Valle-Inclán's The Dragon's Head: Symbolist Fairy Tale and Satyr Play

Valle-Inclan's The Dragon's Head: Symbolist Fairy Tale and Satyr Play DAYID NICHOLSON In his essay, "On Fairy-Stories," Tolkien defines the genre as one that creates believable imaginary worlds that have a quality of enchantment, what he calls "arresting strangeness."1 This special quality is evoked in fairy tales by their. marvelous objects, creatures, and events: magic is the basic defining characteristic ofthe fairy world. To this definition Tolkien adds the proviso that "ifthere is any satire present in the tale, one thing must not be made fun of, the magic itself.,,2 With this proviso the foremost theorist ofthe fairy tale raises an objection to a considerable body of fairy drama that uses magical elements as the focus of satire and social criticism. Such plays were written in great numbers for the popular stage all over Europe during the nineteenth century. For an example we can tum to any ofthe fairy extravaganzas ofJ. R. Planche, who adapted stories from Perrault and Mme. D'Aulnoy with a strong sense of self-consciousness that often turned to burlesque and parody. In his Riquet with the Tuft (1836), for example, Mother Bunch, the fairy godmother, is treated rather like the hero's old nanny. He calls her "godmama," and when she disappears after bestowing upon him a magic cloak, he comments to the audience with a winkand a smile, "Gone! excellent little woman - it would be a glorious thing for the world ifall godmothers would take their pattern by you - never come till they're calledthen give us a handsome present and vanish."3 Planche satirizes the myths and tales he adapts by treating their heroic, romantic, marvelous, and serious elements in terms of the ordinary, domestic, and trivial everyday world, thus creating an amusing incongruity between the responses suggested by the fairy tale, whose conventions he invokes, and the whimsical interpretation with which we are actually presented. Punning and clever topical comments are his most important means ofparody. Such treatment makes the tales too familiar to strike us with wonder, and thus illustrates Tolkien's reasons for objecting to a satirical treatment of fairy-tale magic. Valle-Inchm's The Dragon's Head In a sense Planche's trivializing was all too successful: his plays now seem too facile and light for anything other than historical interest.4 Ramon del Valle-Inchin's The Dragon's Head (1909), a satire of the symbolist fairy drama,5 raises the same theoretical issues in a more substantial play. Though not intended for the popular stage, The Dragon's Head self-consciously uses methods of burlesque and thus, in Tolkien's view, disqualifies itself asa true fairy tale. In examining the play, let us consider to what extent the audience can respond to the playas a parody of its genre and at the same time appreciate its qualities of fairy-tale enchantment. The play's folkloric credentials are impeccable: it is based primarily on the tale of the Dragon Slayer (Type 300), a story of French origin, collected in many versions, that has been placed among the oldest tales of the European tradition.6 A reconstruction ofthe hypothetical original tale orUr-type includes the following elements. After the death ofhis parents a boy inherits three sheep, which he exchanges for three magical dogs. Leaving home with his animals, he meets an old man or woman who gives him a magic sword or stick. He travels farther and finally arrives at a town draped all in black, where he learns that the princess is to be sacrificed the next day to a fierce seven-headed dragon. Whoever can kill the dragon and rescue the princess will gain her hand and half the kingdom. The hero arrives at the place of sacrifice, kills the beast with his magic weapon, and removes the seven tongues. But rather than marrying right away, he and the princess make plans to meet after a certain time, and the hero proceeds on his travels. In the meantime a false hero, a servant who has observed this episode, threatens the princess with death if she does not acknowledge him as her rescuer. Taking the dragon's heads as proof...