Emblematic Technique in the Auto Sacramental: Calderón’s No hay más fortuna que Dios

Emblematic Technique in the A u to Sacram ental: Calderon’s N o h ay m as fortuna que D ios Frederick E. Danker The autos sacramentales of Pedro Calderon de la Barca (1600-81) are little known or understood outside the circle of students of Spanish baroque literature. Yet these allegorical plays remain central to Calderon’s dramaturgy and are probably the greatest achievement of Western religious theatre left to us. One would guess that the seemingly forbidding and obscure matters of Roman Catholic theology and doctrine embodied in these plays has turned away, if not repelled, readers and playgoers, particularly outside Spain. The prevalent view that Calderon’s autos are dry as dust expositions of doctrine and not eminently stageworthy plays is mistaken in large part. Indeed, a more en­ gaged criticism of these plays from a “theatrical” point of view would provide insights into not only Renaissance and baroque theatre but also into the medieval theatre. Thus, studies of the autos need a broader critical perspective than modem students of the genre have possessed. Such pioneer­ ing books as those of Eugenio Frutos and A. A. Parker provide the cultural, theological, and allegorical background of Cal­ deron’s religious drama, but they do not offer a criticism fully in­ formed by a concern for total theatre.1 Happily, more recent re­ search and appreciation of medieval and Renaissance pageantry, tournaments, the English masque, and general iconographic traditions give us a foundation for studying the emblematic na­ ture of Calderon’s autos and their staging as well as the variety of media employed.2 Particularly seminal are Glynne Wickham’s study of the emblematic nature of English staging and the re­ search of N. D. Shergold and J. E. Varey on the staging of the 40 Frederick E. Danker 41 autos.3 Bruce Golden, too, has recently published an article directing our attention to a theatrical criticism for Calderon’s comedias: “what the audience sees on stage in sets, costumes, and properties reinforces not only the wisdom of the emblem books but the very means by which they are embodied and set forth, while the dialogue in the plays echoes the conventional maxims found in the collections of proverbs, sententiae, and handbooks of moral behavior.”4 What he notes about Calderon’s tragedies of honor applies even more fully to the art of the autos: “the author is intent upon catching the audience’s eye first, for it is through the eye that we instantaneously apprehend the idea embodied in the image or picture. . . . Calderon’s stagecraft, then, needs to be examined in terms of his exceptional ability to visualize concepts that inform the action.”^ Perhaps Dieter Mehl has gone the furthest in suggesting the emblematic nature of Renaissance drama in general. Surveying sixteenth century English secular drama, he finds dumb shows and pageantry impinging on meaning in much pre-1600 drama and that “another form of the emblematic in drama is the inser­ tion of allegorical scenes or tableaux providing a pictorial com­ mentary on the action of the play, thus creating that mutually illuminating combination of word and picture which is central to the emblematic method.”6 By avoiding the search for direct sources for these emblematic scenes or even for specific emblems, Mehl is able to suggest the wider habit of visual thinking he thinks these phenomena indicate: “. . . the relationship between drama and emblem is not simply a matter of superficial influ­ ences or straightforward imitation. It is a characteristic part of the dramatic style of the period and has to be continually bom in mind, whether we try to define the moral vision of these plays or their dramatic technique, their characters or their imagery.”7 When we add the importance of music and instrumentation to this wider perspective on drama, we are faced with a situation much like that obtaining in the reconstruction and staging of early baroque opera: little evidence for specific instruments or even fully written out scores. Nevertheless, we must try to work from those stage directions for music and suggest its importance in overall dramatic effect. Fortunately, our resources for studying pictorial traditions are rich: emblem books, illuminated manu...