diamante), 16 Del rey abajo, ninguno (Rojas Zorrilla), 179, 181 Deleitar aprovechando (Tirso), 206 Delgado, Manuel, 11, 59 Delgado Morales, Manuel, 23 De libero arbitrio (Erasmus), 21 De servo arbitrio (Luther), 21 La desgraciada Raquel (Mira), 113, 114
Index Deste agua no bebere (Claramonte), 7778, 79-80, 80, 84 De un castigo dos venganzas (Montalban), 127 La devocion de la cruz (Calderon), 118 Deza, Diego de, 178 El diablo cojuelo (Velez), 83, 163, 249 Diago, Manuel, 189-90, 193-94, 195, 198 Didlogo del nascimiento (Torres Naharro), 220, 223 Dialogue about the Language (Valdes), 151, 156 Dialogue between Love and an Old Gentlemean (Cota), 151 Diamante, Sabatino, 10, 14, 16 La Diana (Montemayor), 154 Diaz Castanon, Carmen, 31 Dicenta, Joaquin, 238 Dido y Eneas (Castro), 58, 60 Diego Garcia de Paredes (Lope), 15 Diego, Gerardo, 31, 46 Diez Borque, Jose Maria, 234 Disdain against Disdain (Moreto), 16, 133, 134-35, 136-37 Dishonor Leaves No Room for Jealousy (Rojas Zorrilla), 180 Dixon, Victor, 125, 130 Dr. Faustus (Marlowe), 163 Don Diego (Moreto), 16 Don Domingo de Don Bias (Alarcon), 23 Don Felipe el Prudente, Segundo deste nombre (Vander Hammen), 126 Don Gil de las calzas verdes (Tirso), 205, 207-8 Don Giovanni (Mozart), 213 Don Juan (Tirso), 9, 10 Don Juan ou le festin de pierre (Moliere), 213 Don Quijote (Cervantes), 63, 64, 69, 70, 71, 149, 152, 154, 157 Don Quijote de la Mancha (Castro), 5354, 60 La doncella de labor (Montalban), 160 Donde no estd su duefio (Castro), 60 La Dorotea (Lope de Vega), 154, 232
Index Dougherty, Deborah, 23 Do You Remenber Celestina, the Old Bawd? (Criado), 155 La Dragontea (Lope de Vega), 232 Drake, Francis, 232 Dramaticos posteriores a Lope de Vega, 16 El duelo contra su dama (Bances Candamo), 29, 32 Duelos de ingenio y fortuna (Bances Candamo), 29, 30 El dueno de las estrellas (Alarcon), 19, 22, 23, 25 Duran, Manuel, 205 Duron, Sebastian, 30 Ebersole, Alva, 83-84 Ecija, Spain, 244 Egloga de Cristino y Febea (Encina), 1 0 1 2 Egloga de las grandes lluvias (Encina), 99 Egloga de Placida y Vitoriano (Encina), 102 Egloga de Zileno y Zambardo (Encina), 154 Egloga interlocturia, 3 Egloga nuevamente trobada a donde se introduce un pastor que con otro se aeonseja, 3 Egloga representada en la mesma noche de Antruejo Carnestolendas (Encina), 100 Egloga representada en la noche postrera de carnal (Encina), 100 Eglogas (Encina), 98, 99, 101 Eglogas de los tres pastores (Encina), 101 Ejemplar poetico (Cueva), 88 El ejemplo mayor de la desdicha (Mira), 110, 114 Elam, Keir, 196 Eleanor ofAquitaine (Dicenta), 238 La eleccion de los alcaldes de Daganzo (Cervantes), 70 La eleccion por la virtud (Tirso), 211-12 Elizabeth I, Queen, 11-12
269 Elizabethan theater, 229 El Paso, Texas, 190, 194 " T h e Emperor's New Clothes," 69 Los encantos de Medea (Rojas Zorrilla), 181 Encina, Diego, 96 Encina, Juan del: biography of, 96-97; Castro and, 101; La Celestina and, 186 Cervantes and, 69, 100; critical response to, 100-103; evolution of drama and, 12; love theme and, 100102; major works and themes of, 9 7 100; religious themes and, 2, 3, 98, 99, 101-2; Torres Naharro and, 218 Enfermar con el remedio, 248 England, 8, 9, 11 Enlightenment, 33 Entre bobos anda el juego (Rojas Zorrilla), 182-83 Entremes, 70 Entremeses, 4, 63, 69, 7 1 , 100 La entretenida (Cervantes), 67, 68-69 Envy theme, 69, 191 Erasmus, Desiderius, 9, 21, 219 El escalvo del demonio (Mira), 114, 11518 El esclavo en grillos de oro (Bances Candamo), 29, 30, 32 Escobar, Juan de, 54 Escuda, Melchor, 28 El espejo del mundo (Velez), 245 Espinosa Maeso, Ricardo, 146 La Estrella de Sevilla, 75, 77, 83, 84 El examen de maridos (Alarcon), 23 Exemplary Novels (Cervantes), 64, 71 Expediente de pruebas de limpieza de sangre, 107 Extremadura, Spain, 218 Faliu-Lacourt, Christiane, 60 Falk, Janet, 58-59 Fama postuma (Montalban), 125 Fame theme, 237 Farce of the Holy Sacrament (Badajoz), 2 Farces, 3 Fate theme, 11, 21, 25, 79-82, 80-82, 110-12, 113
270 Los favores del mundo (Alarcon), 21 La fe de Hungria (Mira), 115 Feminism, 179 "Le Feminisme de Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla," 179 La fenix de Salamanca (Mira), 11314 Fenollar, Elena, 51 Ferdinand of Aragon, King, 1 Fermoselle, Juan de, 96 Fernan Gomez, Fernando, 155-56 Fernandez, Lucas, 103, 218, 223 Fernandez de Avellaneda, Alonso, 64 Fernandez de Castro, Don Pedro, 108 Fernandez de Moratin, Leandro, 70, 149, 151-52, 226 Ferreira, Antonio, 248 Fieras de celos y amor (Bances Candamo), 30 Figueroa y de Castro, Ana, 53 Figuron, 180, 182-83 Filosofia secreta (Perez de Moya), 58 La fingida Arcadia (Tirso), 208 Fiore, Robert L., 23 Fitzmaurice-Kelly, James, 128 Flanders, 133 Foley, Augusta, 23 Foote, Samuel, 24 The Fop (Moreto), 16 The Foppish Don Diego (Moreto), 133, 134 Forcadas, Albert M., 223 Fortune theme, 11, 21, 25, 79-82, 80-82, 110-12, 113, 142-14 Fracmento a la Purisma Concepcion (Claramonte), 76 France, 8, 32 Francis Xavier, Saint, 109, 124 Franco de Guzman, Fray Pedro, 207 Free will theme, 21-22, 25 Freedom and captivity, 67 Friedman, Edward H., 23, 60 Frustration motif, 69 Fuentovejuna (Lope de Vega), 234, 23538 La fuerza de la sangre (Castro), 53
