Cristóbal de Virués (review)

Reviews77 WEIGER, JOHN G. Cristóbal de Virués. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978. 166 pp. $11.50. Among the increasing number of treatises on pre-Lopean drama, this volume is a comprehensive study of Cristóbal de Virués' works and their place in Golden Age literature. Weiger defends the thesis that Virués was a pivotal figure in the evolution of the comedia, not just a precursor. Although little is known about Virués' life and works, Wieger found enough material to provide some conclusive facts. Making use of references from Virués' own writings and from those of his contemporaries (Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Matías de Vargas), Weiger reassesses the speculations of earlier critics and draws important conclusions about Virués' writings, his participation in the battle of Lepanto, the date of his death, and his actual position in the development of the comedia. Weiger devotes the second chapter to Virués' often praised but rarely discussed epic poem the Monserrate. After providing a historico-legendary background and a synopsis of the poem, he thoroughly explores Virués' poetic talents and ability to achieve various levels of dualistic ambience. Refuting such critics as Frank Pierce, Weiger justifies Virués' use of digressions and the in medias res principle by observing that the poet's purpose, true to epic tradition , was to endow his protagonist with the qualities of a hero and victim. Weiger avoids repeating earlier commentators who have already traced the sources of the five tragedies and studied their function. Rather he analyzes those elements in each play that point progressively to the emerging national theater. Often quarreling with other critics, he examines the degree to which Virués fused classical precepts with the sensibilities of his age. Elisa Dido, the only play having five acts and a chorus and approximating most nearly classical precepts, was presumably his first. The dramatist, however, rejected the classical concept of fortune when he fused it with Christian traits that were congruent with 17th-century Spanish life. The four remaining plays, composed in the so-called «new style,» have three acts, prologues and epilogues, but lack choruses. The action of La gran Semiramis, a study of evil personified, is shaped less by the wheel of fortune than by the will of the female protagonist. Virués also regarded each act as assuming the properties of a separate tragedy — another innovation that was adopted by his successors. Alfredo Hermenegildo wrote that the incoherent, obscure plot of La cruel Casandra and its senseless deaths point either to Virués' inexpertness or to his desire to present the absurdities of court life. Weiger is of the latter opinion, adding that Virués portrays the «iniquitous behavior in a court» and a king's detachment from it, but he also concentrates on the rebellious character of Casandra, «an artist in crime,» who is driven not by the goddess of luck but by her own self-confidence. Although Atila furioso appears to emphasize only adverse fortune, Weiger stresses the characters' shifting opinion that human will, not the whims of fortune, shapes life's triumphs. 78Bulletin ofthe Comediantes In what is presumably his last drama, La infelice Marcela, the playwright reveals even more clearly his concern with «the conflicts of socially inferior but more dynamic and resourceful individuals.» Contending that most critics of this play have been inconsistent and ambiguous, Weiger claims that it approaches more nearly than any other by Virués the romantic comedy that became so popular in Spain. In it, Virués chose an Italian rather than a classical source; he commingled for the first time in his theater noble and plebeian characters, he introduced the romance meter (probably for the first time according to Weiger); he used verse forms that conformed to the dramatic situation, and he invented a plot dealing with honor. All these elements became essential in the emerging comedia. Since Virués wrote most of his prologues and epilogues long after completing the works, Weiger considers them separately in the final chapter. Treating them as a literary genre in their own right, he shows how each, being a disinterested statement of truth, reflects the dramatist's attitudes...