Observations By Ezra Pound on the Dramatic Quality of Lope de Vega

Advierte que es necedad tratar con rigor a quien se llega a pedir piedad. 1259-61 Feliciana is prudent, Don Tello imprudent . In Act I to Tello's remark about peasant girls: pero son tan desdeñosas, que sus melindres me cansan, she retorts: Antes, las que se defienden suelen ser más estimadas. 519-22 In Act III she restrains him when he goes to defy the 'alcalde de Castilla': Sale Feliciana, deteniendo a Don Tello, y los criados. Feliciana Mira lo que haces, señor. Tente, hermano, ¿donde vas? 2243-44 Her own behaviour towards Tello is in striking contrast with Tello's towards Elvira. As a woman she cannot defend Elvira by physical strength, and it would have been rash and futile to have opposed openiy one who is so beside himself:¿"Cómo es posible libralla de un hombre fuera de sí? 1133-35 What she does, as Leavitt observes, is to appear to side with him to play for time. Only when Tello in desperation uses force on Elvira does she try, though in vain, to stop him by force. Despite this difference of behaviour and attitude, Feliciana retains that sister's love for Tello which Lope emphasises when she first appears in Act I. She reprimands Celio for not having investigated further the outcome of Sancho's second visit to Court, and goes herself to warn Don Tello. Just as she has pleaded for mercy for Ñuño and Sancho, and for Elvira, so at the play's end she pleads on no less than three occasions (2270-72, 2362-63, 2777-79) for her brother's life. And though the King does not grant her request, we are intended to recognize that he rewards her mercy and prudence: Y vos, Feliciana, seréis dama de la Reina, en tanto que os doy marido conforme a vuestra nobleza. 2401-04 1 Cf. E. M. Wilson, "Images et structure daos Peritane^," BHi, LI (1949), 154. Observations By Ezra Pound on the Dramatic Quality of Lope de Vega Louis C. Pérez, Williams College Ezra Pound in his book The Spirit of Romance,1 makes several comments on the art of Lope de Vega. Though many of these are not new, still, they are worth repeating. Important is the fact that Pound's statements, as he explains in his preface, "are based on direct study of the texts themselves and not upon commentaries." (p. 9) Pound seek« to resurrect the "damaged shade" of Lope, (p. 182) Perhaps one of the major reasons for Lope's unpopularity with some critics is the impossibility of setting down a formula for his art. We presume this to be one of Pound's pet peeves judging from the insistent way in which he reminds us of this: "Lope is like ten brilliant minds inhabiting one body. An attempt to enclose him in any formula is like trying to make one pair of boots to fit a centipede ." (p. 205) "No formula of criticism is, as I have said, of any great use in trying to define him. He is not a man, he is a literature." (p. 207) "No formula of criticism even approximately applies to all of Lope's work. What he does today, he does not tomorrow ." (p. 204) Notwithstanding this attitude, Pound was able to discover some of Lope's cherished precepts. An important precept, one which 19 Pound sets down at the beginning of his essay, "the first requirement of a play is that it hold the audience" (p. 179), is quite in keeping with the artistic precepts of the seventeenth century theatre in Spain and hence one which helps in understanding Lope's art. Comparing Shakespeare with Lope, with no intent of deciding who is the better of the two, (the author knows too well this can only be an individual conclusion), Mr. Pound points out: "Shakespeare is a consummation; nothing that is based on Shakespeare excels him. Lope is a huge inception . . ." and many dramatists who folllowed him, though never excelling him in dramatic energy, have made their reputations by merely finishing what he had not brought to perfection. p(. 182) Yet if this...