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The Baroque Impasse in the Calderonian Drama
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
One of the main characteristics of the Renaissance was its break with the attitude towards life of mediaeval society. The new Hellenistic, classical, humanistic spirit taught the Renaissance man that, far from being a groveling worm, he was a glorious creature capable of infinite individual development in a world which was his to interrogate, explore, and enjoy. The Renaissance exalted the human element, stressed the importance of human interests, and asserted the dignity of man—a trend which may be noted in most authors of the period. Rabelais portrays his heroes as giants, to whom nothing seems impossible, and places no limitations on their actions. Shakespeare writes: “What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel, in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!” Viewed from the standpoint of a social behaviorist, the Renaissance teaches mediaeval man, whose interests as an individual were completely subordinated to his function as an element in a feudalistic social unit, that it is possible and right for him to assert and realize self. Social conformity is no longer the only possible relation between man and the world about him. Therefore, the Renaissance man, more energetic and enthusiastic than his mediasval forefather, takes pleasure in a certain spirit of opposition to supposed human and known social limitations; he glories in nonconformity, he rejoices in isolation and in standing up against society and in consciously not doing that which he knows the society he lives in expects him to do. “To brave the disapproval of men is tonic. … Conflict is a necessity of the active soul.” In Spain, as elsewhere, the Renaissance exerted the same influence and a like need for self-expression was felt. Let us then examine the state of mind of Calderonian characters, who, living in the seventeenth century, should by then be well imbued with Renaissance thought, in an effort to determine the fundamental psychological needs underlying their urge towards self-realization.
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References
1 The use of the term “behavioristic” is based on the fact, now accepted by all social psychologists, that mental phenomena may be accounted for and dealt with in behavioristic terms: “The content put into the mind is only a development and product of social interaction”—George H. Mead, Mind, Self & Society (Chicago, 1946), p. 191.
2 “Fay ce que vouldras”, Gargantua, i, 57.
8 Charles Horton Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order (New York, 1922), p. 298. See also pp. 299-300 and 304 on the subject of self-realization.
4 “Pero la tendencia individualista, que amanece desde el siglo xiv en Italia y poco a poco se propaga por toda Europa, va a hacer del hombre natural—que antes era como un diminuto agregado dentro de una corporatión espiritual y política—un centro de interés. … Y el hombre va imponiéndose a todo”—Alfonso Reyes, “Un tema de ‘La Vida es Sueño,‘” RFE, iv (1917), 265, 267.
5 This refers to the numerous religious rules, nonobservance of which endangered one's soul, and especially to the hairsplitting provisions of the Honor Code which men and women alike had to observe, the former under penalty of losing caste, the latter lest they jeopardize their lives; for if a woman deprived her family of honor, either her husband, brother, or father would have to kill her unflinchingly to regain it.
6 The text used in this study is Teairo Seleclo de Calderón de la Barca, ed. D. Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo, Biblioteca Clásica, Vols, xxxvi-xxxix (Madrid, 1898-1904). The six cotnedias, which are believed to constitute a fair sampling from the Calderonian drama and from which quotations were obtained, together with the abbreviations used to refer to them, are: La Vida es Sueño (VS); La Devotión de la Cruz {DC); El Mágico Prodigioso (MP); El Médico de su Honra (MH); El Alcalde de Zalamea (AZ); Casa con dos Puertas mala es de guardar (CP). Any italics appearing in the quotations from Calderón are mine.
7 See also MP i. ii. 11-12, iii. ii. 33; CP i. viii. 21-22.
8 The opposing social forces just described are probably very much akin to Matthew Arnold's more universal concepts of Hebraic strictness of conscience and Hellenistic spontaneity of consciousness, as set forth in the fourth chapter of his Culture and Anarchy. The similarity between these ser and estar states of Calderonian characters and the tenets of Existentialism is also obvious.
