La Dama Duende and La Viuda Valenciana

Bulletin Of The Comediantes Vol. XXII Fall, 1970 No. 2 LA DAMA DUENDE and LA VIUDA VALENCIANA Joseph G. Fucilla Northwestern University In his edition of Calderóne La Dama Duende in Clásicos Castellanos Professor Valbuena Briones devotes a special section in introduction to "Las supersticiones , el miedo y la falsa ciencia," which helps to set the mood of the piece for the reader. He implies quite rightly that the popularity of these beliefs must have been a factor in CaIder ón's decision to utilize their subject matter in a dramatic representation. The same section also contains a brief discussion of the technique of the play which involves a double plane of reality and fantasy that Professor Valbuena Briones attributes to the influence of Don Quijote and the theater of Cervantes , particularly Pedro de Urdemalas . It would be difficult to prove such an assumption in this instance since the two levels are ipso facto inseparable from the theme itself despite the fact that the play contains a letter in archaic Spanish which recalls Don Quijote's famous letter to Dulcinea. In view of the Calderonian habit of making refundiciones of the works of Lope and the dramatists of his school, it would have been logical to look for a more immediate source in one of them. It is surprising, for example, that Lope's La Viuda Valenciana, one of the few plays which like La Dama Duende has a widow as its leading character, has never, as far as I know, been mentioned in this connection. In looking for further links between them I have come up with the following results. The clearest evidence of parallelism in the two comedias is to be seen in Scene I, Act III of La Dama Duende and Scenes II, VI and VII of La Viuda. In the former, the male protagonist, Manuel, is one night led by a circuitous route to the dama duende's (Angela's) luxuriously furnished apartment where he is regaled with conservas and agua. Angela, wearing a mask, continues to remain incognita as she has in the two previous acts (op. cit., 8386 ) . In the latter, the male protagonist, Camilo, with a hood over his head, is led in a roundabout way by Urban, the servant of another incognita, Leonarda, to an equally sumptuous apartment where he is similarly regaled with a copión. When the hood is removed he discovers that everyone in the room is wearing a mask.2 At this point it could be argued that Calderón might be drawing upon one of the two main sources of Lope, a novella of Bandello, No. XXV of Part IV of his collection.3 Here a Milanese woman who does not identify herself invites a young nobleman to visit her. He is likewise brought to her de luxe suite by a devious route and is offered a collezione [sic]. She appears masked like the two Spanish widows. Calderón had, of course, read Bandello and had already used one of his novelle as the source of his first play, Amor, Honor y Poder (1623).4 However, in the light of other details common to the two comedias but absent in the Italian tale no direct influence 29 can be claimed for it. One detail which seems significant concerns Scene XXII of Act III of La Viuda and one of the final scenes in Act II of La Dama Duende. Since Leonarda in La viuda stubbornly insists on maintaining her incognito, Camilo decides to take matters into his own hands. He does so by means of a lanterna with a bujía hidden under his cloak which he pulls out at the opportune moment (op. cit., 88). In La Dama Duende it is Angela who is caught by Manuel while rifling his desk for the picture of a lady she had come upon on another occasion. In order to be able to see what she is doing she has brought a light inclosed and hidden in a lantern (op. cit., 73-74). The outcome is similar. In the Lope version Camilo is amazed to behold the beautiful widow he had frequently seen and admired on the...