Index Gala, Antonio, 46, 155 Galatea (Cervantes), 64 The Galician Mari-Herndndez (Tirso), 211 El gallardo espanol (Cervantes), 66, 67 La gallega Mari-Herndndez (Tirso), 209 Ganar amigo s (Alarcon), 20, 23 Ganelin, Charles, 81, 82, 83, 84 Garcia Amat, Ediberto, 239 Garcia Lorenzo, Luciano, 57, 59 Garcia-Castanon, Santiago, 11, 31 La Gatomaquia (Lope de Vega), 232 Gaudi, Antonio, 15 Gaudix, Spain, 107 Genero Chico, 71 Gerusalemme (Tasso), 232 Gijon Zapata, Esmeralda, 210 Gillet, J. E., 226 Gilman, Stephen, 145, 159, 161, 164 La gitanilla (Cervantes), 100 Gleeson O'Tuathaigh, 210 Glenn, Richard F., 89 Golden Age drama: high demand for plays and, 12; lack of originality and, 16; nationalist period and, 5-8; new age and, 9-10; Philip II and, 4-5, 1112; Philip IV and, 8; Renaissance writers and, 12; stage settings and, 14-15; themes of, 6-7; time frame of, 4; turn of 15 th century and, 1-2. See also Comedia; Tragedy; names of specific dramatists; specific subject matter Golden Age of Spanish letters, 1, 4 Goldoni, Carlo, 24 Gongorism, 245, 249 Gonzalez Ponce de Rojas, Garci, 145, 146 Gorigori (Quinones), 141-42 Gracian, Baltasar, 132, 136 Granada, Spain, 1, 89, 107-8, 109 Granada Benegas, Don Pedro de, 108 Granados, Antonio, 76 Granja, Augustin de la, 108, 109 El gran Jorge Castrioto y Principe Escanderbec (Velez), 246 El gran Seneca de Espana, Felipe II (Montalban), 10, 15
Index El gran teatro del mundo (Calderon), 42 La gran sultana (Cervantes), 66, 67 Gratis, Jacobo de, 214 The Great Courtyard of the Palace (Rojas Zorrilla), 178 The Great Theater of the World (Calderon), 14 Greek New Comedy, 69 Green, Otis, 40, 108 Gregg, Karl, 109 Guadalajara, Spain, 205, 206 Guardo, Juana de, 230 Guillen, Jorge, 155 Gutierrez de Toledo, D., 96 Guzman de Alfarache (Aleman), 154 Hado y Divisa de Leonido y Marfisa (Calderon), 14 El halcon de Frede rico (Lope de Vega), 77 Halkhoree, P. 209 Hamel, Adalbert, 88 Hartzenbusch, 155, 180 Las hazanas del Cid (Guillen de Castro), 56-57, 59 Los hechos de Garcilaso de la Vega y mow Tarfe (Lope de Vega), 232-33 Henriquez de la Jorquera, Francisco, 107 Henry II, King, 167 El Hercules de Ocafia (Velez), 246 Heredia, Alonso de, 76 La hermosura de Angelica (Lope de Vega), 108, 232 Hermenegildo, Alfredo, 188-89, 191, 193, 194, 196, 198 Hernandez, Roque, 230 Hernandez Valcarcel, Maria del Carmen, 84 Herrera, Fernando de, 89 Herrera, Jacinto de, 248 Herrero Garcia, Miguel, 161 Herriott, Homer, 150 El hijo del aguila (Velez), 246 Historiales, 32 Historical themes, 10; Bances Candamo and, 30; Calderon and, 41; Guillen de Castro and, 53; Cueva and, 88; Lope de Vega and,
271 236; Montalban and, 125-26; Moreto and, 135; Velez and, 246 History of the Mercedarian Order (Tirso), 207 Honor theme, 7; Alarcon and, 19-20; Calderon and, 13, 4 0 ^ 1 ; Guillen de Castro and, 54-57, 59; La Celestina and, 197; Claramonte and, 80; Cueva and, 92; Lope de Vega and, 234-35, 237-38; Montalban and, 125, 127; Rojas Zorrilla and, 178-79, 180, 181-82; Torres Naharro and, 219, 222, 226 El homo de Constantinopla V, 76 Hospital del Refugio, 132 Huck, George Ann, 109, 113-14 Huerta, Sigler de, 248 El huerto de Melibea (Guillen de Castro), 155 Humanism, 12 La humildad soberbia (Guillen de Castro), 81 Hurtado de Mendoza, D. Antonio, 9, 207 Hyde, George, 134 Icaza, Francisco A. de, 87-88, 91 Idealism, 64 Identity theme, 67-68 Ignatius Loyola, Saint, 109, 124 // bugiardo (Goldoni), 24 Illusion theme, 191 El imposible mayor en amor le vence amor (Bances Candamo), 30 Ines de la Cruz, Sor Juana, 135, 154 El infamador (Cueva), 88 El infante de Aragon (Claramonte), 76 La infelice Dorotea (Claramonte), 76, 8082, 83 Ingber, Alix, 6, 7 La inmortal Celestina (Llovet), 155 Inquisition, 20, 124, 145, 156, 178, 214, 229, 230 Interludes, 140-^11, 142 Iranzo, Carmen, 128 Isabel I, Queen, 112 Isabel de Borbon, 177, 178 Isabel de Urbina, 230 Isabella of Castile, Queen, 1, 2 Isidro, San, 108, 231 El Isisdro (Lope de Vega), 124, 232
272 Italian influence, 2, 3; Calderon and, 4 1 ; Lope de Vega and, 107, 144-46; Mira and, 108; Philip IV and, 8; Torres Naharro and, 219, 224 Italian Renaissance, 1 Italy, 52, 63 Jack, W. S., 16 Javier Prada, Francisco, 239 Jealousy motif, 69 El jenizaro de Albania (Velez), 246 Jerusalem, Israel, 97 La Jerusalen conquistada (Lope de Vega), 232 The Jewess of Toledo (Diamante), 16 Jimenez de Encisco, 10 Jocoseria, 140, 142 Jodelet ou le maitre valet (Rojas Zorrilla), 180 John I, King of Aragon, 51 John II of Castile, 11 Johnson, Carol B., 7 0 - 7 1 , 193 Jones, C. A., 59 La jornado del Rey don Sebastian en Africa (Velez), 246, 249 Juan, Prince, 96 Juan III, King, 195 Juan del Encina: Teatro y poesia, 103 Juan Manuel, Don, 69 Juan of Austria, King, 10 El juez de los divorcios (Cervantes), 70 Julia Martinez, Eduardo, 59 Julius II, Pope, 97 La jura del principe (Mira), 115 Justice in Piety (Castro), 179 Kennedy, Ruth, 16, 111, 112, 133, 13536, 207, 210 Kenworthy, Patricia, 15 A King Cannot Act as a Father (Rojas Zorrilla), 179 King Don Pedro in Madrid (Lope de Vega), 7 King Pedro in Madrid (Moreto), 135 Krause, Anna, 151 Kurtz, Barbara, 115 El laberinto de amor (Cervantes), 67 The Labyrinth of Fortune (Mena), 151
