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some influence -upon Lope at this time made him more conscious of the problem of the will and the fatalistic implications of predestination in the plays· The contradictions in Lope's practice and, attitudes -(between fatalism and free will, for example, or between Fortune as a servant of God'ánd Fortune as an irrational independent co- or counter-divinity) can be partly explained by the tendency 'in the comedia, as in other literature of the period, to view life successively from different perspectives. If one takes a long-range view, life is a marvelous unity of Heaven-directed order and reason, an idea often expressed by Lope's characters; in such a universe Fortune and Fate can be identified with Cod's purposes. If, on the other hand, one views life, as Lope's characters also do at times, from the blindness and isolation of the moment and the individual , it appears confused and unstable, and men seem irrational, depraved, and remote from God; Fortune and Fate then lose their divine attributes and are identified with man's corrupt nature and the undependability of life on earth, as targets for men's invectives and pessimism. The terms "determinism" .and "predestination" are used here. with no specific scientific or theological connotation, but only in the general sense of a predetermination of the events of a lifetime. 2 I am indebted to Professor Otis H. Green for a concept which helps to explain the acceptance of. such devices, the orinciple of fingimientos de poetas, which permitted the poet the license of imagining unorthodox situations and details with which to embellish his writings, not to be taken seriously by his readers. A NOTE ON CALDERÓN 'S EL ASTRÒLOGO FINGIDO by, Max Oppenheimer, Jr., Washington University, St, Louis 5, Mo, According to H. W. Hilborn (A Chronology of the Plays of D. Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Toronto, 1938, pp. 6-7 and 9-11), the versification of El Astrólogo fingido and internal evidence (the mention of an intended departure for Flanders by one of the characters is reminiscent of Calderón 's own plans to depart for the wars in the north during the period 1623-25) point to the probability that the date for this comedia is about 162U-25. Professor Hilborn used the Hartzenbusch text of this comedia (BAE, VII, 573-593) to analyze its versification. His findings are listed in the table below. Hartzenbusch established the BAE text of El astrólogo fingido mainly by combining the text of the comedia as it appears in Parte XXV de diferentes autores, Zaragoça, 1632, with the one printed in Calderón's Segunda Parte, Madrid, 16UI, thus supplying lines missing in the I632 text from the 16Ul text, and vice-versa. (See my edition of the comedia, an unpublished thesis, Univ. of South. Calif., L.A., 19U7, p. 27. I am now revising this edition for eventual publication.) the I6UI text is identical, except for a few minor emendations, with that appearing in the 1637 edition of the Segunda Parte (See HR, 19U8, XVT, 336), and we know that the difference between this latter text and the 1632 version is enormous. There are U99 verses in the 1632 text, and 206 verses in the 1637 text that are absent from the 16"3.2 text. Despite these striking discrepancies, an analysis of the versification of each of these two texts of El astrólogo fingi.do shows essentially the same. composition as that found by Hilborn in the Hartzenbusch edition, throwing no new light on the matter. Edition Red. Quint. Rom. 'Dec. SiIv. Misc. Total lines BAE 38; U UO 7 6 5 I632 39 6 UO U 6 5 316I I637 39 3 Ul 5.5 6 5.5 2869 However, one small item of internal evidence may, without furnishing conclusive proof, further, tend to show that the comedia was probably composed in the neighborhood of I623. At the beginning of the nlay"(BAE, VII, 573a;), the ,costume of a cavalier, apparently dressed in the latest fashion, ("Llevaba un.vestido airoso/ Sin guarnición ni bordado;/ Que con lo bien sazonado,/ No hizo falta lo costoso...

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