establece "ese abismo infinito que hay entre la logica, razon 0 sabiduria del hombre y la paradoja de la Cruz" (117). Martin insiste en el escepticismo del fuero ...
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second relating to annotation), would have been preferable. Occasionally the first name of a modem author is missing in the bibliography, and the original publication dates of reprinted volumes is not indicated in a few cases. It would have been helpful to provide a list of abbreviations used in the bibliography and in the work as a whole . In summary, Comedia scholars will find the reading of the text of Arboreda's work, with helpful annotation, to be worthwhile and will be well guided by the introduction provided by the editors, despite the reservations outlined herein.
Carol Bingham Kirby State University College at Buffalo
Cruickshank, Don. Calderon de la Barca: EI medico de su honra. Critical Guides to Spanish Texts 62. Valencia: Artes Graficas Soler, 2003. 120 pp. Don Cruickshank's critical guide on El medico de su honra is a succinct and indispensable guide for all students of this play. In eight brief chapters and an ample bibliographical note, the author gives a global vision of this work and its reception from its inception to the year 1998. What might be miss ing would be an adequate translation and performance history of this play, as well as bibliographical entries in other languages besides Spanish and English . But then, the inclusion of these and other elements might have made the guide voluminous and perhaps even cumbersome to use. The sundry parts of this book deal with the Calderonian text, its sources and date of composition, its early staging, its genre, its characters, its style and imagery, and its themes. A final conclusion by the author, consisting of one and a half pages, gives modem readers a solid (and tentative) appraisal of this important work for the new millennium, as it were. The most impressive part of this book concerns the characters of El medico. Cruickshank demonstrates without the shadow of a doubt that Calderon is a master of psychological characterization. Throughout the twentieth century, Hispanists have meticulously analyzed the many dramatis personae of the text. King Pedro I of Castile has been seen as cruel, just, ambiguous, melancholy, unstable, and insecure. Don Gutierre
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has gone from perfect vassal and attentive husband to one who is jealous, touchy, overly suspicious, paranoid, schizoid , and dangerously melancholic. The assessment of Dona Mencia has been more stable, although she has also evolved from innocent victim and imprudent spouse to a would-be adulteress and a mentally disturbed individual. Prince Enrique of Trastamara has been judged mainly in a negative fashion , although he too has a complex personality and is not merely a blocking character. Coquin, far from being a stock character, is perhaps the most complex individual in the work, going from one extreme ("hombre de burlas") to another ("hombre de veras") . Even minor characters like Don Arias and Don Diego have been seen as unreliable, "wise," and even treacherous. Cruickshank observes that only two characters, Jacinta and Ludovico, have not received the critical attention they deserve, especially the former, who is on stage 14% of the time in spite of uttering only 2.5% of the play's lines (73). This no doubt will be soon rectified. The question of genre is still being debated . Cruickshank suggests that El medico should probably be classified as a tragicomedy (35), although he notes that there is little "humor" in it (102). He also observes that in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the play was called a tragedy or a tragic play with a moral example (36) . Few critics might wish to call it a tragedy in a classic sense . However, Cruickshank observes that the term drama has fared well . As such, El medico has been called a truly great drama (47). The section on themes demonstrates that El medico is a living organism that seems to defy even something as basic as its leading ideas. The theme of justice looms large in this work, in Cruickshank's opinion (in this he adheres to the die-hard ideas of the Parker school). But he also seems to posit that El medico may not be about honor but about the subjection of the passions (95). In this respect Cruickshank might have asserted, but he does not, that El medico is, perhaps, a revenge tragedy of jealousy or, as the current critic would call it, a comedia trdgica 0 de grandes pasiones (particulares) in the Heraclitean mode (Hispanic Review 63.2 [1995]: 157-78). In this critic's estimation, the only weak or, perhaps, undeveloped part of this otherwise excellent guide would be the introduction. Don Cruickshank still sees personal honor as "largely a Mediterranean, and particularly a Spanish, phenomenon" (10). One feels that no quotations from the thirteenth-century German epic of Das Nibelungelied, or from
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telling seventeenth-century Shakespeare plays such as I Henry IV, Othello, or Richard II, not to mention English, French, and Italian neoSenecan Renaissance dramas, would convince Cruickshank that such a view is simply inadequate. The Americo Castro tradition is much to blame for this. That notwithstanding, one admires Cruickshank in the conclusion for admitting that he no longer believes that El medico condemns anything (i.e., the honor code) or anyone (e.g., Don Gutierre or King Don Pedro). If El medico de su honra deals with the ironic failure of people who are unable to rule their lives, as Cruickshank asserts most eloquently (101), then perhaps "honor" itself is not the bugbear of the play. El medico de su honra may indeed be Calderon's bleakest work, as Cruickshank suggests (102). In the absence of Divine Providence, it is also a modem and perhaps even timely play.
