Calderón de la Barca: El médico de su honra (review)

196BCom, Vol. 55, No. 2 (2003) second relating to annotation), would have been preferable. Occasionally the first name of a modem author is missing in the bibliography, and the original publication dates of reprinted volumes is not indicated in a few cases. It would have been helpful to provide a list of abbreviations used in the bibliography and in the work as a whole. In summary, Comedia scholars will find the reading of the text of Arboreda's work, with helpful annotation, to be worthwhile and will be well guided by the introduction provided by the editors, despite the reservations outlined herein. Carol Bingham Kirby State University College at Buffalo Cruickshank, Don. Calderón de la Barca: El médico de su honra. Critical Guides to Spanish Texts 62. Valencia: Artes Gráficas Soler, 2003. 120 pp. Don Cmickshank's critical guide on El médico de su honra is a succinct and indispensable guide for all students of this play. In eight brief chapters and an ample bibliographical note, the author gives a global vision of this work and its reception from its inception to the year 1998. What might be missing would be an adequate translation and performance history of this play, as well as bibliographical entries in other languages besides Spanish and English. But then, the inclusion of these and other elements might have made the guide voluminous and perhaps even cumbersome to use. The sundry parts of this book deal with the Calderonian text, its sources and date ofcomposition, its early staging, its genre, its characters, its style and imagery, and its themes. A final conclusion by the author, consisting ofone and a halfpages, gives modem readers a solid (and tentative ) appraisal of this important work for the new millennium, as it were. The most impressive part of this book concerns the characters of El médico. Cruickshank demonstrates without the shadow of a doubt that Calderón is a master of psychological characterization. Throughout the twentieth century, Hispanists have meticulously analyzed the many dramatis personae of the text. King Pedro I of Castile has been seen as cmel, just, ambiguous, melancholy, unstable, and insecure. Don Gutierre Reviews197 has gone from perfect vassal and attentive husband to one who is jealous, touchy, overly suspicious, paranoid, schizoid, and dangerously melancholic . The assessment of Doña Mencia has been more stable, although she has also evolved from innocent victim and imprudent spouse to a would-be adulteress and a mentally disturbed individual. Prince Enrique of Trastámara has been judged mainly in a negative fashion, although he too has a complex personality and is not merely a blocking character. Coquin, far from being a stock character, is perhaps the most complex individual in the work, going from one extreme ("hombre de burlas") to another ("hombre de veras") . Even minor characters like Don Arias and Don Diego have been seen as unreliable, "wise," and even treacherous. Cmickshank observes that only two characters, Jacinta and Ludovico, have not received the critical attention they deserve, especially the former , who is on stage 14% ofthe time in spite ofuttering only 2.5% ofthe play's lines (73). This no doubt will be soon rectified. The question ofgenre is still being debated. Cmickshank suggests that El médico should probably be classified as a tragicomedy (35), although he notes that there is little "humor" in it (102). He also observes that in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the play was called a tragedy or a tragic play with a moral example (36). Few critics might wish to call it a tragedy in a classic sense. However, Cmickshank observes that the term drama has fared well. As such, El médico has been called a truly great drama (47). The section on themes demonstrates that El médico is a living organism that seems to defy even something as basic as its leading ideas. The theme ofjustice looms large in this work, in Cmickshank's opinion (in this he adheres to the die-hard ideas of the Parker school). But he also seems to posit that El médico may not be about honor but about the subjection of the passions (95). In this...