Unsuspected Eloquence: A History of the Relations between Poetry and Music by James Anderson Winn (review)

110ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW more ceremonial nature, for which the name comedia belies a lack of cohesiveness consonant with their purpose of pageantry. Such pomp and circumstance is evident in three of Lope's plays (Carlos V en Francia, La tragedia del rey don Sebastián y el bautismo del principe de Marruecos, and Las paces de los reyes y judia de Toledo) often criticized for their lack of dramatic unity, as well as in some works by minor dramatists. In terms of dramatic technique, these playwrights propel the evolution of the structure of the comedia through a gradual reduction of multiple plots. Their use of decorative elements, like sententiae, cuentecillos and polymetry, also reflect the development of the genre. Given the limitations of the Twayneseries, Williamsen's book must necessarily appear rudimentary. His selection of minor dramatists is admittedly a personal one; their uneven treatment remains unexplained. Nevertheless, Williamsen's study provides an excellent introduction to seventeenth-century dramatists generally unknown even to the Spanish Golden Age specialist. His bibliography is a thorough guide to original manuscripts and first editions of plays by minor dramatists. It also incorporates what little critical attention these neglected playwrights have received in the past. No reference is made, however, to Juana de José Prades's Teoría sobre los personajes de la comedia nueva en cinco dramaturgos (Madrid: CSIC, 1963) dealing with Miguel Sánchez (pp. 135-156, 290-295) plus four other minor dramatists not covered by Williamsen. In contrast to Prades's work on characterization, this author focuses on the thematic and symbolic inventiveness, as well as the structural pattern, that Miguel Sánchez and other playwrights resort to. All in all, Williamsen's book must form part of the groundwork for future research on any of the eleven dramatists he covers. SUSANA HERNANDEZ-ARAlCO California State Polytechnic University James Anderson Winn. Unsuspected Eloquence: A History ofthe Relations between Poetry and Music. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981. 381p. This very useful survey of the relation between words and music in Western culture from Greek to modern times fills an important gap in the still too limited library of books on word-music relationships. It provides an introduction for musicologists to many of the techniques and assumptions that underlie poetic analysis, and an introduction for students of literature to the often analogous but never precisely congruent techniques and assumptions of music theory and practice. Its scope and learning are impressive, its specific analyses of musical and literary texts perceptive and usually persuasive, and it is mostly quite clear. While Unsuspected Eloquence has most of the virtues of a good introductory work, it is also subject to several of the faults of the genre. Winn makes a number of assertions without evidence sufficient to keep the reader comfortable with his argument, and the work as a whole suffers from a sometimes distracting tension between historiography and analysis. Like John Hollander and others, Winn posits an early Greek "mousike" that did not distinguish among music composition and practice, poetic composition and practice, music theory, and rhetorical theory (p. 30). Since the almost immediate disjunction of these categories, and their subsequent reunification in various combinations, constitute a principal theme of the book, much depends on our acceptance of the "mousike" premise. Yet as Winn concedes, our earliest hard evidence suggests a recognized separation between words and music. Winn's position might have been strengthened if he had described the music- Book Reviews111 poetry conflation as a longstanding cultural assumption rather than asserting it as fact. The persistence of the myth is unassailable; evidence for actual union is sparse and questionable. Winn's attempt at both historiography and analysis manifests itself positively in some stunning specific explications, as of Philippe de Vitry's motet, "Garrit Gallus In nova fert - Neuma" (pp. 107-110), and there are times (such as the conclusion to his chapter on "The Rhetorical Renaissance") when he is able to bring together his many strands with clarity and an unexpected eloquence of his own. But elsewhere, as in his comparison of the constructive techniques of Pope and Dryden with those of Bach and his contemporaries, the analyses are less enlightening and the points...