Showing papers in "Hispanic Review in 1982"

Del "romancero nuevo" a la "comedia nueva" de Lope de Vega: constantes e interpolaciones

Abstract: D ICHOS t6rminos (romancero nuevo, comedia nueva), al igual que otros semanticamente equivalentes ("los hasta ahora nunca vistos," "los mas nuevos," "los mas modernos"), avalan las primeras impresiones de Flores, Ramilletes y Florilegios y marcan, en parte, el inicio del llamado romancero nuevo.1 Es a partir de 1589, exactamente, cuando series de "romancerillos" (breves colecciones de un par de pliegos sueltos) van saliendo de las prensas de Valencia. Aquf reside por estas fechas Lope, quien combina la producci6n de romances (moriscos y pastoriles sobre todo) con una activa producci6n de comedias.2 Alterna pues dos modalidades de escritura (el romance, la comedia) que, si bien di-

The power of blood in the "Siete infantes de lara"

Abstract: T HE legend of the Siete Infantes de Lara (SIL) is a gripping tale of passion, revenge, and murder, which has as its central motif the multivalent imagery of blood. The symbolic value of blood has an inherent vitality which taps deep, primitive levels of the human psyche. In this study, I propose to examine the power of blood in SIL as both literary tool and cultural symbol, from the frequently overlapping perspectives of sexual symbolism, religious symbolism, and the covenant of lineage. Careful scrutiny of extant chronicle and early ballad accounts of the legend shows that the variations in the treatment of sanguinary incidents and imagery do not essentially alter the functions of the blood motif in the narration.' Blood, and the deeply-rooted significances it

Poor Maxi's Windmill: Aquatic Symbolism in Fortunata y Jacinta

Abstract: JN the not-so-distant past it was sufficient merely to tell students in a Gald6s seminar that Maxi Rubin and Fortunata in Fortunata y Jacinta were obviously mismated and that their marriage was doomed to failure. I have found, however, that today's lessinhibited student frequently exhibits a curiosity bordering on the morbid about the details of Maxi's. fiasco. Is there, perhaps, a specific sexual dysfunction, one that might be susceptible to treatment through therapeutic techniques-such as those of Masters and Johnson-about which American students have now read so much? Further, students ask just how realistic was Spain's most famous realist when it came to discussing the sexual basis of marriage in Fortunata y Jacinta. In responding to these concerns, I have discovered what I consider to be a significant symbolic pattern in the narrative fabric of Fottunata y Jacinta, by means of which Gald6s conveys to the reader the precise nature of Maxi and Fortunata's marital problem. The remainder of this study will deal with the theme and its variations which Gald6s develops relating to the key element of the pattern-a subject much on the minds of nineteenth-century madrilenos: water and its transmission. Fortunata y Jacinta was written at a time when water had become generally and easily available for the first time in Madrid as a result of municipal projects energetically supported by Bravo Murillo (\"Ministro de Fomentos\") and the Marques de Pontejos

The Bloody Cucumber and Relate Matters in the "Siete Infantes de Lara"

Abstract: AS if by rote, virtually all the critics who have dealt with the legend of the Siete Infantes de Lara have repeated Menendez Pidal's footnoted explanation of the curious insult of the bloody cucumber where he says, "No conozco otro ejemplo de esta singular afrenta que Mariana califica la mayor que entonces se podia hacer en Castilla. Duran (Romanc. I, 444a) asegura que tal injuria era 'una increpacion emblematica de un acto impuro.' " Little more has been said on the subject, with the only attempt to develop it beyond this point coming from Rafael Lapesa who finds:

Arabic syntax of the relative pronoun in "Poema de Mío Cid" and "Don Quijote"

Abstract: tirely unaffected by Arabic' and that the Arabic traces of syntax are minimal.2 The fact, however, is that Arabic syntax may be observed in a number of examples inPoema de Mio Cid3 (1140) and Don Quijote (1605, 1615).4 Before proceeding to these two Spanish classics, however, the construction of the relative clause in Arabic should be considered. It may be noted that there are two types of relative clauses in Arabic. In the first category a relative clause immediately follows an indefinite noun without the use of a relative pronoun. One example of this nature may be quoted: marartu bi-rajli yandmu (I passed by a man who was sleeping). This construction, however, does not occur either in the Cid or in Don Quijote. In the second type of the relative clause in Arabic the uninflected relative is supplemented by a resumptive or tautological personal pronoun. As instances of the accusative of the relative, a few Arabic examples may be cited: man rdituhu (he who I have seen him = he whom I have seen);

Utopía, Universópolis, Macondo

Abstract: UTOPIA means a desirable, well-designed place that is no place. Yet, whether in myth or in geography, it has always been associated with some place. Even Atlantis, the lost civilization described by Plato in two of his dialogues (Timaeus, Critias) was said to have been located somewhere to the west of the Strait of Gibraltar. And Plato's own hypothetical Republic, of course, has recognizable Athenian and Spartan components. The idea of Utopia interests contemporary Latin Americans, among other reasons, because several Utopias have been situated in regions or mythical continents in the vicinity of South America. Thomas More's island was discovered by an imaginary traveler who claimed to have accompanied Amerigo Vespucci. Daniel Defoe's scenario for Robinson Crusoe was based directly on the four year-experience of a Scottish sailor marooned on one of the Juan Fernandez Islands, four hundred miles off the coast of Chile. Tommaso Campanella's City of the Sun was on a high hill over a plain "located exactly at the Equator." Francis Bacon in New Atlantis refers to "the great Atlantis that you call America" and compares it to ancient Peru and Mexico. Fifteen centuries earlier, Lucius Annaeus Seneca had revived the Atlantis myth in a passage of his drama Medea. Seneca called the new world of his fantasy Ultima Thule, which would become the title of a series of essays that Alfonso Reyes wrote from 1920 to 1941. In the first and longest of them ("El presagio de America") Reyes reminds us