9 See also MH i. v. 5-8 ff.
10 A concept prevalent in Spain at that time; Francisco Suárez, whose teachings indirectly influenced Calderón, was one of its principal exponents. See James Brown Scott, The Spanish Conception of International Law and of Sanctions, Pamphlet Series of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Division of International Law, No. 54 (Washington, 1934), pp. 57-58. One of the most artistic expressions of this need for an ideal equitable justice, which, contrary to what happens in life, would reward the virtuous and punish the evil, may be found in Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola's Soneto: A la Providencia. This sonnet also implies the same general attitude towards life we have been describing: “Dime, Padre común, pues ères justo: / por qué ha de permitir tu providencia / que, arrastrando prisiones la inocencia, / suba la fraude a tribunal augusto? / Quién da fuerzas al brazo que, robusto, / hace a tus leyes firme resistencia, / y que el celo que mâs la reverencia / gima a los pies del vencedor injusto? / Vemos que vibran vitoriosas palmas / manos inic[u]as, la virtud gimiendo / del triunfo en el injusto regocijo … / Esto decía yo, cuando riendo, / celestial ninfa apareció y me dijo: / ”!Ciego! es la tierra el centro de las almas?“—M. Romera-Navarro, Antologia de la Literatura Española (Boston, 1933), p. 241.
11 “The fact that Jesuitism placed free will at the summit… had the result that its doctrines harmonized with contemporary strivings after freedom”—René Fülöp-Miller, The Power and Secret of the Jesuits, tr. F. S. Flint and D. F. Tait (Garden City, New York, 1930), p. 87. For an excellent summary of the problem of free will, liberty of choice, divine grace, etc., see ibid., Part iiipp. 85 ff.
12 Also MP iii. ii. 2; VS i. ii. 74. The Catholic doctrine of free will precludes, ipso facto, determinism and fatalism: Astra inclinant, non nécessitant. E.g., VS i. vi. 208-212; ii. i. 125-126; ii. iii. 62-64; MP iii. ii. 55-60. This of course brings up, without solving, the problem arising from the shock of two albedrios. This occurs when the albedrio of one individual has initiated a drive towards self-realization which involves the forcing of another person's albedrío. The drive becomes blocked, unless the second person can be persuaded or tempted to change his will, e.g., MP iii. ii. 55-60.
13 Also MP ii. vii. 189-191, ii. xix. 20-22; MH i. x. 4.
14 Also VS ii. iii. 75-76, ii. xviii. 25-27; DC ii. x. 5-8 and 26-28; MP ii. vu. 111-114; MH i. xvii. 73-74.
15 “No individual has a mind which operates simply in itself, in isolation from the social life-process in which it has arisen or out of which it has emerged, and in which the pattern of organized social behavior has consequently been basically impressed upon it”—Mead, op. cit. (n. 1), p. 222.
16 Also VS ii. x. 17-18.
17 In VS iii. ix. 11-16 Segismundo expresses the same thought in the form of a mathematical proportion: “Aqueste aplauso incierto, / Si ha de pesarme cuando esté despierto, / De haberlo conseguido / Para haberlo perdido; / Pues miéntras ménos fuere, / Ménos se sentira si se perdiere.”
18 For a delightful passage listing the obstacles one encounters when trying to realize self in matters of love, see CP i. iv. 201-209.
18 Examples of this skepticism abound: VS i. i. 50-54, i. iv. 58-60, ii. i. 163-164, ii. xix. 7, and rest of Segismundo's monologue; iii. x. 229-292; MP ii. vi. 9-12, ii. xi. 20-22, ii. xii. 11-12. At times, however, duda, etc., do not refer to this problem of human insecurity, but only to that of literary verisimilitude: e.g., VS ii. i. 20-36. On realidad oscilante and this problem in general, see A. Castro, El Pensamienlo de Cervantes (Madrid, 1925), pp. 79-88.
20 Also MP ii. vii. 160-161.
21 Also DC ii. xiv. 56-57.
22 See MP i. iii, which contains an entire dialectical debate; ii. xix. 104-108. In matters of love the characters even refer to the loved one as a cause, something which can be reasoned with mechanically (MP ii. vii. 234-235), and try to solve their love problems by reasoning: CP i. i. 11-30 and 50-60; i. vii. 7-12; ii. x. 57-68 and 121-150; ii, entire sc. xiv.
