Alonso de Castillo Solórzano (review)

82Bulletin ofthe Comediantes and country have indeed lost some essential quality in Calderón's play, and his depiction of this loss, though «conservatively» motivated, is nonetheless esthetically satisfying to those who comprehend its ironic nature. There is another disturbing feature of this book which must be mentioned . Lope and Calderón are compared several times, oftentimes with the latter coming out the poorer. The pernicious effect of Menéndez y Pelayo's polemical and prejudiced views is reflected therein, with distortions and misconceptions characteristic of the nineteenth century. Maraniss' pronounced preference for Lope's naturalness and vitality only confuses the merits and achievements of Calderón, and these facile comparisons tend to polarize the two great artists instead of clarifying the distinct values and issues implicit in their art. For example, the author finds a duality in the theater of Calderón which arises from the conflict between rash impulse and the controlling reaction . And he sees Lope's work as portraying dramas of love. But El castigo sin venganza, which embodies this duality, would then be typically Calderonian. The Calderón of On Calderón is ideologically distorted, and in consequence his art is twisted and bent in the process. Ideology is an important factor in the study of the comedia, but a personal distaste for Calderón's must never be allowed to color our appreciation of his art and its accomplishments. Thomas Austin O'Connor Texas A&M University SOONS, ALAN. Alonso de Castillo Solórzano. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978. Cloth. 143 pp. $11.50. Alan Soons has undertaken to give us a sympathetic reading of the works of Castillo Solórzano, and although he largely succeeds, he does not hide his distate for the triviality and intolerance which mark much of Castillo's work. The interest of a writer such as Castillo is primarily historical, not in the sense that his works offer us a realistic picture of his times, but rather that they typify the attitudes, tastes and «psychic tensions» (p. 117) of his reading public. Even if our concern is primarily literary, Castillo's opus should be evaluated in regard to the conventions of the chosen genre, rather than in terms of literary decadence. This approach of Professor Soons is sensible; too often we tend to dismiss as epigones all those writers who have the misfortune to be read in the shadow of Cervantes. Professor Soons is reluctant to call such fictions as La niña de los embustes , Teresa de Manzanares and Aventuras del Bachiller Trapaza «picaresque ,» but it is worth noting that the protagonist's obsession with social ambition is one of the major concerns of the picaresque genre. He points out, quite correctly, that Castillo's perspective is not that of the moralist, but rather that of an intolerant insider. In Castillo's scheme of poetic justice, Teresa and Trapaza are impertinent upstarts who can swindle ludicrous eccentrics with impunity, but who are never allowed to triumph over the gente principal. Reviews83 Of particular interest to comediantes are the chapters on Castillo's interludes and longer dramatic works. Again, Professor Soons urges us to read individual works against the generic conventions. He offers this especially useful observation on the nature of the interlude-as-farce: «This dramatic presentation does not imply the latent order beneath the confusions of the moment onstage as comedy does, but seems rather to be an intimation to the spectator of the basic instinctual anarchy which could be found if one were to search beneath the cruel imposition of society's conventions (p. 22). Given Castillo's mastery of the «rhetoric of persiflage» (p. 26) and his predilection for the humorous type (in the medieval sense), it is not surprising that his figurón comedies, El marqués del Cigarral and El mayorazgo figura, are his best. Beyond plot summaries, Professor Soons has very little to say about Castillo's plays in the romance mode (La torre de Florisbella, Lafantasma de Valencia) or the «historical» La victoria de Norlingen. One misses a more extensive application of his method; a discussion of the precise deficiencies of Castillo's dramatic technique would have been useful. The novellas of romance and...