Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos (review)

Reviews221 findings of other scholars to demonstrate that Lope de Vega was not the «creator» of the Spanish comedia but rather the one who put it «in style». He affirms that, in fact, Lope shows a resistance to novelty for its own sake, and concludes that «Lope's ingenuity made possible a paradigm broad enough to encourage fresh ways to present conventional concerns while reinforcing the conservation of inherited values.» Professor Williamsen states that in his study of Ximenez de Enciso's play Juan Latino his concern «is the way in which the dramatist uses these materials in contraposition to the unsuccessful rebellion of the moriscos under the leadership of Fernando de Valor in the Alpujarra region (1568-71). The counterpoint so set up heightens the contrast perceived in the Renaissance commonplace, the opposition of arms and letters.» The volume also contains five essays on prose fiction and poetry by Robert Fiore, David Gitlitz, Richard Glenn, Joseph Silverman and Bruce Wardropper, as well as testimonials by McCrary, MacCurdy and Tyler, a forward by John Keller, a list of Professor Hesse's publications to date, and a tabula gratulatoria. This collection of studies by fifteen comediantes will be of interest to specialists of the comedia in particular and to students of Golden Age literature in general. It is a fitting tribute to the founder of the Bulletin of the Comediantes. Frances Exum Winthrop College«Homenaje a Pedro Calderón de la Barca en el tricentenario de su muerte,» Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Primavera, 1981), pp. 247-414. This special issue contains a preface by J. H. Parker and ten essays. Three of the studies treat the honor plays. In «The WifeMurder Plays in Retrospect» Bruce W. Wardropper reviews the development of his own criticism of the honor trilogy, and he argues that these dramas contain «no vindication of a murderer, and no poetic justice,» but are examples of authentic Spanish baroque tragedy in which the husband, «unable to control his irascible passions with his understanding, subjects them to the treacherous faculty of the imagination» and changes «from a civilized human being into a cunn- 222BCom, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Winter 1982)' ing murderer. Herein lies his tragedy. He must destroy himself in order to destroy his wife.» John Bryans' «System and Structure in Calderón's El médico de su honra» contains an examination of «the coherent system of psychological assumptions about honour which underlie the attitudes of Calderón's characters» and «how these attitudes are integrated into the (play's) structure.» Bryans states that the ending of the play is Calderón's demonstration of the «the incompatibility of the code of honour and the royal justice to which that code should be subordinated .» He continues: «Secondly, by making this first point (Calderón) may want surreptitiously to put the seal of his approval on the wishes of those wishing to abolish duelling by law. Finally, since the code of honour applied first and foremost to the nobles, Calderón may be hinting by more remote implication that he favours the government's policy of curbing the lawlessness of the nobility.» In«The Problematic of Tragedy in Calderón's El médico de su honra,» Henry W. Sullivan brings together a survey of the major criticism of the play, a discussion of the drama's reception and influence outside Spain, an infusion of ideas from works by René Girard and Jacques Lacan, and his own thesis concerning the effects of moral probabilism in seventeenth-century Spain. (He identifies Gutierre as the «rigorist» and King Pedro as the «probabilist».) In Sullivan's view, «Calderón intuited a Christian catharsis which aimed at the arousal of emotions akin to pity and fear, the goal of which was not mere pagan purgation, but the achievement of religious knowiege. This was heightened knowledge, via poetic means, of God's ways to man, with an accompanying understanding of the necessity for submission to social and religious law.» George Mariscal states in «Iconografía y técnica emblemática en Calderón: La devoción de la cruz» that «la gran base de la iconografia y defla...