Approaches to Teaching Spanish Golden Age Drama (review)

Reviews227 Finalmente, quisiéramos añadir que el libro del profesor O'Connor participa en la loable tarea de revalorizar la obra de Pedro Calderón de la Barca en el mundo anglosajón. A. Valbuena-Briones University of Delaware Approaches to Teaching Spanish Golden Age Drama. Ed. Everett W. Hesse with the assistance of Catherine Larson. York, South Carolina: Spanish Literature Publications Company, 1989. Pp. xvi, 161. This collection, clearly modeled after the MLA's Approaches to Teaching Masterpieces of World Literature series, purports to be organized according to levels of instruction, with essays presenting undergraduate approaches at the beginning , and approaches more appropriate for teaching graduate students towards the end. Unfortunately, neither the articles themselves nor their organization within the collection reflect such an intent. In his preface, Everett W. Hesse underscores the real focus of this volume: "The upcoming graduate student who elects to enter the area of the comedia as well as the new instructor and researcher will need to know something about contemporary approaches to literature in general and to the comedia in particular" (viii). It is not surprising, then, that the majority of essays included present different theoretical approaches to the comedia, and three of the eight essays do not even deal in any substantive way with approaches to teaching the comedia. Oi the articles that are truly classroom-oriented, those by Matthew Stroud ("The Comedia as Playscript") and Catherine Larson ("Speech Act Theory and Linguistic Approaches to Teaching the Comedia") are particularly noteworthy. Stroud has students use Stanislavski's advice to actors and Calderón's El médico de su honra to present the comedia as a real playscript. Considering the play from the actor's point of view, the student becomes more aware of the dramatic values that often get lost when a play is read as a purely literary text. Larson's balanced and informative article suggests methods for introducing students to the terms and principles of Speech Act theory as a useful tool for understanding the comedia. Each of these two articles also contains many helpful references to readings and classroom methods. Donald Dietz, in his "Alternative Approach to the Teaching of the Come- 228BCom, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Winter 1 990) dia," begins with a sensible plea to emphasize the humanistic values in literature. His method, involving students' discussion of the comedia as a reflection of their own experiences, would be an interesting method for a freshman seminar, if not for a standard comedia course. Sharon Dahlgren ("The Semiotics of Text and Performance: Teaching El gran teatro del mundo) uses Calderón's auto sacramental as a vehicle for teaching several forms of semiotic analysis, and if she seems more concerned with critical methods than with the play, at least she is very thorough in her presentation and clear in her emphasis on classroom teaching. Denise DiPuccio, in "Deconstructing the Comedia," is also meticulous in her explication of methodology, if somewhat strained in its application to Calderón's El pintor de su deshonra. The papers by Anne Pasero ("Teaching the Comedia: A Psychological Approach ), Edward Friedman ("Poetic Discourse and Performance Text: Toward a Semiotics of the Comedia") and Susan Fischer ("Reader-Response Criticism and the Comedia: Creation of Meaning in Calderón's La cisma de Inglaterra") concentrate exclusively on theoretical approaches. The inclusion of Pasero's essay is inexplicable, particularly since it appears as the first essay — presumably presenting the most "accessible" approach. Pasero's analysis of Calderón's La estatua de Prometeo and La fiera, el rayo, y la piedra, two plays unlikely to be chosen for undergraduate study, would seem to have little applicability to undergraduate teaching. Friedman's use of semiotic analysis to suggest appropriate staging strategies for La Numancia, El Caballero de Olmedo, and La vida es sueño could hardly have been conceived as an approach to teaching. Finally, Susan Fischer's analysis of solar images in La cisma de Inglaterra presents a fairly straightforward analysis, though again without any focus on pedagogy. Of the "non-teaching" articles, this one is the best. One of the greatest problems with this volume lies in its thirty-odd pages of "Select Bibliography...