The Restoration of Monarchy: Hados y lados hacen dichosos y desdichados (review)

Reviews1 75 choice; designing female-dominated love triangle; and creating deadly semiotic entanglements" (200-01). However, most of these very dramatic situations that she finds distinctly female (?) in Sor Juana's writing can be found in Salazar's Elegir al enemigo written twenty-five years earlier, in 1664. And the one who chooses a husband in this latter play is the infanta Rosimunda herself. It would appear, from a strictly ideological stance, that Salazar was more daring and more feminist in his dramatic text than Sor Juana was in hers, for, in Amor, as DiPuccio states, "Minos grants Teseo Fedra's hand in marriage" (195). There is an evident need to reexamine and to revise, ifjustified, what traditional criticism has mistakenly identified as the source text for Amor. And, not surprisingly, the direct connection between Sor Juana and Salazar y Torres and the importance of his work for the Mexican nun prove decisive in answering some questions that have baffled literary historians and dramatic critics to date. In commenting on post-structuralism's response to logocentric readings of texts, Denise DiPuccio is aware that her approach "awaits future corrections that propose to redress its own decentered shortcomings" (205). Her book is a serious and, at times, elegant attempt to broaden our appreciation of mythological plays of the Golden Age, and, in the spirit of continuing the critical dialogue she traces from the ancient world, through the seventeenth century, and into the twentieth, I have approached her contribution to this critical dialogue. The seriousness of her purpose and the critical claims she makes demand no less, but the shortcomings of the critical methodology she herself mentions should not be left unchallenged. Thomas A. O'Connor Binghamton University The Restoration of Monarchy: Hados y lados hacen dichosos y desdichados. Ed. A. Robert Lauer. Kassel: Reichenberger, 1997. 265 pp. Why was the Spanish Golden Age theater audience so fascinât- 1 76BCom, Vol 54, No. 1 (2002) ed with the enigmatic Tsar Boris Godunov (1598-1605) and the Russian monarchy of the seventeenth century? And why was the popular play Hados y lados hacen dichosos y desdichados (1678), which deals with Godunov, staged fourteen times in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? Lauer's meticulous edition , with its thoroughly researched introduction, its insightful and balanced approach, offers answers to these questions. This volume, which can serve as a model for comediantes, offers a thoroughly annotated, reliable, and readable composite edition of Hados based on three manuscripts, a lengthy introduction , a bibliography, and six well-researched appendices. In the edition lines are numbered, orthography is respected, and blatant errors are corrected. Footnotes indicate variant readings, verse forms. Appendices provide valuable information on correspondences among variants, watermarks, a genealogy of the Royal Houses of Muscovy, a stage history of Hados, places and theater companies that produced the play, and its music, which is transcribed by Louise K. Stein. All of this is done with great precision and assiduousness. The well-documented introduction offers to readers a wealth of information regarding the play, its manuscripts, author, stage history, and basic themes, thereby enticing them to read the work with interest and care. The first section on authorship treats the complex questions regarding Lorenzo Garcia, the probable author, whose name appears on one manuscript. Lauer provides interesting information on actors, musicians, even an apuntador that belonged to the company of Lorenzo Garcia, the little-known autor de comedias in Valencia, 1667. Regarding the text, Lauer found and collated eight suelta versions with three titles, studied variants and the relationship of numerous manuscripts, a lost archetype, and possible intermediaries. One highlight of the book is the engrossing section on a Slavic theme and Russian politics, which provides the reader with a rich understanding of the background of the play. Those who have no particular interest in the Slavs, Godunov, and Russian politics will be interested in these topics after reading this section . It presents fascinating material on Boris Godunov, who was Tsar 1584-98, and the Boyars, Romanovs, and the populace who Reviews1 77 opposed him. The reader gets to learn about the spy system related to Godunov, the mysterious deaths of successors, especially the False Dmitri or Lzhedmitri...