A. Robert Lauer University of Oklahoma Martin, Vincent. El concepto de "representacion en los autos sacramenlales de Calderon. Teatro del Siglo de Oro. Estudios de Literatura 72. Pamplona: Universidad de Navarra / Kassel: Edicion Reichenberger, 2002. 224 pp. II
Vincent Martin ha realizado un cuidadoso volumen, en el que lleva a cabo un denso escrutinio del tema que da titulo a su inquisicion. Las fiestas sacramentales, dice, presentan un dialogo teologico-filosofico entre el hombre y Dios, que concluye con el triunfo jubiloso de la fe (203). Calderon "transforma en 'representable idea' una poesia meditativa que pondera el misterio divino, haciendolo presente y visible ante los ojos del espectador" (35). Una seleccion de textos prefiguran ese tratamiento de la "representacion." Pasajes de San Clemente de Alejandria, San Agustin, Santo Tomas, Marsilio Ficino, San Ignacio de Loyola, San Juan de la Cruz, Francisco Suarez y Baltasar Gracian, entre otros, pronuncian topicos recogidos en el eclecticismo del dramaturgo. Se censura la aseveracion de Alexander Parker de que el autor de los autos sacramentales fuera "el dramaturgo de la escolastica" (Autos Sacramentales de Calderon. Barcelona: Ariel, 1983, 57), ya que consideramos a un escritor que sintetizo una variada tradicion para crear un arte original, en el que se
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compagina "agudeza, imagen y sentido dramatico" con la filosofia teologica (50). Calderon propone un metodo analogico de figuras y conceptos que aluden a la eucaristia. Esa relacion puede, debido a la gracia divina, desvelar el sentimiento de la etemidad, y el hombre, afianzado en la voluntad de la fe, oye la posibilidad de la salvacion, El poeta teatraliza este proceso para que el publico obtenga un mensaje. Exhibe las acciones de los autos como "alegoricos duelos de Culpa y Gracia" (v.g. La inmunidad del sagrado), espacios dramaticos que desarrollan la lucha existencial del hombre (67-68). Martin emplea ediciones modemas, de las que extrae especificas citas, que corroboran sus interpretaciones, y en donde mezcla 10 conocido con agiles perspectivas originales. Precisa la tendencia existencialista (41, 43), ya que el hombre se ve arrojado en el mundo , donde reina la apariencia y la decepcion, EI ser humano se esfuerza en su aqui y ahora por alcanzar un vestigio de 10 etemo, a pesar de su condicion finita y caduca. Engafiado por el personaje Mundo, afronta su fatalidad y torpeza (70). Sin embargo, la fantasia puede proyectar imageries que pasen a la formulacion de un "practice concepto" con el ejercicio de la virtud (38-39); asi puede aspirar a la redencion-i-Zo que va del hombre aDios - (72). Este descubrimiento se apoya en la historia ante el acontecer misterioso de Cristo (51). La fe "se convierte en el eje de toda la representacion sacramental" (80n71). Martin escoge el auto Psiquis y Cupido en sus dos versiones (Toledo, 1640; Madrid, 1665) en una minuciosa indagacion del arte del poeta (90-114). El capitulo "Experiencias en las sombras" establece "ese abismo infinito que hay entre la logica, razon 0 sabiduria del hombre y la paradoja de la Cruz" (117). Martin insiste en el escepticismo del fuero intemo del dramaturgo (30, 67, 115,125, "Calderon peregrina por el camino esceptico antiguo y modemo" 126). Se recoge, indirectamente, el eco de la vieja teoria de Farinelli (La vita un sogno. Torino: Fratelli Bocca, 1916), el eual asumio que la frase "la vida es suefio" infunde el esceptieismo. Esta asuncion se desembaraza del heeho de que, en la famosa pieza, Segismundo obtenga el aviso de acudir a 10 etemo, y que se convierta en un principe que venee sobre sus deseos y que ejeree la justicia. Este "obrar bien que Dios es Dios" (El gran teatro del mundo) levanta la mente hacia 10 infinito. Esta explicito en la fuente inspiradosa de Calderon-s-vque toda esta vida, si bien se mira es suefio" (Horozco y Covarrubias, Juan de. Paradojas
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