Showing papers in "Hispanic Review in 1973"

The Loss of Identity: Towards a Definition of the Dialectic in Lope's Early Drama

Abstract: THE revival of interest in the Spanish classical theater, and the continuing reassessment of the seventeenth-century comedia in particular, have brought an important new focus to the problems of interpretation. Following the precedent of Ortega, Eugenio d'Ors, and Pedro Salinas-to name only a few-twentieth-century Hispanists have discovered in the drama a pattern which is perhaps best defined as a universal world view or ideology. As early as 1940, Professor E. H. Templin-referring principally to the plays of Tirso de Molina-described the span of the Spanish comedia as the age of deception (burla): "The comedia itself draws on the burla for background and foreground, for mechanical devices and moods that range from horseplay to disillusionment (desengafo)."' It must be readily admitted that Professor Templin's intuition is profoundly illuminating, and that it opens up a new perspective through which to view the mature seventeenth-century drama. At the same time, it issues a challenge to trace both the origins of this phenomenon and the extent of its dissemination after its first manifestations. This investigation-undertaken to elucidate these questions-has led to the conclusion that Lope de Vega was the first to dramatize the burla in any appreciable degree, and that he did so at the very outset of his career as a playwright. Furthermore, while Lope's earliest plays paved the way for the rapid success of the device among his imitators, they are the origin of a dramatic formula which is the key to the understanding of Lope's own mature theater. Perhaps in awe of the enormity of his dramatic output, and certainly hindered by problems of dating, historians and critics have largely ignored Lope's sixteenth-century plays. Yet in these neglected works we glimpse not only the burla but also the interplay of truth and illusion which was to characterize the Spanish literature of the next one hundred years. The importance of Lope's early experimentation with the theme of deception cannot be overestimated. It is treated in more than one fourth of the two dozen-odd comedias composed by the year

El mal poeta de comedias en la narrativa del siglo XVII

Abstract: os.l8 No quiero enfilar eJemplo tras ejemplo. Peroy excluyendo, por muy comentado, el caso del poeta culto (del que tanto partido sacaron Quevedo, los adversarios del culteranismo y tantos autores de entremeses comedias y novelitas) apuntare solo algunos en que no es preciso que el versificador hable en jerigonza para que su actividad resulte ridicula. Linan y Yerdllgo, en su Gufa y arisos de forasteros que vienen a la Corte (1620), previene contra ciertos hombres 'entre estudiantes y seglares, que los llaman semipoetas o coplistas, que se precian de que traducen o que trabucan libros y componen o descomponen

El mal poeta de comedias en la narrativa del siglo XVII (The Bad Poet in the Plays of the Seventeenth Century).

Abstract: os.l8 No quiero enfilar eJemplo tras ejemplo. Peroy excluyendo, por muy comentado, el caso del poeta culto (del que tanto partido sacaron Quevedo, los adversarios del culteranismo y tantos autores de entremeses comedias y novelitas) apuntare solo algunos en que no es preciso que el versificador hable en jerigonza para que su actividad resulte ridicula. Linan y Yerdllgo, en su Gufa y arisos de forasteros que vienen a la Corte (1620), previene contra ciertos hombres 'entre estudiantes y seglares, que los llaman semipoetas o coplistas, que se precian de que traducen o que trabucan libros y componen o descomponen

Don Quijote and the Romances of Chivalry: The Need for a Reexamination

Abstract: SINCE Don Quijote was, above all things, a man who had read a great deal, it hardly seems possible to reach a satisfactory understanding of his personality without rereading some of his favorite books. Moreover, no satire can be adequately appreciated without a systematic study of the object it ridicules. Yet in recent years scholars have neglected the study of the Quijote in the light of the romances of chivalry that inspired Cervantes and his hero. Specialists in the romances of chivalry, such as Pascual de Gayangos and Sir Henry Thomas, have not considered themselves knowledgeable enough about Cervantes to attempt it. Cervantine scholars, on the other hand, have usually lacked access to the texts of the romances.' For our knowledge of the subject we must go back to the only study which claimed to be comprehensive, that of Diego Clemencin: Clemencin, who, for the moment, remains the person best acquainted with the romances of chivalry since the seventeenth century, began in 1833 the publication of his monumental edition of the Quijote, a project that was completed by friends after his death. In the notes which accompany his text is a vast amount of information about the

Albanio as Narcissus in Garcilaso's Second Eclogue.

