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770BCom, Vol. 52, No. 2 (2000) Vega, Lope de. The Best Boy in Spain: El mejor mozo de Espa ño Introduction and translation by David Gitlitz. Tempe, Arizona: Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe, 1999. xxvii + 208 pp. David Gitlitz begins his Introduction to Lope's play about the courtship of Ferdinand and Isabella with a full and engaging account of that story's historical background. He next gives a clear and detailed analysis of the structure of the comedia showing how it "works on three levels: the mythic, the dramatic, and the comic," and how Lope's idealisation of his protagonists in no way prevents him from making their characterisation complex. Particularly perceptive is his commentary on how courtly ceremonial—especially hand— and footkissing , both actual and merely verbal—is frequently referred to in the lines and acotaciones, and comes thereby to constitute the "principal leitmotif." A further section provides us with a table of Lope's verse-forms (and of those that have been used to render them in this translation), with a welcome discussion of how they were deployed by the poeto One looks in vain, however, for other things a reader might have expected so experienced a scholar to offer: not (Heaven forfend) yet another "Life of Lope," but some reference at least to the date of his play (1611) and to its place in his production ; a serious attempt to determine his sources and how Lope chose to use them; a review of the judgments of previous critics (like Menéndez Pelayo or Entrambasaguas); an account , like that provided in part by DeLys Ostlund's recent book, of how Lope portrayed his protagonists in a dozen other plays. Gitlitz might, for instance, have referred to the much earlier El caballero de IUescas (in which el mejor mozo is similarly embozado in a capa gascona for his meeting with Isabella ), to the slightly later Fuente Ovejuno or to other plays in which Ferdinand is rather less idealised, such as Las cuentas del Gran Capitán, or La hermosura aborrecida In fact he alludes only to El santo niño [sic] de La Guardia For his Spanish text, he has been content to borrow from the not-very-critical edition by Warren T. McCready. But he fails to correct at least one clear error (the gender of orden in Reviews1 71 line 294) and allows some new ones to creep in ( 55, 133, 1291, 1334, 1933, 2271). On the other hand, he silently (though maybe rightly) changes the name of the Duke of Sogorbe to the more historical "Segorbe," and divides the play into cuadros -which is admirable, except that he fails to notice that Act II has seven (not six); a new one begins after line 1802. What Gitlitz principally offers us, therefore, is his translation (plus, in appendices, a loa and some extra verses he wrote for a production meant to be mounted in 1992). Properly , he opts for verse—rendering poetry as prose is always a dereliction—and courageously he tries to mirror the author's original metrical forms. Thus he renders the play's two sonnets in strict Petrarchan mode (though with some distortion of their sense), and turns its other hendecasyllables, not unsuccessfully , into pentameters. But his attempts to imitate romances and redondillas prove very misguided. Since English, in eight syllables, normally says much more than Spanish, he cannot but fall into paraphrase, prolixity, and padding, and often destroys Lope's pace and directness by using forty per cent more words. No less unhappily, his earnest adherence to the rhyme-scheme of redondillas (nearly eighty per cent of the play) results in a some strange enjambement (reward-/ed, 113-14; white-/ness, 1493-94) and a profusion of false rhymes. In addition, far too many renderings are very inexact. To translate, for example, as "he" the él that is almost a scornful vos turns insulting jibes into asides (309-74). M aun en la caballeriza I pone su macho el señor / que en entrando en la posado I se sienta sin hacer nada (2018-21) cannot be turned into "There in the stable he won't budge; / he won't feed the...

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