Calderón de la Barca at the Tercentenary: Comparative Views (review)

Reviews213 AYCOCK, WENDELL M., and SYDNEY P. CRAVENS, editors. Calderón de la Barca at the Tercentenary: Comparative Views. Lubbock, Texas: Texas Tech Press, 1982. Paper. 195 pp. This volume comprises ten papers presented by well-known comediantes at the Fourteenth Annual Comparative Literature Symposium held at Texas Tech University in January, 1981. After the editors' preface with an explanation of the conference and a succinct critique of each essay, the collection begins with Everett Hesse's paper on «A New Generation of Calderón Critics,» where he evalutates previous studies by four of the contributors to the volume, plus an article by Susan Fischer on La cisma de Inglaterra. Hesse explains Iser's reader-response methodology which she employs but bypasses altogether her analysis of Calderón's play. However, his praise for William R. Blue's semiological study «Converging Sign Systems in El médico de su honra» points to shortcomings in Fischer's approach; for Hesse recalls that «it is also valuable for the reader to realize the function of signs in the /staging of a/ play,» since performance distinguishes drama from other genres. About Thomas O'Connor's study on La vida es sueño as a contradiction of metatheater because of its moral purpose, Hesse retorts that «Calderón accepts dreaming as a fact of life» and anticipates Freud's theories on its inevitability, admonishing «that one does good even in dreams.» Hesse's psychological bent does not bias his assessment of Henry Sullivan's explication of Calderonian Christian catharsis in El medico. . . . Quite humbly, Hesse confesses, «I fail to see how Lacan's psychoanalytic system /which Sullivan propounds/ relates directly to tragedy.» This reviewer frankly does not see the point either of Sullivan's citing Lacan in the essay he contributes to the volume. After an extensive examination of the German idealist philosophers' response to Calderón's martyr dramas, Sullivan objects that classical tragedy played too great a role in their thinking. Lacan's theories, which supposedly complement their views on Calderonian Christian tragedy, offer no really new insight into the individual's necessary submission to the dictates of society. Nor does the French psychoanalyst elucidate in any way the bloody victimage in the wife-murder plays which, according to Sullivan, is obviated by «Christ's sacrifice, says Calderón /1!?/, if truly understood.» Sullivan's final conclusion that Calderón's 214BCom, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Winter 1983) tragedies postulate self-sacrifice for the prevention of anarchy obviates drawn out references to Lacan; these prove not only irrelevant but also quite distracting. If Hesse's preference for psychological criticism does not affect his objectivity towards Sullivan's work, it does spur his disagreement with Maraniss' treatment of Eco y Narciso in his book On Calderón. On the other hand, Maraniss* dismissal of the rest of the mythological works as devoid of any substance does not «licit any reaction from Hesse. Fortunately, Thomas O'Connor's essay later in the volume devotes greater attention to the myth plays. Yet he does not perceive either any social or political implications in these musical dramas which were quasi-festive rites for the dynasty's outstanding occasions. Instead O'Connor focuses on Eco y Narciso and touches on several others to illustrate «the polyvalent nature» of Calderón's theater that portrays the positive and negative effects of love. For O'Connor, the philosophical lesson on love—although not limited to Pérez de Moya's symbolism—remains the outstanding feature of the mythological plays. Of the critics reviewed by Hesse, Blue and Maraniss offer genuinely comparative views, as promised in the title of the volume. Blue compares several of Shakespeare's and Calderón's last works and finds that both playwrights follow the literary tradition of romances whose episodic structure and thematic elements closely resemble the myth of the hero. Thus Calderón's comedias novelescas do not constitute escapist fiction nor «the facile product of a bored mind.» Maraniss compares Calderón with Euripides and finds that both playwrights impose a «deus ex machina» integration for the Dionysiac destructive force impelling such protagonists as Segismundo and Phaedra. In his appraisal of Maraniss...