Language and Silence in El castigo sin venganza

El castigo sin venganza is a problematic play. This article suggests that the play's medium, ambiguous language, is its message; that ambiguity is intrinsic to Lope's conception of the play and that language becomes an organic metaphor for that inner ambiguity. Language is seen as helping to formulate and define experience, as an instrument with the power not only to serve man's purposes but, in the incest theme, to give substance to reality in a way that renders only silence possible. The Duke's controversial speech in Act III is interpreted, not as sophistry, but as an unconscious attempt on his part to exploit language's creative function to render the unthinkable acceptable. Language thus becomes a medium of revelation and reconciliation and the distinction between castigo and venganza becomes not a semantic or a moral distinction but a psychological one. (MM)