Love in the Early Spanish Theatre (review)

Reviews HATHAWAY, ROBERT L. Love in the Early Spanish Theatre. Madrid: Plaza Mayor, 1975. 308 pp. The last few decades have seen an upsurge of interest in the Pre-Lopean theater. In the present volume Professor Hathaway explores the early history of a theme at the very heart of the secular comedia, namely profane love. He argues that the prevailing fashion of love represented in the nascent theater underwent a transformation from the cult of courtly love to what he labels a neoplatonic synthesis, from love as the sole focus of interest to love as the off-stage motive for dramatic intrigue, from love as an aristocratic ideal to love as a bourgeois fantasy. At the same time these changing modes of the love ethos are convincingly related to concomitant developments in the complexity of dramatic structure, on the one hand, and on the other, to the transfer of the locus of theatrical production from patrician households to the public corrales. The author outlines his thesis and contrasts the relevant types of love in the initial chapter (and recapitulates the course of the discussion in Chapter VI), while the intervening bulk of the book is given over to the detailed documentation of the major chronological steps in the permutation of the love theme. After a backward glance (still in Chapter I) at the Hispanic reaction to the tradition of amorous literature, which the earliest dramatists inherited, the exposition turns to the vogue of courtly love in Encina, Fernández, and the early eclogues (Chapter II), and then moves on to Torres Naharro and Gil Vicente (Chapter III), Indeed, Torres Naharro emerges as the seminal figure in this history, for it was he who invited prototype of the comedia of love-intrigue, where the neoplatonic love ethic came to the fore. The formula , of course, is known to all: the healthy attraction of naturally paired lovers triumphs over every obstacle and complication the dramatist can invent to thwart their desire; and after three acts of suspense, turmoil, and struggle the passion of the lovers, if not already consummated, moves with the finale of the play toward that denouement, though inevitably within the bonds of society's sanction — matrimony. Such pedestrian make-believe was, as the author rightly emphasizes, pitched to the common run of playgoers who now gathered at village square or public courtyard. The eruption of the theater into the public domain, into the world of ordinary tastes and stringent economic pressures finished the courtly ethic. Its conventions were too remote, too preposterous for a rougher, more earthy audience. After Torres Naharro the half century ending with Lope de Rueda is covered in Chapter IV, "A Decade of Experiments ," while Chapter V, "Italianate Comedies and Essays in Tragedy," carries the story roughly from 1550 to 1585. During this near century the theater , though in the hands of mostly very minor dramatists, saw the decisive consolidation of the neoplatonic love ethic in its Naharresque format, while those elements of courtly love which did not simply disappear were increasingly subordinated and muted. In Chapter VII the unequivocal triumph of the neoplatonic mode is illustrated from Lope de Vega's early comedia, El verdadero amante. A valuable bibliography and an adequate index are also provided . Unfortunately the neatness of the author's thesis is somewhat compromised by a considerable body of ama53 tory expressions which defy his two categories (p. 278). This suggests that there may be yet other convolutions of the love theme which played a part in the development of the comedia. Indeed , another such nuclear view is attributed to Fernando de Rojas (p. 275), and one is disappointed that the author did not take the time to spell out more precisely the relation of this view to the love theme in the emerging theater. Regretfully, there are everywhere signs of the hastily revised dissertation, ranging from simple breakdowns in grammar to outright obscurity. For example, there seems to be a confusion between voluntad and libre albedrio on page 56, though later on page 68 the distinction is made obvious. We find the following statement concerning La comedia salvaje : "His servant Rosio is Sempronio in avarice and Pármeno in his...