The Development of Imagery in Calderón's Comedias (review)

REVIEWS WILLIAM R. BLUE, The Development of Imagery in Calderón's Comedias . York, South Carolina: Spanish Literature Publications Company , 1983. $18.00 In many ways this is an interesting and useful book. William Blue studies several plays of Calderón (a total of sixteen) from the point of view of the function of imagery in its relationship to character and theme. The images, then, are seen not only as spectacle, as Aristotle regarded the scenography of Greek drama, relegating it to the outskirts of classical art, but as essential and especially meaningful and significant aesthetic elements of the Comedias. Blue divides Calderón's production into three periods. From 1623 to 1629 we have a group of comedias that share certain common features with regard to imagery: some major images dominate the plays (the contrast lightness-darkness, certain animal images like the horse and the asp, the cosmic forces of wind or the sea, or the four elements). They function as intermediaries between the inner and the outer world; that is to say, the relationship of external surroundings and the emotions of the characters is expressed through poetic images. In this way the great dramatic themes of honor, love, appearance and reality, fate and fortune , acquire a vivid, metaphoric presence on the stage. In the second period, 1630-1649, «Calderón's imagery becomes more organic, more concise, more balanced, and more complex. The bond between imagery and atmosphere, character, theme, and structure becomes unbreakable » (p. 59). The functional character of the images and the economy in their use are brought to an extreme: few images are present in a play for a decorative reason or as a result of the exercise of an exuberance of the imagination; they play a role in character development or in the signifying connexion of man's fate with his world (nature or society): the sea that surrounds the action of El mayor 207 208BCom, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Winter 1983) monstruo del mundo embodies the forces of fate, as the towers, labyrinth and tombs that imprision Marienne symbolically incorporate the oppression that the diabolic jealousy of the tetrarch progressively introduces in her life. This signifying power acquires a certain magnificence in the last period, 1650-1681, when the whole of nature seems to invade the spectacle of the plays. Nature, the natural force, and the elements take here the form of the gods of classical mythology and, through their presence, a certain metamorphosis takes place. The divine character of Creation, and the triumph of life over death is visually represented: «In the last plays, death is not the final word. While it is true that characters do die, their deaths are rarely final. They are transformed into elements of nature or their deaths provide for renewal of society and of the natural world» (p. 118). I said initially that this book was useful. I mean by this that I found that Mr. Blue's analyses, read in conjunction with the text of the plays, do enrich our understanding of them. I find that the number of plays analyzed is excessive; a closer attention to a smaller number of plays would have been, it seems to me, more useful. The scholarship , as a whole, is excellent and the most relevant material is incorporated into the text. Ocassionally, however, there are some startling omissions (the fundamental article of Don N. Cruickshank, «Pongo mi mano en sangre bañada en la puerta': Adultery in Ei médico de su honra,» Studies in Spanish Literature of the Golden Age Presented to E.M. Wilson, ed. R.O. Jones (London, 1973), pp. 45-62, is ignored in the analysis of this play). The brief index is somewhat erratic. These minor faults, however, should not distract us from the very real merits of this study. Javier Herrero University of Virginia FRIEDMAN, EDWARD H. The Unifying Concept: Approaches to the Structure of Cervantes' «Comedias». York, S.C: Spanish Literature Publications Co., 1981. Hardbound. $18.00. In his article on Cervantes' comedias for the Suma cervantina (London, 1973), Bruce W. Wardropper called for new, sympathetic critical appreciations of Cervantes' plays to complement Joaquin ...