La escuela de Calderón: Estudio e investigación (review)

Reviews131 es. In El retablo de las maravillas, Zimic believes the fictional audience, gripped by obsessions of legitimacy and blood purity, went to see the extraordinary show anticipating not an evening of entertainment but a painful personal experience, "pues van a ella llenos de incertidumbre, tensión y miedo" (366). One wonders whether the real audience, possessed by the same fears, would not have felt equally apprehensive. This would explain then why such an entremés would not have been popular theater. In fact, reading Zimic's monograph, the reader comes away with the impression that Cervantes' critical stance would not have gone over with a mass audience in Golden Age Spain. Rather his plays demanded an audience with Cervantes' sensitivity, thus a reading public, willing to reflect seriously on the social, economic and religious concerns ofthe time. Although some readers may question some ofZimic's interpretations, all will find much to ponder as they retrace Zimic's thoughtful, energetic, and frequently originaljourney through Cervantes' theatrical world. Charlotte Stern Randolph-Macon Woman's College Ann L. Mackenzie, La escuela de Calderón: Estudio e investigación. Hispanic Studies TRAC (Textual Research and Criticism), 3. Liverpool: Liverpool Univ. Press, 1993. 239 pp. The last twenty years have witnessed a veritable information explosion in Calderón studies. Editorially, the Calderonian canon increased substantially . Following the 1973 Cruickshank-Varey facsimile reproduction ofthe Vera Tassis edition there stand dozens of new printings running the gamut of editorial purpose, from Sánchez Moriana's facsimile and transcription of La humildad coronada to Ruano de la Haza's brilliant textual X-ray of the Zaragoza and Madrid editions ofLa vida es sueño. Multi-volume research tools, such as the Flasche-Hofmann Konkordanz zu Calderón and the Reichenberger Bibligraphisches Handbuch, archival discoveries and literary theories have enabled critics to take innovative, sometimes daring approaches with solid underpinnings. Many new facets have been added to the way Calderón's works can be read and understood, both historically and critically. But this intense twenty-year focus on Calderón unfortunately has not spread to his contemporaries. Except for Rojas and Moreto, systematic studies of playwrights who flourished after 1635 have been sporadic: Arellano on Bances Candamo, Whitaker and Profeti on Cubillo de Aragón, 132BCom, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Summer 1994) Dille on Enriquez Gómez, Domínguez de la Paz on Hoz y Mota, O'Connor on Salazar y Torres, Serralta on Soli's, and, on most of these, and others, Ann Mackenzie. Most assuredly, there have been brilliantly insightful readings of individual works, but overall, scholarly inquiry on Calderón's "school" lags far behind the copious efforts devoted to Calderón himself. La escuela de Calderón is the first part of a trilogy by Ann L. Mackenzie which undertakes to close that gap—(parts two and three of her project are titled Los dramaturgos del ciclo de Calderón and Ensayos sobre la escuela de Calderón). In chapter 1 Mackenzie gives a brief overview, first of the baroque ideology of the seventeenth century, and then of Calderón's influence on his "school" of followers. In chapters 2-3 she examines two techniques which characterize the Calderonian "school," recasting earlier works by other playwrights and writing in collaboration. The latter is a particularly interesting phenomenon. According to Mackenzie, plays were written sequentially by two, three, six, even up to nine collaborators. The plot and style of most of these projects are remarkably consistent, but their characters tend to be psychologically fragmented. King Juan Basilio in Elpríncipeperseguido is a perfect case in point. In Act I Luis de Belmonte portrays the king as one who appears to be insane, but who in reality is more sensible, mature and capable of ruling than the tyrant who usurps the throne. Moreto portrays Juan Basilio in Act II as truly deficient mentally, until his usurper slaps him, which implausibly awakens his intelligence and value system. The protagonist drawn by Antonio Martinez de Meneses in Act III is completely different ; now elderly, imprisoned, disillusioned, Juan Basilio is a sort of senior Segismundo from the third act ofLa vida es sueño, reflecting on life in...