Abstract: ROR centuries we have lived with the dichotomy of tradition and r the individual talent. Is a poet born, or ishemade? Does poetry depend on nature or art, on 'singenium" or "studium"? If we accepted this dilemma, our response would mark us as either romantic or classical in outlook. But even Horace knew that it was not a question of either one or the other, but of both (see Ars poetica, 408-11). No matter how bright a child may be potentially, he does not actually express new ideas until he has learned the language of his community. If Garcilaso had not learned the new technique of Italian versification, he might well not have been able to assimilate Petrarch and Sannazaro, Horace and Virgil. BoscAn, in his preface "A la duquesa de Soma," rejects the narrow limits of octosyllabic rhyme in the Cancionero general and helps us understand the liberation discovered in the new forms: "Porque en [estotro verso italiano] vemos, dondequiera que se nos muestra, una disposicion muy capaz para recebir qualquier materia: o grave o sotil o dificultosa o facil, y assimismo para ayuntarse con qualquier estilo de los que hallamos entre los authores antiguos aprovados.''1 Garcilaso, upon submitting to the discipline of the new versification, found the doors open to new models, Italian and Latin, and could then develop a poetic trajectory of his own. The relationship between Garcilaso and his models is a complex one, ranging from direct translation of specific words and ideas to

Sobre el dialogo y sus funciones literarias

Abstract: EL dialogo es 1) un fenomeno esencial de la convivencia humana; 2) el elemento donde adquiere la lengua su realidad, ya que en 61 se concreta el significado de la palabra, con el gesto, la circunstancia, la busqueda del tdrmino apropiado, la repeticion, etc. 3) En humanidades el dialogo es el ultimo resultado a que podemos llegar. Si las ciencias naturales llegan a soluciones exactas y a la produccion de instrumentos utiles, las humanidades agotan sus posibilidades en el puro trabajo mental; son camino sin posada, es decir, sin resultado alguno que podamos usar para ulteriores fines. Incluso aquello que aceptamos como definitivo, tenemos que recrearlo dentro de nosotros como si flldramos sus primeros inventores. Todo esto supone un continuo trabajo de conquista; en ese trabajo por actualizar lo que conocemos habitualmente y sistematizar nuestras aportaciones con las adquiridas de otros, ninguna verdad se impone como absoluta, aunque ella lo sea; nuestra verdad no es relativa, es incompleta; p or es o en hu manidades la verdad bltima es el perspectivismo X y donde dste se admite, la verdad es una busqueda comunitaria, diAlogo. Pero esas tres fllnciones reales del dialogo no me interesan ahora. En la medida en que el arte fue definido como "imitacion de la naturaleza,n' el diAlogo literario surgio como imitacibn de la conversacidn humana; pero la imitacion no es nunca la realidad misma; la voluntad artistica precisa y selecciona, estiliza. En este sentido el dialogo literario ha tomado ciertas formas bAsicas a travds de la historia, que es util distinguir para penetrar un poco mas alla de la superficie de la palabra y para evitar ciertos anacronismos. En relaci6n con la literatura espanola podemos senalar cinco tipos de diAlogo: platbnico, ciceroniano, teatral, galdosiano, existencial. E1 maestro del primer tipo es Platbn. Cuando se le estudia desde el punto de vista formal, se percibe una maestria igual que su reconocida maestria filosofica. Hay dialogos que se introducen por un en275