Index Los lagos de San Vicente (Tirso), 214 Lampoons, 177 Larson, Donald R., 237 Laurel de Apolo (Lope de Vega) 52 Lazarillo de Tormes (Lope de Rueda), 188 Lazarus and the Rich Glutton (Tirso), 212 Leavitt, Sturgis E., 79, 83 Leon, Friar Luis de, 160 Leon, Italy, 97 Leon X, Pope, 97 Leonor, Dona, 18 Lerma, Duke of, 206, 245 Letania moral (Claramonte), 76 Lezuza, Spain, 29-30 Libertad, gracia y destino en el teatro de Tirso de Molina (Trubiano), 214 The Licentiate of Glass (Cervantes), 154 Lida de Malkiel, M. R., 152-53 Life is a Dream, 14, 4 2 ^ 6 Llovet, Enrique, 155 Loas, 76 Lope de Vega Prize, 238-39 Lopez de Ayala, Pero, 135, 154 Lopez de Hoyos, Juan, 63 Lopez Morales, H., 226 Lopez-Vazguez, Rodriguez, 228 Lo que son mujeres (Rojas Zorrilla), 180 Lotti, Cosme, 8, 13, 14 The Lovers from Teruel (Montalban), 15 Love theme: Alarcon and, 20; Castro and, 52, 53-57; Cervantes and, 66, 68-69, 70; Claramonte and, 77-78, 79, 81; Cueva and, 89, 90-93; Encina and, 99, 100-2; Lope de Vega and, 236; Mira and, 113-14, 117-18; Montalban and, 125, 126-27; Moreto and, 134-35, 137; Rojas Zorrilla and, 179, 182; Tirso and, 116-18; Torres Naharro and, 219, 222-25, 226. See also La Celestina El lucero de Castilla y Luna de Aragon (Velez), 245 Lucrecia and Tarquin (Rojas Zorrilla), 178 Ludefia, Fernando de, 248 La luna africana, 248 Luther, Martin, 9, 21
Index The Lyar (Foote), 24 Lycurgus, 22 MacCurdy, Raymond, 111, 112, 177, 17879, 180, 181-82 McGrady, Donald, 223 Machiavelli, Niccolo, 59 McKendrick, Melveena, 211 MacKenzie, Ann L., 31, 178-79, 181 McPheeters, D. W., 151 McVay, Ted E., Jr., 60 La madrina del cielo (Tirso), 214-15 Madrid, Spain: Bances Candamo and, 28; Calderon and, 39; Castro and, 51, 52, 53; Cervantes and, 63, 64; Claramonte and, 76; Lope de Vega and, 51; Mira and, 108, 109; Moreto and, 132; Quinones and, 140; Rojas Zorrilla and, 177; royal theaters in, 8; Tirso and, 114, 115, 118; Torres Naharro and, 221; Velez and, 244 Maeztu, Ramiro de, 161, 167, 193 Los mat casados de Valencia (Castro), 52 Mai Lara, Juan de, 89 La manganilla de Melilla (Alarcon), 20 Manrique, Gomez, 3, 103 Manrique, Jorge, 98, 113, 152, 224 The Man's Master (D'Averant), 180 Manuel de Urrea, Pedro, 186 Maraniss, James, 45 Maravall, J. A., 158 Marcos Salmeron, Fvray, 207 Margarita, Queen, 76 Margarita of Austria, 100 Maria de Borbon, 177 Maria Luisa, Queen, 29 Marlowe, Christopher, 163, 226 Marquez, Hugo, 190, 196-97 Marquez Villanueva, Francisco, 161-62, 234 Marrast, Robert, 70-71 Marrying for Revenge (Rojas Zorrilla), 178 Marta la piadosa (Tirso), 205 Martin de Toledo, Don Antonio, 30 Martin Recuerda, Jose, 155, 238-39 Martinez, Antonio, 248 Martinez de Espinosa, Pedro, 108
273 Marxist productions, 6 Mary Queen of Scots, 11 Master of the Stars (Alarcon), 9 Mds vale el hombre que el nombre (Bances Candamo), 29 May Day celebrations, 141 La Maya (Quinones), 141 La mayor confusion (Montalban), 124 Mayor de Cordoba, Iglesia, 189 El mayor desengano (Tirso), 214 La mayor desgracia de Carlos V y Jornada de Argel (Velez), 246 El mayor encanto amor (Calderon), 4 1 42 El mayor monstruo de amor (Bances Candamo), 29 The Mayor of Zalamea (Lope de Vega), 6 Medea's Sorcery (Rojas Zorrilla), 181 Medici, Giulio de, 221 Medici family, 219 El medico de su honra (Calderon), 40, 41 Medinaceli, Duke of, 188-89 El melancolico (Tirso), 209-210 Mena, Juana de, 151, 154 Menendez Pidal, Ramon, 152 Menendez y Pelayo, Marcelino, 98, 152, 157, 160, 161, 226, 236, 237, 250 El Mentiroso (Alarcon), 23 Le Menteur (Cornielle), 23-24 Mercedarian friars, 205, 207 Merry Sport with Fools (Rojas Zorrilla), 180 Las mesas de la fortuna (Bances Candamo), 29 La mesonera del cielo (Mira), 114, 118 Metamorphisis (Ovid), 57, 153 Metford, J.C.J., 210 Mexico City, Mexico, 18 Micaela de Lujan, 230 Middle Ages, 1 Mihura, Miguel, 46 El milagro del amor (Mira), 108 Military themes, 88 The Minor Dramatists of SeventeenthCentury Spain (Williamsen), 16, 83 Mira de Amescua, Antonio: biography of, 107-10; La Celestina and, 154; critical
274 response to, 115-18; cross-dressing and, 114; Delgado and, 11; fortune theme and, 110-12, 113; Lope de Vega and, 8-9, 233; love theme and, 11314, 117-18; major works and themes of, 110-15; political themes and, 14445; religious themes and, 113, 114-18; Velez and, 248 El miserable (Quinones), 113, 114-18 Las mocedades del Cid (Castro), 51, 52, 54, 56-57, 58, 59-60 Moir, Duncan, 31, 116, 180, 182 Moliere, Jean-Baptiste, 134, 213 Molina, Luis de, 9, 21-22 Moll, Jaime, 125 La monja alferez (Montalban), 15, 128 El monstruo de la fortuna, la lavandera de Napoles, Felipa Catanea, 128 El monte de la piedad (Mira), 115 Montalban, Alvaro de, 145, 152 Montalban, Juan Perez de: biography of, 124-25; critical response to, 127-29; evolution of drama and, 15; Lope de Vega and, 125, 232; major works and themes of, 125-27; political themes and, 10-11; Rojas Zorrilla and, 177; Velez and, 249 Montalban: um commediografo dell'eta di Lope (Profeti), 128 Montiel, Pedro de, 189 Moore, Roger, 116 Moors, 1, 81, 82 Moral themes, 112-13, 211. See also Religious themes Morby, Edwin S., 89, 161 Morely, Sylvanus G, 236 Moreto y Cabana, Augustin: Bances Candamo and, 32; biography of, 132-33; character delineations by, 133, 136; critical response to, 135-37; imitation by, 16; major works and themes of, 133-35; Montalban and, 127; Velez and, 248 Morocco, 41 The Most Unlikely Executioner for the Most Just Revenge (Rojas Zorrilla), 179 Mother of God Monastery, 145
