91
In 1915, Armando Cotarelo y Valledor mentioned novelistic influences in the drama of Cervantes (El teatro de Cervantes [Madrid: Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos, 1915] 47-49), but did not define them precisely. Américo Castro described Cervantes' drama as «inferior» and excessively ironic (El pensamiento de Cervantes [Madrid: Hernando, 1925] 50-55), but likewise failed to be more specific. While recent scholarly studies of individual entremeses (by Patricia Kenworthy, Bruce Wardropper, Stainslav Zimic, and others) have focused on thematic constructs, exemplarity, and characterization, the approach of Nicholas Spadaccini comes closest to defining the plays' novelistic complexities. Spadaccini, however, writes of their reception as reading texts, and does not analyze the plays in terms of their theatricality. See his «Writing for Reading: Cervantes's Aesthetics of Reception in the Entremeses», Critical Essays on Cervantes, ed. R. El Saffar (Boston: Hall, 1986) 162-175. (N. from the A.)
92
Don W. Cruickshank attributes some inaccuracies in printed Golden Age dramatic texts to the lack of financial incentive. See «The Editing of Spanish Golden-Age Plays from Early Printed Versions», Editing the Comedia, ed. F. P. Casa and M. D. McGaha (Ann Arbor: Michigan Romance Studies, 1985) 54. (N. from the A.)
93
Cervantes, Entremeses, ed. N. Spadaccini (Madrid: Cátedra, 1985) 93-94. (N. from the A.)
94
Cervantes, Poesías completas, I: Viaje al Parnaso y Adjunta al Parnaso, ed. V. Gaos (Madrid: Castalia, 1973) 183. (N. from the A.)
95
Cervantes does not say
«las
escribí...»
but rather
«yo pienso darlas a la
estampa para que se vea de espacio lo que pasa apriesa...»
The frequently-cited passage from the «Adjunta al
Parnaso» thus explains why Cervantes sought to print his unperformed
plays, but not why he originally wrote them. Indeed, nowhere in his extant
writings does Cervantes suggest that his plays were conceived and composed for
any purpose other than theatrical production. (N. from the A.)
96
Keir Elam, The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama (London: Methuen, 1980) 208-09. (N. from the A.)
97
Alexander Parker defined the formulaic structure of the comedia nueva in terms of the relationship between character, plot, and theme. See The Approach to the Spanish Drama of the Golden Age, Diamante, 6 (London: Hispanic Council, 1957). (N. from the A.)
98
Some scholars (among them Castro [49-55]) and editors of anthologies (Linton Lomas Barrett, Five Centuries of Spanish Literature [New York: Harper and Row, 1962] 199) have repeatedly dismissed Cervantes' drama as «classical» and therefore subject to failure in a market dominated by Lope's innovative comedia. Cervantes did indeed write plays which were relatively classical in nature (i.e. La Numancia) during his early period of dramatic composition, prior to Lope's success as a dramatist. Cervantes later abandoned his neo-Aristotelian style and actually adopted that of the comedia nueva. His comedias and entremeses pertain to this second period of dramaturgy. (N. from the A.)
99
See Chapters 47-48 (Canon of Toledo episodes) in Part One of the Quijote. (N. from the A.)
100
Such attitudes (see
note #98) have persisted.
As recently as 1969, for example, Edwin Honig described Cervantes as
«always on the outside of literary society and lagging
behind its fashions»
in his «On the Interludes of Cervantes»,
Cervantes: A Collection of Critical
Essays, ed. Lowry Nelson Jr. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1969)
153. Current scholarship in the field is breaking away from this mold. See
Patricia Kenworthy, «La ilusión dramática en los entremeses
de Cervantes»,
Cervantes: su obra y su mundo, ed. M.
Criado de Val (Madrid: 1981) 235-38; Bruce Wardropper, «Cervantes' Theory
of the Drama»,
Modern Philology 52.4 (1955): 217-251;
Jean Canavaggio,
Cervantes Dramaturge: un théâter
à naître (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1977), and
Spadaccini. (N. from the A.)