23 See also MP ii. ii. 30-39, where Cipriano tries to reason Justina into loving him and almost immediately admits that his dialectics failed (ii. iv. 12-13 and 19-21).
24 Also “Mienten, mienten las leyes” (DC ii. viii. 91-92).
25 The latter, previously referred to in this study as equity, is more of an ideal than a reality in the zone of conformity, where we have found it to be usually lacking: see above, n. 10.
26 See also on this point my article, “The ourla in Calderon's El Astrôlogo fingido”, PQ, xxvii (1948), 261.
27 Also: No me despiertes, si duermo, Y si es verdad, no me aduermas“ (VS iii. iv).
28 See Fülöp-Miller, pp. 142-143, 146. “Thomas Aquinas evolved a complete system out of the principle that no action as such had any moral content, except in so far as it sprang from an act of the free will. But in due course temporal jurisprudence as well fell more and more under the domination of the principle that not the deed, but the intention of the doer, should form the basis of adjudication” (p. 143).
29 See especially 49-51: justina Mi defensa en Dios consiste.
demonio Venciste, mujer, venciste Con no dejarte veneer.
30 See VS ii. i. 75-80, ii. i. 157, ii. xiii. 10-13. This constant need for formal consolation may have its literary source in Boethius or Seneca.
31 “Inferiority complexes arise from those wants of a self which we should like to carry out but which we cannot … ”—(Mead, p. 204).
32 See also MP i. iii. 133-136.
33 Despecho and frenesí are the terms applied to Cipriano, when, obviously in the ser zone, he offers his soul to the devil: MP ii. vi. 17-24, ii. xix. 97-98. Lelio, who is referred to as “este amante tan despechado y tan ciego” (MP ii. xi), is also, according to his mental state, in the ser zone: “a mis celos sujeto, / No lo he de estar á tu honor” (MP ii. x).
81 Stephen Gilman, “An Introduction to the Ideology of the Baroque in Spain”, Symposium, i (1946), 95-97.
88 See also VS ii. xix. 1-3, iii. v. 29-30, iii. xiii. 46-48. The fate of Don Quijote and that of Calderón's Astrólogo fingido (see p. 263 of my article cited in note 25 above) follow the same pattern.
86 In a few extreme cases, the “caîdo en la cuenta” is again, through circumstances, provoked to initiate a new drive into the ser zone. For instance Julia, in La Devoción de la Cruz, has resigned herself to forgetting her love for Eusebio. She is in the estar zone and has even entered a convent; Eusebio breaks into the convent, causing Julia to yearn again for the realization of her love (ii. xiv. 15-20). It is curious to note that Julia justifies her second escape from the estar zone by means of the following reasoning: her first attempt at self-realization was motivated by evil intent; thus, even though she failed to achieve her goal, she is considered guilty from the casuistic viewpoint. Since sin and the intent to commit it carry the same penalty, Julia reasons that she might as well consummate her love; besides, if God allowed her to leave the estar zone, he is partly responsible (n. xiv. 54-61). Her conscience and scruples, as we have previously observed (see above p. 1151), still link her to the estar zone. But, when the ladder, by means of which she escaped from the convent, disappears, Julia feels hopelessly cut off from the estar zone (ii. xv. 14-25). By allowing the ladder to be removed, God, according to Julia's logic, has sanctioned her nonconformist attitude. This is an extreme case, and theoretically she should achieve complete self-realization. But, the link between the character and the estar zone is never really broken, and Julia avails herself of the first opportunity to return to the zone of religious and social conformity (iii. xvii. 39-42).
37 Also VS ii. xiii, 68-69, iii. iii. 91-120, iii. xiii. 63; MP iii. xvi. 171-172. The last line of the sonnet quoted above in note 10 drives home the same lesson. “The omnipotency of the God of the Catholic Church was to compensate for that relativity of truth so clearly perceptible to Renaissance man.... It was a satisfying world in that it was not problematical. … The security of the divine had at last erased the insecurity of the human. … In its own way it was a pragmatic age”—Gilman, pp. 84, 85, and 93.