Index Mozart, Wolfgang, 213 La mujer que manda en casa (Tirso), 211, 212 Munon, Sancho, 154 Munoz Pena, Pedro, 205 Murcia, Spain, 75-76, 109 El murmurador (Quinones), 142 Musical play, 13-14 Mutio, 188 Mythological/occult themes: Bances Candamo and, 30; Castro and, 57-58, 60; La Celestina and, 162-64; Cueva and, 92-93; Lope de Vega and, 191, 192; Rojas Zorrilla and, 181 El nacimiento de Montecinos (Guillen de Castro), 59 Naharro, Torres, 3 Naples, Italy, 52, 108 Narcisus in His Opinion (Guillen de Castro), 16 Nationalism, 9 Nativity plays, 3 Navarro Gonzalez, Alberto, 60 Nebrija, Antonio de, 96 El negrito hablador (Quinones), 142 Negrete de Santander, Francisca, 244 Netherlands, 9 Nevares, Marta de, 230-31 New Comedy, 245 New Criticism, 44, 45 New Rules for Writing Plays (Lope de Vega), 232 New World, 1 El nieto de su padre, 60 La ninfa del cielo (Tirso), 214-15 No hay dicha ni desdicha hasta la muerte (Mira), 110-11 No hay mat que por bien no venga (Alarcon), 23 No hay vida como la honra (Montalban), 127, 128 None Beneath the King, and the Most Honorable Farmer, Garcia del Castanar (Rojas Zorrilla), 7 Novelas, 124 Novelas a Marcia Leonarda (Lope de Vega), 232
Index Novelas ejemplares (Cervantes), 53 La nueva ira de Dios (Velez), 249 El nuevo rey Gallinato (Claramonte), 76 Numancia (Cervantes), 11 Numantia Besieged (Rojas Zorrilla), 179 Numantia Destroyed (Rojas Zorrilla), 179 The Nun Ensign, 128 La obligacion a las mujeres (Velez), 247 Obligated and Offended, and the Freeloader of Salamanca (Rojas Zorrilla), 177 Observaciones sobre las fuentes literarias (Castro Guisasola), 152, 153 Ocafia, Spain, 29 Ocho comedias y ocho entremeses, (Cervantes), 65-66 Ofreo en lengua castellana (Montalban), 124-25 Oliva, Cesar, 108, 194, 198 Olivares, Count-Duke of, 206, 207 Olmeda y Torino, Alanso de, 76 Operetta, 13-14 Order of Santiago, 39, 178 Origenes y sociologia del tema celestinesco, 161 Orlando Furioso (Ariosto), 232 Osorio, Elena, 229-30, 232 Ovid, 57, 153 El palacio confuso (Mira), 113 Las palabras a los reyes y gloria de los Pizarros (Velez), 246 Para todos (Montalban), 125, 126, 127 Las paredes oyen (Alarcon), 20, 21, 23, 24-25 Parker, Alexander, 44, 116, 213 Parte (Castro), 52, 53, 54 Parte primera de comedias (Alarcon), 109 Parte veinte de comedias (Lope de Vega), 109, 113 Pasos, 3-4, 63, 69, 189, 190 Pastoral plays, 220 Los pastores de Belen, 114-15, 232 Paterson, A.K.G., 213 The Peasant in His Corner (Lope), 182 Los pechos privilegiados (Alarcon), 20
275 Pedraza Jimenez, Felipe, 125 Pedrell, Felipe, 155 Pedro I, King, 135 Pedro de Urdemlas (Cervantes), 67-68 Pedro Telonario (Mira), 115, 118 Pelicer de Tovar, Jose, 8 La pena de Francia V, 211 Penafiel, Marquis of, 245 Penedo Rey, Manuel, 205 Penna, Mario, 213 El peregrino en su patria (Lope de Vega), 232 Perez, Alonso, 124 Perez Cardader Luis, 108 Perez de Montalban, Juan, 8-9 Perez de Moya, 57-58 Perez Priego, M. A., 241 El perfecto caballero (Castro), 59 Peribdfiez y el Comendador de Acafia (Lope de Vega), 6, 182, 234, 235 Perinola (Quevedo), 125 Persiles y Segismunda (Rojas Zorrilla), 177 Persius, 85 Petrarch, Francesco, 157 Philip II, King, 4-5, 7-8, 10, 11-12, 89, 126, 189 Philip III, King, 4, 10, 11, 108, 113, 245, 247 Philip IV, King: Calderon and, 13; Castro and, 53; high point of Golden Age and, 4; Lotti and, 8; Mira and, 112, 113, 115; Montalban and, 10-11; privanza and, 11; Rojas Zorrilla and, 178; Tirso and, 206; Velez and, 245 Philip V, 11, 29 Philosophical themes, 59-60 The Physician of His Honor, and the Painter of His Own Dishonor (Calderon), 13 La piedra filosofal (Bances Candamo), 11, 29, 30 Pimentels family, 208 Pineda, Juan de, 160 Pinedo, Baltasar de, 76 El pintor de su deshonra (Calderon), 42 Pious Marta (Tirso), 209
276 Pizarro, Francisco, 210 Plautus, 153 El plieto que tuvo el demonio con el cura de Madrilejos, 248 Plubius, 153 Poetry: by Calderon, 46; by Claramonte, 76; by Cueva, 89; by Encina, 98; by Lope de Vega, 229, 232; by Quinones, 140-41; by Tirso, 206 Poetics (Aristotle), 5 Polifemo y Circe, 128 Political themes: Bances Candamo and, 29, 32; Cueva and, 89; Mira and, 11213; Montalban and, 10-11, 126; Moreto and, 133-34; Tirso and, 206-7, 215; Torres Naharro and, 220-21 Los polvos de la madre Celestina (Hartzenbusch), 155 Por su rey y por su dama (Bances Candamo), 28-29, 30, 32 Por el sotano y el torno (Tirso), 209 Portugal, 97, 133 Power theme, 59 Prat, Valbuena, 109,113, 116-17,118,136 El primer duelo del mundo (Bances Candamo), 29 Primero tomo (Montalban), 125, 127 El principe constante (Calderon), 40, 41 El principe esclavo (Velez), 246 Princeps, 88 Pring-Mill, R.D.F., 44 Privanza theme, 11, 110-11, 118 Privar contra su gusto (Tirso), 210 Proaza, Alonso de, 151 Procne and Philomena (Rojas Zorrilla), 178, 179 The Prodigy of Fortune and Laundress of Naples, 111 Profeti, Maria Grazia, 128, 130 Progne y Filomena (Castro), 57-58, 59, 60 Propalladia (Torres Naharro), 4, 219, 226 Prospera fortuna de don Alvaro de Luna y adversa de Ruy Lopez de Avalos (Mira), 111 La prospera fortuna de don Bernardo de Cabrera (Mira), 111
