Viuda, casada y doncella (review)

With their scrupulously researched edition of Viuda, casada y doncella, Ronna Feit and Donald McGrady privilege us with an illuminating study of a 1591 Lope play that, despite its flaws, has exercised considerable influence in Spain and beyond. The editors examine the too often overlooked embryonic stage of Lope's career, allowing us to glimpse "cómo el Fénix …construía un edificio dramático a mediados de su período de aprendizaje" (27). Feit and McGrady divide their introduction into five parts covering Lope's sources, the play's influence, a detailed examination of the protagonists' aerial flight in Act 3, and the play's literary quality. Section five lists the play's various editions and informs the reader that an "apógrafo" at the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid was used for the current edition. The editors doubt that Lope knew of the story's first written version, found in A Thousand and One Nights from the eighth or ninth century, contending he was more familiar with Cesáreo de Heisterbach's 1223 version, which helped him select "rasgos esenciales de la historia" (11), and the romance, El conde Dirlos, based on the ballad of Hind Horn (dated 1250-1300). Here, Lope encountered elements such as the hero's failure to write his wife during his absence, his family members' betrayal, and his attempts at reconciliation.

However, Feit and McGrady proffer Boccaccio's Decameron (novella X, 9) as Lope's primary source for the shared content and structure. Both authors provide long, preparatory narrative episodes necessary to understand the principal players along with similar plot points, such as shipwrecks, the hero's capture by Moors, and his ability to garner the respect of his captors. To complete this section, the editors mention other possible sources for specific episodes (Bandello's novelle for the interrupted wedding, the Aeneid and Metamorphoses for the shipwreck, Juan de Mena's Laberinto de Fortuna for the aerial voyage), but stress the young dramatist's originality, noting that sixteen of the twenty-three scenes of the play are of his own invention.

Section two of the introduction presents evidence of Viuda's influence on such works as Calderón's El pintor de su dishonra, Corneille's Polyeucte, Lesage's Gil Blas de Santillane, and Lope's own La prudente venganza (published in La Circe some twenty-seven years after Viuda). While the editors' arguments for influence on Corneille's play rest mostly on plot similarities common to many works, they make a stronger case for the contention that changes Lope made to Viuda to create La prudente produced a fine model for one of Calderón's masterpieces. The editors argue persuasively that key details of El pintor, "el deseo de la dama de conservarse pura, la egoísta y terrible insistencia del galán en el adulterio" (25), may find their origin in La prudente.

Feit and McGrady devote sections three and four to what they see as "deficiencias de esta comedia" (36). They analyze the enigmatic aerial escape of Act 3, noting possible sources, such as the Libro de Alexandre and the Divine Comedy, while mentioning that Lope's Arcadia (1598) has a similar description of an aerial trip. Acknowledging the episode's paucity of details, the editors theorize that Lope had written, but then omitted, verses of explanation because of their "acendrada inverosimilitud" (35). Section four lists the previous episode and other plot inconsistencies as evidence that Viuda is clearly of inferior literary value when compared with Lope's first- and second-tier works. The editors speculate that having the husband arrive after his wife remarries, as happens in La prudente, could have elevated the play in the hierarchy of Lope's corpus.

The abundant "Notas" and "Notas complementarias," "aparato crítico," table of linguistic variations, appendices, and bibliography (all placed after the text) provide a virtually inexhaustible treasure trove of information on Lope's sources, style...