38 Also VS ii. xvii. 2-4.
39 Reyes, p. 275.
40 “… a feeling of limitation upon self with its consequent hatred and frustration” (Gilman, p. 95).
41 “The world insofar as it is one term of an everpresent duality remains for the ascetic …” (ibid., p. 94); “… scruple being the catchword of baroque literature everywhere” (Helmut Hatzfeld, “A Clarification of the Baroque Problem in the Romance Literatures”, CL, ii [1949], 122).
42 “ … emancipation from the earth” (Hatzfeld, p. 113).
43 “ … the pervading and tragic duality of the Baroque … that of the world as it is vitally perceived against the world as it is logically conceived” (Gilman, p. 88).
44 “ … rectilinear dignity [gave way] to frenzied nervous curves” (Gilman, p. 98). “He saw a world of confusion, rapidity, and death, but he believed in one regulated and organized by absolute standards, by hierarchy and by category” (ibid., p. 99). “… the same dynamic forms, as expression of a boundless restlessness, develop in opposition to the static forms of the self-sufficient Renaissance” (Hatzfeld, p. 114).
45 See above nn. 34 and 37.
46 “ … the unstable baroque balance between virtue and weakness, where virtue seems the norm and sin the exception” (Hatzfeld, p. 137).
47 “The great baroque works being based on the musical principle of a motivistic and symphonic structure …” (Hatzfeld, p. 129).
48 Hisp. Rev., xv (1947), 395 n. 3.
49 Hatzfeld, pp. 132-133; Gilman, pp. 94 and 106.
50 For other examples, see VS ii. xi. 23-26, iii, iv. 35-36; MH i. v. 34; DC i. xi. 93-96. For further examples see my article on “The burla in Calderôn's El Astrologo fingido”, pp. 256-262.
51 “Every bold experiment in language finds a solvent and a specific in deeds and passions which approach frenzy”—Longinus on the Sublime, tr. A. O. Prickard (Oxford, 1906), p. 70. See also Hatzfeld, pp. 115-116.
52 The Weltanschauung of characters like Moscôn and Clarin, who are both solidly established in the estar zone, is well expressed by the lines: “Yo me doy por satisfecho, / Porque no lo ha de apurar / Todo el hombre …” (MP iii. xxvi).
53 One oxymoron, “esqueleto vivo” (v. 3), occurs in Clarin's speech, but it refers back to Cipriano.
54 “ … l'héroīque, le précieux, le burlesque sont trois états du méme goút, trois styles du même art; que l'héroïque et le burlesque sont encore du précieux, et que pour nous en tenir á notre sujet, le burlesque n'est autre chose que la forme plaisante du précieux … on fait du comique, par les mémes moyens qui servent á faire du délicat et du pompeux”—Gustave Lanson, “Etudes sur les rapports de la littérature française et de la littérature espagnole au xvire siècle (1600-1660)”, Revue d'Histoire Littéraire de la France, m (1896), 331. E. H. Templin mentions in passing the existence of this problem; see “The burla in the plays of Tirso de Molina”, Hisp. Rev., viii (1940), 185, esp. n. 5.
55 Hatzfeld, pp. 120-121.
56 Ibid., p. 153. See also Hatzfeld, A Critical Survey of the Recent Baroque Theories, Del Boletín del Institute Caro y Cuervo, iv, iii (Bogotá, 1948), 15.
57 See “grande soberbia” (MP ii. vii. 111).
58 See “Loco anduve; pero fuera, / Arrepentido, mâs loco” (ibid., vv. 117-118).
59 See, on this point, Cooley, p. 301.
60 Many of the psychological and stylistic characteristics labelled here and elsewhere as Baroque are, when individually considered, human and, although not necessarily universal, are present during other periods besides the one classified as Baroque. The writer is, therefore, aware that some readers might deem this final statement more adequately expressed in the form of a question: “Is this Baroque?” The last word, if ever, will not be said, until a quantitative and frequency analysis is made of these characteristics throughout the period. The findings might well show that there is not just one Baroque, but several literary “Baroques” which flare up during various periods when the necessary psychological and social background is present.