El encanto es la hermosura y el hechizo sin hechizo. La Segunda Celestina (review)

Reviews383 Salazar y Torres, Agustín de, Juan de Vera Tassis y Villarroel, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. El encanto es la hermosura y el hechizo sin hechizo. La Segunda Celestina. Critical Edition, Introduction, and Notes by Thomas A. O'Connor. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies 128, Binghamton, NY: SUNY Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1994. xliii + 180 pp. Illustrations. Cloth $30.00, Paper $8.95. Thomas O'Connor has prepared what well may be the very model of a modern pedagogical edition of a seventeenth-century comedia. This is no ordinary play, however. Like a stout trunk with two main flowering branches , we have here a work-in-progress sadly truncated by the death of its author (Salazar y Torres) and continued — in very different manners — by two dramatists (Vera Tassis, Sor Juana) with distinct visions of where the unfinished text should lead. The nature of this hybrid tri-authored play is set out for the reader in a brief preface: VT exploits the potential for "magia" in his continuation, demythicizing and exposing Celestina as a fake, while SJ develops the amorous intrigues, de-emphasizing the role of Celestina in her outcome. There follows a 33-page introduction which succeeds in being simultaneously thought-provoking and illuminating. O'Connor first provides a biographical itinerary for Salazar, sketching in his career in royal company both in Mexico and at the Spanish court. Then, and more interestingly, in fleshing out the complexities ofthe capay espada play, O'Connor gives a reading ofthe similarities between the restrictive social norms and behavioral expectations surrounding the figures of the Greek 'parthenos' and the Spanish 'doncella .' Such restrictions imposed on the virginal maiden are reflected, in the seventeenth century, in the underlying social, moral and political issues raised in these (should illicit love end in a happy union? should freedom of choice in her conduct be tolerated of the 'doncella' or ought patriarchal order be strictly implemented? is such behavior meant to provide a corrective, or a moral lesson, for the playgoer?). In their depiction of unconventional morality, capa y espada plays provoked many denunciations of the comedia . But in the age of Salazar (and of Calderón), the decorous handling of these matters generally and gently tilted towards the repudiation of the paternalist solution. The addition of a Celestina to the action of Salazar's plot may be appreciated for its debunking of the myth of the imagined power of this classic go-between figure; all her "magic" is merely mirrors, and VT's finale specifically sets its aim on exposing her pseudo-science as flimflammery. Thus VT maximizes Celestina's participation in his vision ofthe resulting text; SJ 384BCom, Vol. 48, No. 2 (Winter 1996) eliminates the mirror-tricks of the bawd in her continuation, effectively diminishing her importance in it. The two varied reader-responses to the Salazar text (VT and SJ) are convincing evidence ofhow no two readers interact in the same way with a text. I am forcibly reminded, both by symmetries and parallels and by the title "Segunda Celestina," ofthe Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea and the dichotomy between the intention of the first author and the more tragic reading given the events ofthis vernacular comedia humanística in the hands of Fernando de Rojas, its continuator. Both these works provide striking examples of how meaning is forged in the encounter ofauthor and (individual) reader. The text of El encanto preceded by the loa designed for the play by Salazar, extends to line 2508 (to the end of scene i of the third jornada). The first conclusion (VT's), completed for a performance before the Spanish court in late 1675 or 1676, amounts to a little more than 1,065 lines and, at just under 30% of the play, represents a substantial contribution to the whole. This hybrid version was later staged in Mexico, in 1679. Immediately following is the "conclusión anónima atribuida (emphasis added) a Sor Juana" (in his introduction, however, O'Connor does not hedge: he employs Sor Juana's name throughout); probably written shortly before 1683. A reader, byjumping from page 92 to 129, will be able to read this second...