Index Protestantism, 11 Protestant Reformation, 4-5, 9 La Prudencia en la mujer (Tirso), 210, 211 Puebla de Montalban, Spain, 145, 146 Pulgar, Fernado de, 107 Punishment without Vengeance (Lope de Vega), 7 La pupura de la rosa (Calderon), 41 Pusoseme el sol, saliome la luna (Claramonte), 80 Quevedo, Francisco de, 5, 103, 125, 154, 249 Quien no cae no se levanta (Tirso), 211212 Quinones de Benavente, Luis, 4, 69, 14042 Quintero, Maria Cristina, 31 Quintilla, 58 Rades y Andrada, Francisco de, 236 Rana, Juan, 141 The Rape of the Sabinas, 111 Ratcliffe, Marjorie, 60 Rauchwarger, Judith, 116 Realism, 2, 5, 64, 142, 148, 156, 160-61, 164-65 Reconquest, 1 Redondilla, 58 Refundiciones (rewrites), 16, 133 Reichenberger, Arnold, 234 Reinar despues de morir (Velez), 248, 249 Relacion del naciemento del nuevo Infante, y de la muerte de la Reyna nuestra senora (Claramonte), 76 Religious themes, 2-3; Alarcon and, 20; Calderon and, 42, 44; La Celestina and, 159-61, 165-66; Cervantes and, 67-68; Encina and, 98, 99, 101-2; Lope de Rueda and, 189, 191; Mira and, 113, 114-18; Montalban and, 125, 126; Rojas Zorrilla and, 179, 180-81; Tirso and, 211-12, 213-15; Torres Naharro and, 220; Velez and, 247-48 The Reluctant Favorite (Tirso), 210
Index The Remedy against Prosperous and Adverse Fortune (Petrarch), 157 Renaissance, 1; La Celestina and, 153, 156; Claramonte and, 82; conversion and, 214; Cueva and, 90; Elizabeth I and, 11-12; evolution of drama and, 12; first half of 16th century and, 4; Italian influence and, 2; Lope de Vega and, 232; Torres Naharro and, 226 El renegado arrepentido (Castro), 52 Rennert, Hugo, 194, 231 Representacion a la muy bendita passion y muerte de nuestro precioso Redentor (Encina), 3, 99-100 Representacion a la santisima Resureccion (Encina), 99-100 Representacion de amor (Encina), 100 Representation of the Birth of Our Lord (Manrique), 3 La republica al reves (Tirso), 211 La restauracion de Buda (Bances Candamo), 29 El retablo de las maravillas (Cervantes), 69, 70 Revenge theme, 91-92, 110-11 El rey Alfonso (Mira), 108 El rey don Pedro en Madrid, 75, 77 Reyes Cano, Jose, 89 El rico avariento (Mira), 116 Rimas humanas y divinas de Tome de Burguillos (Lope de Vega), 232 Rimas sacras (Lope de Vega), 232 A Ring for a Lady (Gala), 155 Rio Marin, Julian del, 28 Rios, Blanca de los, 205 The Rival House of Verona (Rojas Zorrilla), 178, 181 Rodrigo de Castro, Don, 244 Rodrigo de Torro (Lope de Rueda), 197 Rodriguez, Juan, 154 Rodriguez Lopez-Vazquez, Alfredo, 75, 84 Rodriguez Mendez, Jose M., 157 Rojas Villandrando, Agustin de, 4, 76, 108, 193 Rojas, Catalina de, 145 Rojas, Fernando de, 3, 127, 145-46. See also La Celestina
277 Rojas, Fernando de, Jr., 145-46 Rojas, Hernando de, 146 Rojas Zorrilla, Francisco de: biography of, 177-78; critical response to, 21315; Don Pedro Magio and, 245; evolution of drama and, 12; Lope de Vega and, 7,11; major works and themes of, 178-81; ridiculous characters and, 180, 182-83; Velez and, 248 Romance, 58 Romancero del Cid (Escobar), 54 Romanos, Mesonero, 205, 249 Rome, Italy, 97, 219-21 Romera-Navarro, Miguel, 226 Rosete, Pedro, 248 Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico, 18 Royal Chapel of Granada, 108 Royal Palace, 41 Rozas, Juan Manuel, 31, 32 Ruano de la Haza, Jose M., 116, 117 La rueda de la fortuna (Mira), 110-12 Rueda, Lope de: acting by, 190, 198; biography of, 107-8; La Celestina and, 154; Cervantes and, 63; critical response to, 193-98; cross-dressing and, 192-93, 195, 196-97; discursive practice by, 196-98; gypsy characters and, 195-98; literary genre by, 152; major works and themes of, 189-93; new theater and, 193; Short Theater and, 4; simpleton characterization by, 190; stagecraft and, 194-95, 196, 198 El rufian dichoso (Cervantes), 65, 67-68 Rufo, Juan, 193 Ruggeiro, Michael J., 162, 177 Ruiz Iriarte, Victor, 46 Ruiz Ramon, Francisco, 159, 182 Russell, P. E., 153 Ruy Diaz de Vivar, Rodrigo, 51, 54 Sabugo, Austria, 28 Sacramental plays. See Autos sacramentales Sainetes, 4 Saint Isabel, Queen of Portugal (Rojas Zorrilla), 180-81 Saint Joan (Tirso), 214
278 Sainz de Robles, Frederico Carlos, 128 Salamanca, Spain, 96, 97, 145, 146, 151, 206, 208 Salas Baradillo, Alonso de, 83 Salazar, Agustin de, 154 Salcedo, Mateo de, 76 Saldana, Count of, 245 Salgado, Angela, 53 Salom, Jaime, 46 Salomon, Noel, 209 San Clemente, Spain, 29 Sandoval y Rojas, Don Bernardo de, 206 San Pedro, Diego de, 154 Santa Juana (Tirso), 212, 213 Santo Domingo, 180, 181 Sanz, Fructuoso, 107, 108 Sastre, Alfonso, 155 El sastre del Campillo (Bances Candamo), 32 Sayagues, 100 Scarron, Paul, 180 Schack, Adolfo Frederico Conde de, 127— 28, 236 Sebastian, King, 41 Sebold, Russell P., 59-60 A Secret Offense a Secret Vengeance (Calderon), 13 El secreto de Melibea (Serrano), 155 El secreto en la mujer (Claramonte), 76, 77, 79, 80 Sedeno, Juan, 154 Segovia, Spain, 205, 206 La segunda Celstina (Salazar), 154 Segundo Seneca de Espana, 128 Segundo tomo de las comedias (Montalban), 125 Select canon, 23 La selva sin amor, 15 El semejante a si mismo (Alarcon), 20 Semiramis (Calderon), 12 Seneca, 185 Sentido y forma del teatro de Cervantes (Casalduero), 70 La serrana de la Vera (Velez), 248 Serrano Poncela, Segundo, 155 Sessa, Duke of, 230, 231
