The Prison and the Labyrinth: Studies in Calderonian Tragedy (review)

86Bulletin of the Comediantes pounds of alegoría/alegórico (174) and alimento^) (129); alma (527); auxilio(s) (95); Cristo (124), and so on. But the overall sample of Calderón's language is doubtless sufficiently wide to permit solid generalizations about his lexicon, constructions, linguistic methods, and other matters. I would here draw especial attention to Calderón's use of the major prepositions, which do not vary greatly in frequency or character within an author's oeuvre according to the context or subject-matter of a given passage. This would provide a valuable test of authorship, for example, similar to the computer-based prepositional analysis used by Edwin B. Brownrigg to vindicate the disputed attribution of the Arte de Furiar of 1652 (written in Portuguese) to P. Antonio Vieira (Diss. NYU, 1981). The drawing up of concordances to Calderón may seem to more subjectively oriented scholars a dry and unrewarding labor. Such reference-works are, however, among the basic tools of research on a great author. Thanks to the uneven history of Calderón's posthumous reception, the Spaniards' own rejection of Calderón in the nineteenth century, and the sheer immensity of the playwright's production, the Positivists of the last century failed to achieve for Calderón what they accomplished for Shakespeare, the Bible, Dante's works and so on. The Flasche Hamburg School is now remedying this lacuna. The Georg Olms publishing-house is also to be warmly commended for underwriting this ambitious project, and helping to do justice to a major world dramatist all too often ill-served by posterity. Indeed, the final rescue of Calderón's reputation as a writer by Fiasche & Hofmann and other foreignborn Hispanists working outside Spain appears less in 1981 to be a painstaking labor of restitution, than our curious, but unique gift from History. Henry W. Sullivan University of Ottawa EDWARDS, GWYNNE. The Prison and the Labyrinth: Studies in Calderonian Tragedy. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1978. Cloth. 197 pp. Professor Edwards sets out to measure Calderón's depiction of the human condition against what we may call a «modernist» view of tragedy. His study of El mayor monstruo los celos, La hija del aire Parts I and II, El médico de su honra, Los cabellos de Absalón, El pintor de su deshonra and Las tres justicias en una demonstrates that the symbols of the prison and the labyrinth are fundamental embodiments of Calderón's tragic vision. There is a lengthy introduction, dealing principally with the nature of tragedy; synopses of the plays to be studied; a chapter on minor characters; and a detailed conclusion Reviews87 that summarizes Edwards' valuable contribution to what has been a hotly debated matter. A healthy and welcomed aspect of this fine work is the effort to gear the study to the general reader and student as well as to calderonistas. Moreover, since in Edwards' opinion each of the aforementioned plays presents a unique tragic statement, he ensures their artistic integrity by studying them individually . The analyses are thorough and convincing, good examples of the benefits to be accrued from a close reading of Calderonian texts. According to Edwards, there are two contrasting views of man's existence in Calderón's secular works. In the one, reason and prudence provide the means by which man escapes from the prison-labyrinth of his existence, an existence comprised of many interrelated elements: one's nature, the actions of others, the influence of chance and accident. In the other, man is caught in the prison-labyrinth and defeated by the hostile forces arrayed against him. An example of the former viewpoint is La vida es sueño; the six plays examined in this study typify the latter. Edwards summarizes his stance as follows: «Rather the plays are labyrinths and prisons, their complex actions, their settings, the interweaving of their characters' lives the separate parts of a total image of tragic helplessness» (p. xxvii). Man, in Calderón's tragic view, is fundamentally vulnerable, vulnerable to the excesses of his passion-prone nature, vulnerable to the effects brought to bear on him by the actions of others and by fortuitous...