Guillen de Castro's Creative Use of the Romancero: One Instance in Las Mocedades del Cid

reality . . . must create a world that is simultaneously material and spiritual, real and imaginative, factual and fictional" (p. 391). An important art-within-art technique is that of the play-within-the-play. It has been studied in detail by Robert J. Nelson in Play within a Play, The Dramatist's Conception of his Art: Shakespeare to Anouilh (New York, 1958). Role-change constitutes another — broader — aspect of this esthetic problem which, it is hoped, will be explored in greater depth in other dramatic works of the Spanish Golden Age. 10 The essential question of the "uniqueness" versus the "universality" of the Spanish comedia has been the subject of a polemic between Arnold G. Reichenberger (a Hispanist) and Eric Bentley (a non-Hispanist). See Arnold G. Reichenberger, "The Uniqueness of the Comedia," HR, 27 (1959), 303-16. In 1961, Eric Bentley wrote a rejoinder which was not published until recently, "The Universality of the Comedia," HR, 38 (1970), 147-62. In this same issue of HR appears Reichenberger's restatement of his original position, pp. 16373 . GUILLEN DE CASTRO'S CREATIVE USE OF THE ROMANCERO: ONE INSTANCE IN LAS MOCEDADES DEL CID Ion T. Agheana, Dartmouth College While Guillen de Castro has been widely praised for his inspirational and textual use of the Romancero, for having perceived and exploited its dramatic possibilities, he has also been criticized for the manner in which he occasionally adapted it to his dramas. Mérimée, in his edition of Las mocedades, notes that Castro, seemingly unwilling to waste good material, often forces ballads into his plays.1 Umphrey, on the other hand, deplores Castro's habit of distributing fragments of the same ballad among various characters.2 Menéndez Pidal, in complete agreement with Mérimée,3 offers as a sample of Castro's "excessive " use of the Romancero the ballad that begins with the line, "Sentado está el señor Rey," which Castro uses on the occasion of Jimena's second visit to the royal palace in her quest for justice. Wilson, who shares Umphrey's opinion, quotes the same ballad.4 Such criticism is unwarranted and prejudicial to the Valencian dramatist's craftsmanship. Castro, in this instance, can hardy be said to have used the ballad merely for its own sake. Neither its presence in the drama nor its fragmentation is gratuitous. The ballad, in its fragmentary form, facilitates the author's characterization of King Fernando , the protagonist (if not the hero) of Las mocedades.5 It sheds light on one facet of the man who in Act III, blind to common sense and political reason will precipitate Spain into a bloody fratricidal war by dividing the kingdom among his children. Castro reveals the monarch's situation gradually . Fernando, who in the first act appears as a whimsical king who at Rodrigo's knighting dwells more upon personal nostalgia for bygone physical prowess than objective evaluation of merit, emerges in Act II as a man unable to do justice.6 The above-mentioned ballad serves to underscore the king's inability to discharge properly his judicial responsibilities. The ballad, such as preserved by tradition, presents Fernando in his official capacity, sitting in judgment of his subjects:7 79 Sentado está el señor Rey En su silla de respaldo, De su gente mal regida Desaveniencias juzgando. Dadivoso y justiciero Premia al bueno y pena al malo. It is of the utmost importance to note that the verbs in the ballad are in the indicative, and that consequently the monarch's dispensation of justice — rewards to the good, punishment to the bad — appears as factual. Castro, however , does not employ the ballad in its entirety or even in its original form. In Castro's play King Fernando is presented in a different light. The first two lines of the original ballad are entrusted to a squire, inducing the audience to think of a forcefully just Fernando . Once the association is established , Jimena continues the ballad: Si es magno, si es justiciero, premie al bueno y pene al malo; que castigos y mercedes hacen seguros vasallos. (II, 241)8 Castro, in order to emphasize the fact that Jimena's pleas for justice...