El lirio y el azucena (review)

Good critical editions of Golden Age drama are always an invaluable tool for the researcher in the field, and even more so when the work in question is one of relative obscurity. Victoriano Roncero offers us a critical study of the auto El lirio y el azucena, originally written by Calderón to celebrate the nuptials in 1660 of Philip IV's daughter, the infanta María Teresa, and the French king, Louis XIV. In his edition, Roncero meticulously and reasonably delineates the stemma of the extant manuscripts of this work. In this examination of the available manuscripts, he has concluded that Calderón's 1665-1670 copy of the auto, housed in the Biblioteca Municipal de Madrid, is the one that reflects the author's last will, and for this reason this copy is used as the base edition. The task was complicated in this case by the fact that at least two of the versions of this auto are by Calderón himself.

Even though included in the collection of Calderón's Autos sacramentales completos, El lirio y el azucena is more an allegorical auto of political rather than sacred significance, notwithstanding the fact that Hapsburg aulic drama is always presented as sacred, given the divine origin of power that the dynasty claims for itself. Despite the suspicion with which such "obras de circunstancias" have been received by scholars, these works offer a very important window that looks onto the worldview of Hapsburg politics and its self-representation in a way that reveals the dynasty's yearnings with regard to their desired role in international politics as leaders of the Christian world.

Roncero provides an excellent edited text of the auto. I find the introduction to be a missed opportunity for the exploration of the significance of this auto beyond a formal, textual analysis. Even though it is not within the scope of a critical edition, a good summary of the state of the question regarding El lirio y el azucena would have been very useful. Some secondary sources about this auto by Calderón are mentioned in passing, helping us to understand how a group of scholars has been dealing with works, such as this one, which have been considered of minor significance for a long time.

Since the event that triggers the writing of the auto is the wedding that ties together two rival European dynasties in order to consolidate a peace agreement, the central theme is peace. Roncero opens the introduction with a very informative and erudite disquisition on the theme of peace in medieval Christian texts by such authors as St. Augustine and in humanistic texts by such authors as Vives. This shows the editor's excellent knowledge of these two important figures. However, the connection between these texts and Calderón's, which must exist, is not clearly revealed. This is followed by the history of Franco-Spanish relations as described in humanistic texts from both nations, in order to reveal how the peace between the two most important Catholic nations in Europe had been for a long time a desired goal (12), but this section closes with references to St. Agustine, Vives, and St. Thomas Aquinas that seem irrelevant for understanding the text.

After a brief account of the circumstances of the first performance of the auto in Madrid during the Corpus Christi celebration of 1660, the introduction describes the play's plot. Next, Roncero discusses the sources of some of the events represented in the play and their historical and allegorical significance, thus explaining the didactic nature of this particular auto from a political vantage point. The editor concludes that El lirio y el azucena is "un perfecto ejemplo del ideario politico-ideológico de Calderón" (48). This statement makes the reader wonder whether Calderón's ideology or his patron's is being represented onstage. It is undeniable that Calderón may have very well assumed as his own Hapsburg political and religious ideology...