Review Reviewed Work(s): Cristóbal de Virués by John G. Weiger Review by: Richard W. Tyler Source: Hispania, Vol. 63, No. 2 (May, 1980), pp. 430-431 Published by: American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/340285 Accessed: 08-10-2019 15:43 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Hispania This content downloaded from 158.109.31.4 on Tue, 08 Oct 2019 15:43:20 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 430 Hispania 63 (May 1980) datos sobre par6dica de el two contexto hist6ric servitors, whom he must protect. But by my la reading "Carajicomedia," there is not textual evidence in the Prdlogo del Laberinto de Juan de Mena. of a demand by Vuesa Merced that Ldzaro keep Dentro de los limites de su breve introducci6n silent about the caso of dishonor; on the contrary, Dominguez toca todos los puntos claves del CancioLdzaro says openly that he is writing about his nero de burlas, y documenta adecuadamente sus fortunas, peligros y adversidades, for many readers, opiniones con la s6lida labor cientifica de varios and hopes that se huelguen con ello todos los que en criticos como, por ejemplo, E. Cotarelo y Mori, ella [esta nonada] algtin gusto hallaren. Ezio Levi, Francisca Vendrell y Rodriguez Lapa. El In addition to language, Sieber explores the theme texto del Cancionero se reproduce fielmente en esta of sexuality. The narrative, for him, "moves from edici6n, la cual esta desprovista de erratas y puede the unconscious through a stage of suppressed conservir bien como base para futuros estudios criticos sciousness to a final, total articulation of a very y ediciones anotadas. private sexual biography" (p. 55). After the second BRUNO M. DAMIANI stage, the tratado with the fraile de la Merced is The Catholic University of America seen to reveal, by "symbolic discourse," e.g., Lazarillo's first shoes, and by "refusal to communiSIEBER, HARRY. Language and Society in "La vida cate" (otras cosillas que no digo), that the friar de Lazarillo de Tormes. " Baltimore and London: was a homosexual who sodomized Lazarillo (pp. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978. xv 45-58.) + This possibility was first mooted by Marcel Bataillon and has had considerable acceptance, but 108 pp. $8.95. Whether or not readers share Sieber's theories of recently (HR, 43, 1975, 22-41) has elicited the skepti- language, they will find his study a challengingcism of G. Sobejano. Sieber's reasoning is ingenreinterpretation of the Lazarillo. A primary theme ious, but may not convince all readers. of the little novel, we read, is the "language with To conclude, this study is provocative and illumi- which it is written" (p. xl). We get successive internating, and it should not be neglected by students of pretations of how Ldzaro "learns something from picaresque literature. RAYMOND S. WILLIS, EMERITUS each [master] . . . about the nature of language" Princeton University (p. xl). When he learns well, he is successful (e.g., with the ciego), when not, he is punished (by the first priest.) WEIGER, JOHN G. Crist6bal de Virues. Boston: Language is represented as Protean. Even "non- Twayne Publishers, 1978. 166 pp. saying is a mode of saying" (p. 49.) So are gesturesJohn Weiger's credentials as an authority on the and likewise dress, being in effect a verbum visibile. Valencian playwrights need no emphasis here: the It can serve as a medium of exchange. Puzzlinglybook it under review is a companion-piece to seems to be reversible, for words can be the man, Twayne's the The Valencian Dramatists of Spain's Golden Age (Boston: 1976), and it is to be hoped squire "embodies a 'power semantic"' (p. 31); but that he will give us further studies of this important Lazaro, by writing his autobiography, "turns himbranch of the comedia. In this newer book, he is of self into a metaphor" (p. x). course able to treat Virubs in much greater detail Sieber dwells on the language of honor, oral and than in the more general study. After a "Preface," visible (e.g., the squire's sword.) In the final tratado, "Acknowledgments," and "Chronology," come by a semantic reversal, it is converted by Ldzaro, five numbered chapters: "The Life and Works of through his dishonor, into the language of comVirubs"; "The Monserrate" (a picture of Montmerce, namely profit. Sieber finds the climax of the language-experience serrat provides an attractive frontispiece); "The in the last tratado, which he sees adumbrated in the Response to Fate and Fortune"; "Marcela"; and Prologues and Epilogues." The volume closes Prdlogo by the request of "Vuesa Merced" that "The se with "Notes and References," a "Selected Biblile escriba el caso muy por extenso. Caso is interand an "Index." preted not as Ldzaro's life, but the perverse casoography," de honra in which Lazaro knowingly wears horns by As a start, Dr. Weiger establishes Virubs's connections with two more famous Golden Age marrying the mistress of the archpriest of San Salvador in exchange for an oficio real as town crierwriters. Cervantes and Virubs both fought and were wounded at Lepanto; and the Montserrate is praised ("he has literally become his voice", p. 86). This in the famous escrutinio of Don Quijote's library. arrangement, we learn, is converted by the sheer act of Lazaro's writing his own Vida into a new menage Cervantes also praised Viru6s in his Viaje del Par- naso, as did Lope de Vega in El laurel de Apolo. d trois: the archpriest, Lazaro, and Vuesa Merced, who, as the cleric's amigo and Lazaro's master at Confusion as to a Golden Age author's birthdate is not particularly unusual; but after he makes a one remove, is dragged into the marital-economic reputation, we are more likely to know when he scandal, which at all costs must be kept quiet. By died. For Virues, this is reversed: Dr. Weiger tells us writing, not speaking, Lazaro remains silent about the caso (as he forces his friends to be); Vuesa(p. 19) that "It is generally agreed that . . . Virues was born in Valencia in 1550" (though he follows Merced, who reads the report in privacy and silence, is drawn into silent involvement