Unity in El caballero de Olmedo

nor the Jews should be scourged for their beliefs. Where the abuse of the Christians is openly condemned by Cervantes , the plea for more tolerance of the Jews is only implied by the author. His instruments for this oblique attack on Spanish anti-Semitism are parallelism and the deft use of comic characters . Where the Christian theme could be treated seriously, the Semitic one demanded a lighter and thus veiled approach . NOTES 1 Armando Cotarelo y Valladear, El teatro de Cervantes (Madrid, 1951), pp. 315-16. 2 Americo Castro, El pensamiento de Cervantes in Revista de Filologia EspañoL·, Anejo 6 (Madrid, 1925), p. 306. 3 Juan Luis Alborg, Historia de la literatura española, 2 vols. (Madrid: Gredos, 1967), II: 61. 4 It is difficult to comprehend the difference that Alborg is trying to establish between being a true anti-Semite and a person who takes advantage of other people's prejudices and intolerance in order to gain success for one's plays. 5 See Joaquin Casalduero, Sentido y forma del teatro de Cervantes (Madrid: Gredos, 1966), pp. 77-78. 6 Angel Valbuena Prat, Obras completas de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Madrid: Aguilar , 1962) p. 274. All subsequent page references to the plays will be to this edition. 7 See Gabriel H. Lovett, "The Churchman in the Spanish Drama before Lope de Vega," Bulletin of the Comediantes 4 (Fall, 1952), pp. 10-13. 8 Diego Clemencfn has seen Sancho's hatred of the Jews in chapter 8 of Don Quixote, II, as "una salada ocurrencia de Cervantes, con que a un mismo tiempo pinta y ridiculiza las groseras ideas del vulgo, entonces comunes en esta materia, que llegaron hasta creer que los judíos tenían rabo," in Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de h Mancha, ed. Diego Clemencín, vol. 4 (Madrid, 1894), p. 149. ^»(¿•T^V UNITY IN EL CABALLERO DE OLMEDO Harriet B. Powers, Colorado State University Lope de Vega's dramatic art is characterized by its richness and variety, and this is especially true of El Caballero de Olmedo. In recent years critics have analyzed this play from varying points of view: as a tragedy dramatizing the death of the hero, as a tragicomedy based on the concept of poetic justice, as a parallel to the passion of Christ, and as a poetic drama whose action is determined by the imagery of the courtly love tradition.1 Each of these interpretations studies only one aspect of the play, character, or theme, or poetry, when in my opinion the power of the play lies in comprehending its clearly stated theme — unity — as reflected in character and language. The age-old religious, philosophic and artistic search for unity transcends rational explication . How can the essence on one-ness be captured in this fragmented and finite world? One way is by metaphor, by the fusion of dissimilar concepts.2 My purpose in this paper is to study Lope's method of dramatizing the concept of unity in El Caballero de Olmedo. Imagery throughout the play depends on poetic oppositions, for example the juxtapositions of amor-desamor, amorcelos , amor-muerte, and the frequently used words of separation ausencia and especially partir, which imply a twoness or a lack of one-ness. Another example is the mystical language of the play which pervades the second act and culminates in the gloss of "puesto ya el pie en el estribo" (2176-2225). 52 Other verbal and visual oppositions, light-dark, male-female, natural-supernatural , also create poetic tension. The key to reconciling these contraries lies within the enigmatic character of Fabia. Traditionally Fabia has been cast in the role of a Celestina, a matchmaker, or of a witch in league with the Devil. She has consistently been identified with the forces of love and/or evil and with the supernatural.3 Her true nature can be best understood when both roles are combined into a more abstract concept which is the very source of dualism. In archetypal terms, Fabia is the Great Mother who equally creates and destroys, who gives life and death, who inspires love and jealousy, affection and disaffection. Joseph Campbell, in The Hero with...