Index Seville, Spain: La Celestina and, 150, 151; Cervantes and, 63, 64; Claramonte and, 76; Cueva and, 88, 89; Lope de Rueda and, 188, 189, 198; Montalban and, 127; Moreto and, 132; Torres Naharro and, 218, 219; Velez and, 244 Shakespeare, William, 13, 111, 207, 213, 226 Sheep Well (Lope de Vega), 6 Shergold, N. D., 13, 181, 188-89, 193, 195 The Ship of Hell (Vicente), 154 Short Theater, 4 The Shy Man at Court (Tirso), 210 Sicily, 52 Sieber, Harry, 90 Los siete Infantes (Cueva), 88, 90 Silva, Feliciano de, 154 Sisters of Calabazanos, 3 Social realism, 190 Social themes: Alarcon and, 25; Calderon and, 45-46; Cervantes and, 68-70; Encina and, 99; Lope de Vega and, 238; Quinones and, 141—42; Tirso and, 210, 215; Torres Naharro and, 219, 220-21, 223, 224 Soria, Spain, 205 Soufas, Christopher, 45 Soufas, Teresa, 45 Spadaccini, Nicholas, 70-71 Spanish Empire, 5, 9 Spitzer, Leo, 161 Suarez, Ana, 31 Suarez, Constantino, 31, 32 Los sucesos en Ordn por el Marques de Arales (Velez), 247 Sucesos y prodigios de amor (Montalban), 124 Suelta, 83, 97 Sullivan, Edward, 9
Taberna fantdstica de la gitana Celestina (Sastre), 155 Talavera, Juan de, 154 Talavera de la Reina, Spain, 145, 146 El tale go (Quinones), 142
Index Talens, Jenaro, 70-71 Tambien la afrenta es veneno, 248 Tambien tiene el sol menguante, 248 Tanto es lo de mds como lo de menos (Tirso), 212 Taracido, Jorge E., 109 Tarrago, Torcuato, 107 Tasso, Torquato, 232 El teatro de Cervantes (Cotarelo), 70 Teixeira Carneiro, Armando, 179-81 El tejedor de Segovia (Alarcon), 25 Tellez Giron, Juan, 52, 53 La Tercera de si misma (Mira), 113-14 Los terceros de San Francisco, 128 Terence, 153 Testas, Jean, 179 The Thankful Contempt (Lope), 16 Theater of the Congregation of the Imperial College, 52 Theatro de los theatros de los passados y presentes siglos (Bances Candamo), 31, 32 Theatros de los theatros, in response to the Discurso theologico (Bances Candamo), 29 Ticknor, George, 127 Tiempo Comun, 190 Timoneda, Juan de, 152, 154, 190 Tirso de Molina: biography of, 205-6; Alarcon and, 9-10, 24; Calderon and, 9; Claramonte and, 16; critical response to, 212-15; cross-dressing and, 209; female protaganist and, 211; Lope de Vega and, 128; love theme and, 2079; major works and themes of, 207-12; Mira and, 141; Montalban and, 125, 127; nationalist period and, 8; privanza and, 11; religious themes and, 213-15; sin/punishment and, 199; status of, 12 To Die Intending to Kill (Rojas Zorrilla), 178 Todo es ventura (Alarcon), 21, 25 To Each His Due, (Rojas Zorrilla), 178 Toledo, Spain: Calderon and, 39; La Celestina and, 146, 150-51; Lope de Rueda and, 189; Mira and, 108, 110; Moreto and, 132; Quinones and, 140; Fernando de Rojas and, 145; Zorrilla
279 and, 177, 178; Tirso and, 205, 206, 208 Torres Naharro, Bartolome de: biography of, 218-19; La Celestina and, 186; critical response to, 226; documentary plays by, 220-21; Encina and, 97, 103; evolution of drama and, 12; fictional plays by, 222-25; Golden Age dates and, 4; major works and themes of, 219-25; pastoral plays by, 220 Torres y Heredia, Beatriz de, 107 Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (Cervantes), 64 Tragedia de la muerte de Ayaz Telamon sobre las armas de Aquiles (Cueva), 88 Tragedia de la muerte de Virginia y Appio Claudio (Cueva), 88 Tragedia del principe tirano (Cueva), 8889 Tragedies, 6; by Calderon, 13; by Cervantes, 64; by Cueva, 88; dramatic evolution and, 1; honor theme and, 13; by Mira, 11; by Moreto, 133; by Rojas Zorrilla, 178-79, 182 La Celestina and, 156 Tragicomedia, 150 La tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea (Rojas), 3, 150, 151, 153, 158, 166-67 La tragi-comedia llamada Filomena (Timoneda), 154 Traso's Speach (Fernando de Rojas), 15051 Los tratos de Agrel (Cervantes), 65, 6667 The Trickster of Seville (Tirso), 212-13, 214, 215 Trilles, Angela Rafaela, 189 Trillo, Antonia, 230 Tristan from Leonie, 153 Triunfo de fama, Tragedia trobada a la dolorosa muerte del Pincipe D. Juan (Encina), 98 Tropea, Italy, 108 Trubiano, Mario, 214 Trujillo, Spain, 207 Truth Suspected (Alarcon), 9; Corneille and, 23