in the caso of his this date with a question mark in the "Chronol- This content downloaded from 158.109.31.4 on Tue, 08 Oct 2019 15:43:20 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Reviews 431 equilibrium between the pagan values anddate the cathoogy"), but that the lic system of reality of that era. Not only are SAnchez However, as Lope's lines in El laurel . . . make de Badajoz's farsas testimony of this equilibrium, clear (quoted, pp. 19-20), "there can be no question that Virues had died before 1630 ..." (also p. 19). they give us a portrait of everyday life, its socioWhatever his life span, Virues wrote the long logical-moral problems, its language and its humor. poem, El Montserrate, and five comedias, which Diez Borque aptly points out that the farsas are based on medieval miracle, mystery and morality Dr. Weiger studies with his usual thoroughness and critical acumen. While the Montserrate may seemplays. Although their technique and dramatic form situate them in the Renaissance dramaturgy of somewhat outside the mainstream for a mainly dramatic writer, its basic conflict "between virtue Spain, they differ from those of the bachiller's conand fortune" (p. 56) leads nicely into the "Fate and temporaries in that they do not contain eroticism and bucolism. Furthermore, they are distinct in that Fortune" chapter, where all the plays except La infelice Marcela are discussed. Three of them-A tila the pastor bobo becomes the pastor humanistafurioso, La cruel Casandra, and La gran Semiramis renacentista. Following the view of Dona Gustaf-are presumed to belong together, with Marcela son, Diez Borque states that the pastor as a character and Elisa Dido as exceptions. Elisa Dido, as Virues in the farsas is a preacher-commentator and an himself said, "adheres to classical principles" entertainer who presents theological content in an (p. 66), having five acts and a chorus, and observing interesting and, at times, comical manner, making it the unities (p. 24). As regards number of acts, the comprehensible and pleasing. In his farsas SAnchez de Badajoz communicates effectively his religiousothers have three each, reminding us of Lope's giving credit to Virues, in the Arte nuevo. . ., for the popular message on various levels combining three-act division; but Rey de Artieda has also been comicity with didacticism, thus making the religious nominated, and the election returns may never come doctrines appealing to his audience. Diez Borque in. Marcela, besides being the first comedia to use rightly believes that Sanchez de Badajoz's role is romance meter (p. 97; a very considerable contribu- decisive in the development of the auto sacramental, tion), lacks some of the trappings of tragedy, and is and is fundamental to the development of dramain part a pioneer honor play. (Supposedly, Atila turgy, for he combines ". . . teologia, prefigurafurioso could also be considered an exception, since ci6n y simbolismo con sAtira y elementos c6micos it is the only title not referring to a woman.) . . . para facilitar la atenci6n y comprensi6n del The reader seeking to know more about this auditorio . . ." (p. 35). "pivotal figure in the evolution of the ... comedia" Diez Borque's notes constitute the most valuable (p. 91) will not be disappointed. The translations part of this edition. He is to be commended for the into English may disturb someone who has become insightful, well researched and readable notes that accustomed to titles in Spanish; but this is inherent gloss the text. Through the farsas and the notes in the Twayne format and certainly not the fault of Diez Borque expertly analyzes the richness of the any of its authors. On the other hand, there seems to bachiller's language, with its abundant use of be a little too much quoting of others. Admittedly, refranes, colloquial terms, and sayagues. In the people like Rinaldo Froldi, Alfredo Hermenegildo, notes he studies assimilations, metathesis, fusions, Melveena McKendrick, Cecilia Sargent, et al., are aphaereris, latinisisms and the Extremeflan dialect excellent authorities; but so is John Weiger, and the which at times coincides with sayagues. The most reviewer, who greatly admires him, would have liked characteristic and extensive linguistic pecularities are to see more of his own judgments. Probably no one explained in detail making the text comprehensible knows more about the Valencians, and an ampler and richer to the reader, giving an insight into the display of this would have made a good book even sumptuous cultural and linguistic ambience of the better. Spanish Renaissance. With these well written notes, RICHARD W. TYLER Diez Borque shows that he is not only knowledgeThe University of Nebraska-Lincoln able in theater, but in language and linguistics as well. I recommend this book heartily to advanced SANCHEZ DE BADAJOZ, DIEGO. Farsas. Edited by students and teachers of Golden Age literature and Jose Maria Diez Borque. Madrid: Citedra, 1978. culture. 313 pp. In this annotated edition of Farsas by the bachiller Sanchez de Badajoz, Professor Diez Borque offers the reader an interesting introduction, very helpful notes, and a readable text of Farsa theologal, Farsa de la Natividad, Farsa de Salom6n, Farsa del colmenero, Farsa militar. Although not much is known about the life of SAnchez de Badajoz, the introduction, which draws heavily from L6pez Prudencio, V. Barrantes, and Frida Weber de Kurlat, portrays the bachiller as an interesting writer of the Spanish Renaissance who combined and maintained a fragile of ROBERT L. FIORE Michigan State University WOOLDRIDGE, JOHN B., editor. A Study and Critical Edition of Lope de Vega's "El amor enamorado. " Madrid: Studia Humanitatis, 1978. xii + 230 pp. The mythological plays of Lope de Vega are not well known and Golden Age drama criticism has barely touched upon their importance or relation- ship to the rest of his dramatic work. This lack of interest and general dearth of scholarship can be This content downloaded from 158.109.31.4 on Tue, 08 Oct 2019 15:43:20 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
