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fore been mentioned. Now Fénix attributes it to "el cielo." This significance is clear if we remember that she has blamed man's fate on impersonal, ephemeral stars, which depend in their turn on the sun for their existence and which are not capable of an act of homage. Now Fénix sees that it is the will of Heaven (the equivalent, here, of God) which has purposed and accompHshed the "homenaje." There is meaning and purpose in the universe. Further evidence of the new Hfe beginning for Fénix is the arrangement for her marriage to Muley. In this marriage his ethical concerns and her aesthetic ones will be combined. It has been the purpose of this discussion to establish a level of meaning in the play at which Fernando symbolizes Christ and the theme is His Redemption of the World, here symbolized in Fénix. This interpretation complements other literal and allegorical levels of meaning and sheds Hght on various difficult aspects of the play. FOOTNOOTES 1LeO Spitzer, "The Figure of Fénix in Calderón's El Príncipe Constante," trans. Ernest Feise, in Critical Essays on the Theatre of Caldrón, ed. Bruce Wardropper (New York: New York University Press, 1965), pp. 137-60. 2 References are to the edition by Menéndez y Pelayo of Teatro Selecto in the Biblioteca Clásica series, Vol. XXXVI (Madrid, 1897), pp. 329-430. Line numbers will appear in the text. 3 Leo Spitzer, "The Figure of Fénix," 146. I am tempted to add another name to the list of critics Spitzer has compiled-— that of William Whitby, whose article "Fénix's Role in the Ransom of Fernando's Body" makes only a very brief mention of the sonnet scene. (Further references to page numbers in Spitzer 's article will appear in the text. ) 4 Bruce Wardropper, "Christian and Moor in Calderón's El Príncipe Constante," MLR, 53, 512. (Further reference to Wardropper's article will appear in the text.) 5T. S. Eliot, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (London, 1933), p. 153. 6 Alexander Parker, The Allegorical Drama of Calderón (Oxford, 1943), p. 194. 7 Bruce Wardropper, "Christian and Moor," p. 520. "The attempt to interpret the work either as an allegory or as a comedia fails, it seems to me, because it falls between these two treatments." 8 William Whitby, "Fénix's Role in the Ransom of Fernando's Body," Bulletin of the Comediantes, 8 (1956), 1-4.¿•¿S·* STURGIS LEAVITT'S NEW BOOK ON THE COMEDIA Gerald E. Wade, Vanderbilt University, Retired Born in 1888, Sturgis Leavitt may well be labeled the Dean of comedia scholars in the United States. Vigorous of mind and body, he is still producing material in that field. At this writing, the latest to come from his pen is An Introduction to Golden Age Drama in Spain. It is number 19 of Estudios de Hispanófila; its printing was completed in Valencia in December of 1971, and it is distributed by Editorial CastaHa, Zurbano 39, Madrid 10. The unpretentious little book, of 126 pages, is the revision of classroom lectures given by professor Leavitt at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), where he is now Kenan Professor of Spanish Emeritus. The book has a Foreword and eleven chapters. Chapter I offers a brief summary of Spanish drama preceding the Golden Age. Chapter XI, "The Comedias Lose Their Identity," describes the decHne of the genre after Calderón. Chapters II and III give briefly some facts of producing and staging the 28 drama from the time of Lope de Rueda on; Chapters IV through X each take up a dramatist and for each two plays are discussed: for Lope, El remedio en h desdicha and El mejor alcalde el rey, for Tirso El vergonzoso en palacio and El burlador de Sevilh, for Alarcón La verdad sospechosa and Las paredes oyen, for Castro the two Cid plays, for Moreto El Undo don Diego and El desdén, for Rojas Del rey abajo, ninguno and Entre bobos anda el juego, for Calderón La vida es sueño and El alcalde de...

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