The Re-Creation of History in the Fernando and Isabel Plays of Lope de Vega (review)

454BCom, Vol. 50, No. 2 (Winter 1998) Ostlund, DeLys. The Re-Creation ofHistory in the Fernando and Isabel Plays ofLope de Vega. New York: Peter Lang, 1997. Cloth. 13 1 pp. DeLys Ostlund is interested in the interplay of history and fiction in the theater, and, more specifically, in the representation of the Reyes Católicos in five works ofLope de Vega: El mejor mozo de España, Fuente Ovejuna, El cerco de Santa Fe, El nuevo mundo descubierto por Cristóbal Colón, and Las cuentas del Gran Capitán. The study opens with a discussion ofthe ways in which so-called historical dramas make use of, and enact poetic license upon, their sources. The plays project, in Aristotelian terms, a dialectics of history and poetry, synthesized, according to Ostlund, in Lope's adherence to "poetic truth" (20). The fact that Lope the playwright depends heavily on the romances is significant in light oftheir combination ofpoetry , rhetoric, and oral history. The juxtaposition ofthe five plays allows Ostlund to address both a dramatic trajectory and a range of approaches to Fernando and Isabel, depicted at crucial moments oftheir reign, from their betrothal in El mejor mozo de España to the political consequences of the queen's death in Las cuentas. Ostlund notes that El mejor mozo is the only play in which the Catholic Monarchs are the central characters. She blames a general critical neglect of the play, which enjoyed three reprintings during the author's lifetime, to the harsh judgment of Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, who denounced the liberties that Lope took with historical data. Ostlund employs this critique to argue that Lope's deviations from the factual record relate to artistic creation . That is, the changes reflect the dramatist's adherence to the internal logic of the play, a logic that does not contradict historical truth as much as place it at the service of art. Ostlund's commentary serves to remind us that the reader of chronicles and the theatrical spectator have different horizons ofexpectation and that Lope de Vega is ever cognizant ofthese distinctions. The consideration ofthe means by which Lope adapts history for the stage in El mejor mozo is, for me, one ofthe most engaging features ofthe study. In her analysis ofFuente Ovejuna, Ostlund underscores the contrast between the discretion of Femando and Isabel and the inexperience and the imprudence of the Maestre de Calatrava, Don Rodrigo Téllez Girón. The antithesis is noteworthy, in that Lope has chosen to ignore the fact that in 1476 the king and queen were twenty-four and twenty-five years old, respectively . Ostlund points out that, in his elevation of Fernando and Isabel, Lope dramatizes two unrelated events: the rebellion against the Comendador and the siege of Ciudad Real by the Order ofCalatrava on behalf ofthe Portuguese Crown. The decision to include the siege within the theatrical Reviews455 frame put Lope in the difficult position of sustaining his glowing portrait of the Reyes Católicos without offending the Girón family, influential patrons ofthe arts. Ostlund devotes a part ofthe chapter to a comparison ofthe wise and moderate Queen Isabel with Laurencia as a type of female warrior; social and dramatic protocol prohibit the regal figure from going beyond the parameters offeminine behavior, while the peasant character has more freedom in this regard. El cerco de Santa Fe e ilustre hazaña de Garcilaso de la Vega is the play in which, for Ostlund, Lope comes closest to observing the unities of time and place. Ironically, however, there is neither one central action nor a single protagonist in the work. El cerco is a celebration ofthe final phase of the Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula. The dramatis personae include a number ofhistorical figures, and Queen Isabel makes her way into all three acts (as opposed to King Fernando, who appears only in the final act). She "is seen as the restorer of order and justice as she moves among the other characters, resolving their conflicts, disputes, and problems and teaching them through both precept and example" (63), yet "[e]ven in his absence Isabel defers to Fernando as the ultimate authority in Castile" (67...