280 Tudor Agheana, Ion, 213 Twelfth Night (Shakespeare), 192 Ubeda, Spain, 29 The Ugly Beauty (Lope), 16 Umphrey, G. W., 58 Universidad de Alcala de Henares, 39, 124, 132, 205, 229 University of Mexico, 18 University of Osuna, 244 University of Salamanca, 18, 39, 177, 218 Valdes, Juan de, 151, 152, 156, 224 Valencia, Spain, 51, 53, 189, 218, 230 The Valiant Justice-Giver (Moreto), 134, 135 El valiente negro en Flandes (Claramonte), 79, 82-83 Valladolid, Spain, 64, 157, 189, 244 Vander Hammen, Lorenzo, 126 Vargas Machuca, Pedro de, 109 Vazquez, Luis, 206 Vega Garcia-Luengos, German, 127, 128 Vega Carpio, Lope Felix de: Alarcon and, 19, 23; biography of, 229-31; Calderon and, 13, 39, 40; Castro and, 51, 52, 53, 58, 59, 60; La Celestina and, 154-55; Cervantes and, 64-65, 6768, 70, 71; Claramonte and, 77, 81; Comedia Himenea and, 241; critical response to, 233-38; Cueva and, 89; disciples' success and, 8-9; Don Piedro Miago and, 245; emotional appeal of, 7; evolution of drama and, 12; historical themes by, 236; honor theme and, 7, 234-35, 237-38; influence of, 15, 16, 65, 233; love theme and, 68, 236; major works and themes of, 231-33; Mira and, 8, 109, 113; Montalban and, 15, 124, 125, 128; Moreto and, 15-16; nationalist period and, 8; new comedia and, 5-6, 193; poetry/prose by, 232; social themes and, 238; stage settings and, 14-15; status of, 12; stylistic divide and, 5; Tirso and, 115-16, 117, 119; Valencia and, 51; Velez and, 245, 249
Index Velez de Duenas, Diego, 244 Velez de Guevara, Juan, 245, 248 Velez de Guevara, Luis, 8-9, 10: Alarcon and, 23; biography of, 244-45; La Celestina and, 195; characterization by, 248-49; Claramonte and, 83; collaborative composition by, 248; critical response to, 249-50; execution scenes and, 249; Lope de Vega and, 128; Major works and themes of, 24549; Rojas Zorrilla and, 209 La vengaza de tamar (Tirso), 211, 213— 14 Vera, Hurtado de la, 154 El verdadero amante (Lope de Vega), 232-33 La verdad sospechosa (Alarcon), 20, 2 3 24, 25. See also Truth Suspected El vergonzoso en palacio (Tirso), 205, 207 Viaje a Jerusalem (Encina), 97, 103 Viaje del Parnaso (Cervantes), 63 El viaje entretenido (Rojas Villandrando), 76, 108, 193 Vicente, Gil: La Celestina and, 154; evolution of drama and, 12; Cervantes and, 69; Encina and, 97, 103; historical themes and, 3; Lope de Rueda and, 195, 196, 197 La vida de Santa Maria de Cervellon (Tirso), 205 La vida es sueno: vir sapiens dominabitur astris (Calderon), 10, 22, 24, 4246, 113, 247 Vida y purgatorio de San Patrico (Montalban), 125 El viejo celoso (Cervantes), 69, 70 La villana de la Sagra (Tirso), 208-9 El villano en su rincon (Lope de Vega), 245 Villancicos, 76, 83 Villegas, Diego de, 248 Virgil, 58, 98, 153 Virtudes vencen senates (Velez), 247, 248 Visita de los chistes (Quevedo), 103 Visual effects, 13 Vives, Luis, 192
281
Index Wade, Gerald, 205, 213 War theme, 179 Wardropper, Bruce, 44, 70-71, 90, 136, 182 Watson, Anthony I., 89 The Ways of Women (Rojas Zorrilla), 180 Webber, Edwing J., 167 Weiger, John G, 60 Weimer, Christopher, 17 West, C. A., 134 What the Marques de Villena Wanted to See (Rojas Zorrilla), 177, 181 Whitby, William, 44 Williamsen, Vern, 16, 75, 83, 108, 113 Wilson, E. M., 44, 116
Wilson, Margaret, 111, 207, 211 Wilson, William E., 54, 58, 59, 60 Woman's Avenger (Lope), 16 Women, 80, 135, 136-37, 179-80, 210, 211 The Wonder-Working Magician (Calderon), 163 The World's Great Theater (Calderon), 13 Ymenea (Torres Naharro), 154 Zamora, Antonio de, 17 Zaragoza, Spain, 221 Zarzuelas, 14, 30 Zimic, Stanislav, 3, 70-71
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ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS DAVID G. BURTON is Associate Professor of Spanish at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. His special interests are medieval Spanish literature and the theater of Juan de la Cueva. He has published a book and two articles on Cueva. FRANK P. CASA is Professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Michigan. He is a member of the Hispanic Society of America and several international organizations dealing with Golden Age literature. His published works, mostly dealing with the theater of the Golden Age, include The Dramatic Craftsmanship of Moreto, editions of plays by Moreto and Lope de Vega, and the two-volume work, together with Michael McGaha, on Editing the Comedia. BRUNO M. DAMIANI is Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at the Catholic University of America. He has published numerous studies on Petrarch, Quevedo, Aretino, Malon de Chaide, and Cervantes; Lazarillo de Tormes and La Lozana andaluza; editions of La Lozana andaluza (1967, critical edition 1979); La Celestina (1974); and La Picara Justina (1982). His most recent books on the Spanish Golden Age include Jorge de Montemayor (1984), and Moralidad y didactismo en el Siglo de Oro (1987). MANUEL DELGADO is Associate Professor of Spanish at Bucknell University. He is the author of Tirania y derecho de resistencia en el teatro de Guillen de Castro (1984) and numerous articles in Bulletin Hispanique, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Hispanic Review, Bulletin of the Comediantes, Segismundo, Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, Revista Estudios, and Estreno, among others. He also coauthored and edited The Calderonian Stage: Body and Soul and is now completing a critical edition of Calderon's Ea devocion de la cruz. EDWARD H. FRIEDMAN is Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature at Indiana University. His publications on Spanish Golden Age literature include books on Cervantes' theater and picaresque narrative.
