Studies in Honor of Everett W. Hesse (review)

Reviews219 dramaturgy, in Neoclassicism and in Garcia Lorca. I could have wished for a more nuanced study of Calderón's allegedly ironical views of marriage in certain plays of his early middle age. Surely the dramatist, in his creation of entremés-ñgmes and graciosos, is merely drawing upon the farcical tradition, strongly rooted and quite stylized by his time. Others will be persuaded that a connecting of this feature, at this particular moment of his career, with the circumstances of his life is close to the truth. The papers read wonderfully well. Certain expressions puzzle me, and may be infelicitous: «authoritative» (ut supra) and «corollary problem» (251). I wearily suppose one has to accommodate oneself to the barbarous neologism «miniscule» (12). The typography is also superb, apart from irritating slips in the transcription of words in languages other than English and Spanish. The work named on page 87, Bibliographisches Hundbuch der Calderón-Forschung, will be invaluable to us while we are sleuthing, doggedly, in the stacks! Alan Soons State University of New York at Buffalo WILLIAM C. McCRARY and JOSE A. MADRIGAL, eds. Studies in Honor of Everett W. Hesse. Lincoln, Nebraska: Society of Spanish and Spanish-American Studies. 1981. Paper. 208 pp. Ten of the essays in this volume treat the comedia. They are:«Romance Elements in Calderón's Last Plays,» by William R. Blue;«Aspects of Characterization in Golden Age Drama,» by Frank P. Casa; «Una veta inexplorada de la brava mina de Moreto; su teatro menor,» by James A. Castañeda; «The Saturn Factor: Examples of Astrological Imagery in Lope de Vega's Works,» by Frederick A. de Armas; «Calderón's El mayor encanto, amor and The Mode of Romance,» by Susan L. Fischer; «The Origin and Meaning of Comedy in Calderón,» by Robert ter Horst; «La visión afectiva-intelectual en una comedia bíblica de Lope: La creación del mundo y primera culpa del hombre, » by Juan O. Valencia; «The Comedia as Play,» by Gerald E. Wade; «Lope's Conservative Arte de hacer comedias en este tiempo,» by John G. Weiger; and «Women and Blacks Have Brains Too: A Play by Diego Ximenez de Enciso,» by Vern G. Williamsen. 220BCom, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Winter 1982) Space permits only a brief description of some of these. Professor Blue has chosen for study El jardín de Falerina and Hado y divisa de Leonido y Marfisa. In his discussion of the mode of romance he cites studies by Northrop Frye and Howard Felperin. He also follows Joseph Campbell's study of the myth of the hero in his discussion of the plays. Professor Casa states that the seventeenthcentury Spaniard viewed morality «as a social phenomenon and not, as we do now, as a personal one.» The protagonists of the comedia«come with a social position that informs the spectator of their place in the community and of the ideal duties and responsibilities of their class.» Individuals «reveal their nature by their compliance to or rebellion against these givens.» Professor de Armas discovers that«for Lope, Saturn not only represents frustrations in love, but also a tyrannical rule that must be overthrown by the benevolence of Jupiter.» He discusses El alcalde mayor, El bobo del colegio, Roma abrasada, La niña deplata, Lo que está determinado and Lo que ha de ser. Professor Fischer concludes that «Frye's schema of fictional modes perhaps provides a broader—mythic—perspective from which to view Calderón's artistic output both as a product of its own time and as contemporaneous with ours.» Professor ter Horst's essay has already been reviewed by Gerald Wade. See «Concerning a Recent Interpretation of Calderonian Comedy,» in BCom, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 125-29. Professor Valencia states that in La creación del mundo y primera culpa del hombre «El sentimiento íntimo-afectivo lopesco que permea su poesía y teatro es realzado en sus niveles humano y divino en la visión esencialmente afectiva de Adán. . . . Eva es indudablemente la exponente máxima de la visión intelectual. Caín proclama la fase negativa de la visión intelectual negando su realidad y...