BG-5

Grandes obras de la literatura universal

I've pulled my copies of Fuente Ovejuna and El caballero de Olmedo off the bookshelf and have them ready to go, but I began this brief cycle of Lope de Vega comedias with a play that's new to me, Peribáñez y el comendador de Ocaña. Lope really was amazing and entirely worthy of the "Monstruo de la naturaleza" nickname that Cervantes bestowed upon him. He wrote more than 400 comedies, made significant contributions to Siglo de Oro poetry and prose, and essentially wrote the rules for Spanish theater. One example of his lasting influence can be found in the official dictionary of the Spanish language, maintained by the Real Academia Española. If you look up "comedia," you'll find that one of the definitions is: "in classical Spanish theater, a dramatic piece whose essential traits were established by Lope de Vega." Wikipedia says that by the age of five he was reading Spanish and Latin, and by 10 he was translating Latin verse. That sort of precocity reminds me of Borges: as I recall, he was translating English texts well before he entered his teenage years. I'd like to say that both authors possessed a particular, incomprehensible genius, the type that allowed them to produce vast bodies of written work across multiple genres of great quality and enduring fame. I mean, to write more than 400 comedies of around 3,000 lines of rhymed verse each is insane, and while many of his contemporaries derided Lope for putting quantity over quality, they couldn't refute the fact that many of his plays were absolute masterpieces. They also couldn't deny that the people loved him, and that his plays sold. Lope was big on giving the people what they wanted, and as I understand it he used the fact that his plays continually drew crowds as a defense against his critics: if my plays are so mediocre, why do people always want to see them, and why am I so damn successful?

This play was written somewhere between 1604 and 1614, but the action is set in the beginning of the fifteenth century, during the reign of Enrique III. It begins with the wedding of Peribáñez (Pedro Ibáñez), a wealthy and virtuous townsperson (not of noble birth, but of pure Christian blood), and Casilda, the most beautiful girl in town. In the midst of the wedding, a bull that´s being brought to town for the festivities gets loose and manages to knock the Comendador off his horse. His title refers to his place in the religious order of Santiago, and he's essentially the feudal lord of a swath of countryside that includes Ocaña. He's brought to the house of the newlyweds and when he regains consciousness, the first thing he sees is Casilda's beautiful face. He's instantly overcome with desire, and for the rest of the play he schemes to possess her. She recognizes the crazed lust in his words and in his eyes, and Peribáñez also realizes that his honor is in grave danger. After a series of attempts to woo Casilda, first using the smooth vocabulary of courtly love, then through an attempt to force entry into her bedroom when her husband's away, the Comendador finally settles on a scheme to separate husband from wife: he names Peribáñez captain of the local contingent of soldiers that's been summoned to Toledo by the King. However, he may have sown the seeds of his eventual downfall in the moments before the troops depart: Peribáñez approaches him and asks him to knight him. When the Comendador agrees, he's essentially elevated his adversary to a level in the medieval hierarchy that would allow Peribáñez to fight back. Before, as a "villano," he couldn't have laid a hand on his feudal lord. However, now that he's been made a "caballero," he's allowed to protect his honor.

I especially enjoyed this play's complex depiction of honor in medieval Spanish society. The Comendador honors Peribáñez by giving him a series of gifts and eventually naming him captain of the town's military regiment, but by doing so he is actually dishonoring him: he's using gifts and privilege as a means for pursuing an end that would leave Peribáñez completely disgraced. In his pursuit of Casilda, the Comendador sticks closely to the courtly love blueprint, comparing her radiance to that of the rising sun and so forth; on the other hand, he also tries to bust into her chamber and rape her. Both husband and wife are aware of what's happening and what the consequences will be if the Comendador gets his way, and much of the action and excitement of the play--and exciting it is, enough that I couldn't put it down and read it in a single sitting--derives from their attempts to maintain their honor without breaking society's rules. It's really quite hard to stand up to a horny nobleman who's after your wife if you're a peasant (albeit a wealthy, virtuous one) like Peribáñez.

So Lope tells a good story, and he fills it with all sorts of wordplay and ingenious rhetorical flourishes. One thing I especially liked was the way that Peribáñez, conscious of the implications of his rise in the social hierarchy, started talking differently once he'd been knighted. Right before he goes off with the troops, he returns home to say goodbye to Casilda. She's up on the balcony, and he begins a tortuous, courteous speech full of double meanings and complex wordplay. She responds that she cannot understand a word of what he's telling her, but since he's about to depart and possibly participate in a war, she'll go ahead and give him a token of her love, since that's probably what he's there for anyway. Fun stuff. ( )

El joven comendador se enamora de la recién casada con el rico labrador Peribáñez, su vasallo. Intenta conseguirla de mil formas, cada vez más aleves, hasta que Peribáñez lo mata. El rey Enrique III confirma que los pecheros tienen honor y perdona al asesino. Como dice el prologuista, Lope sabe adular los sentimientos de su auditorio, sin cuestionar nunca el sistema sociopolítico de su época. Además, les da lo que vienen a buscar y por lo que pagan: acción y diversión. Y si para eso hay saltarse a la piola los cánones, se los salta y en paz. De ahí su originalidad, su fuerza y su éxito. Aquí alcanza una calidad pasmosa con un tema tan manido, y nos mantiene el suspense hasta el final con una maestría digna de cualquier novelista negro. Muy entretenido, muy eficaz. Genial. ( )