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About the Contributors
SANTIAGO GARCIA-CASTANON is an Assistant Professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Georgia. He has published a critical edition of Bances Candamo's Sangre, valor y fortuna (1991) and an edition of the same playwright's Por su rey y por su dama (1997). He is also the author of a book of poetry, Tiempos imperfectos (1994) and has a number of other scholarly publications ranging from Golden Age theater, poetry, and culture to contemporary Spanish poetry. DIANE IGLESIAS is Professor of Spanish and Chairman of the Department of Foreign Languages at Lebanon Valley College, Annville, Pennsylvania. Her research interests include the dramatic works of Luis Velez de Guevara and medieval balladry. At Lebanon Valley College, Iglesias encourages her students' involvement in Golden Age literature by periodically directing them in the amateur performance of several interludes of Luis Quinones de Benavente. ALIX INGBER is Professor of Spanish at Sweet Briar College, where she has taught since 1980. Most of her scholarship has dealt with the dramatic work of Lope de Vega and has been presented in conference papers, journal articles, book chapters, and the book El bien mds alto: A Reconsideration of Lope de Vega's Honor Plays. In addition to her continuing work on the theater of Lope, she maintains a site on the World Wide Web that offers the texts of 101 Golden Age Sonnets with verse translations in English. The site can be found at http:// ingber.spanish.sbc.edu/SonnetTexts/. PATRICIA KENWORTHY is an Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies at Vassar College, where she has also served as Dean of Freshmen. A past editor of Revista de Estudios Hispdnicos, she has presented papers and published articles on Cervantes and Golden Age drama. She is currently working on a study of Golden Age staging conventions. JOHN LIHANI is Professor Emeritus of Hispanic Linguistics and Medieval and Renaissance Spanish Literature at the University of Kentucky. He is editor of Global Demands on Language and the Mission of the Language Academies. (1988), and Poema de Ferndn Gonzalez (1992), as well as author of scores of articles. BARBARA MUJICA is Professor of Spanish at Georgetown University where she teaches Golden Age Literature and for eight years has directed El Retablo, a Spanish-language theater group. She has written extensively on Golden Age literature, in particular on the theater and the pastoral novel. Her books include Calderon's Characters: An Existential Point of View, Spanish Pastoral Characters, and Et In Arcadia Ego (with Bruno Damiani) as well as several textbooks and anthologies. Her articles have appeared in numerous professional journals,
About the Contributors
285
including Hispania, Bulletin of the Comediantes, The Kentucky Romance Quarterly, and Hispanic Journal. MARY PARKER specializes in Golden Age and Modern Spanish Literature. She has been chair or presenter on Cervantes, Lyric poetry and drama in conferences in Europe and United States. She is the author of Santas, Reinas, Martires y Cortesanas / La Mujer en el teatro de Juan Bautista Diamante', "A Bibliography of [Diamante's] Primary Sources" in Bulletin of Bibliography, and editor of the forthcoming Modern Spanish Dramatists: A Bio-Bibliographical Source book (Greenwood). JAMES A. PARR is Professor and Chair of Spanish at the University of California, Riverside, where he has taught since 1990. His specialty is Golden Age literature, in particular the comedia, Don Quixote, and aspects of the picaresque. Among his publications are Don Quixote: An Anatomy of Subversive Discourse (1988); Confrontaciones calladas: el critico frente al cldsico (1990); and After Its Kind: Approaches to the Comedia (1991). He has also published some fifty articles or chapters in books and some sixty reviews. C. GEORGE PEALE is Professor of Spanish at California State University, Fullerton. He is the author of La anatomia de ' 'El Diablo Cojuelo'': Deslindes genericos and editor of AntigUedad y actualidad de Luis Velez de Guevara: Estudios criticos. His studies and reviews of Velez de Guevara's works have appeared in the Bulletin Hispanique, Bulletin of the Comediantes, Hispanic Review, and Revista de Estudios Hispdnicos. In collaboration with William R. Manson, Peale is the editor of the critical edition of Velez de Guevara's complete theater. He has also edited the complete theater of Fernan Perez de Oliva as well as Oliva's Razonamiento sobre la navegacion del Guadalquivir. ANITA K. STOLL is Professor of Spanish and Chair of the Spanish Department at Cleveland State University. She specializes in Golden Age drama and twentieth-century Latin America. Her books include A Study and Critical Edition of Lope de Vega's ' 'La noche de San Juan''; A Different Reality: Studies on the Works of Elena Garro; and The Perception of Women in Spanish Drama of the Golden Age (with Dawn L. Smith). MATTHEW D. STROUD is Professor of Modern Languages at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. He has dedicated his entire scholarly activity to a study of the Spanish comedia. He has presented numerous papers at national and international conferences, and is the author of many articles and chapters that examine the comedia from a variety of perspectives. In addition to his edition and translation of Calderon's Celos aun del aire matan, which he also staged in 1981, he has coedited two books and is the author of two monographs:
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About the Contributors
Fatal Union: A Pluralistic Approach to the Spanish Wife-Murder Comedias and The Play in the Mirror: Lacanian Perspectives on Spanish Baroque Theater. SHARON D. VOROS is Professor and Chair of the Language Studies Department at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Under the name Ghertman, she is the author of Petrarch and Garcilaso: A Linguistic Approach to Style. She has published on sixteenth-century Spanish poetry, semiotics, feminism, and gender studies in Golden Age Spanish drama and is the treasurer of the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater, Inc., a nonprofit association to promote the performance and translation of classical texts. CHRISTOPHER B. WEIMER is Assistant Professor of Spanish at Oklahoma State University. His primary research interests focus on Spanish drama of the Golden Age and the twentieth century. His articles have appeared in journals including Bulletin of the Comediantes, Gestos, Modern Drama, Hispanofila, and Latin American Theatre Review. STANISLAV ZIMIC is Professor of Spanish at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a member of the Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Espanola and a corresponding member of the Real Academia Espanola. He has published books, monographs, and articles on Gomez Manrique, Torres Naharro, Gil Vicente, Garcilaso, Encina, Cervantes, Lope, and other authors and aspects of the Spanish Golden Age. His most recent publications include El teatro de Cervantes; Las novelas ejemplares de Cervantes; and Cuentos del Quijote.
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