Calderón más allá de España: Traslados y transferencias culturales ed. by Hanno Ehrlicher and Christian Grünnagel

Abstract

Reviewed by: Calderón más allá de España: Traslados y transferencias culturales ed. by Hanno Ehrlicher and Christian Grünnagel Philip Allen Ehrlicher, Hanno and Christian Grünnagel, eds.. Calderón más allá de España: Traslados y transferencias culturales. Reichenberger, 2020. 474 pp. ISBN: 978-3-967280-09-8. The articles that have been compiled in the present collection come to us as the result of the eighteenth Coloquio Anglogermano sobre Calderón celebrated in 2017 in the northern Italian cities of Vercelli and Turin. Following a tradition of academic gatherings that dates back over half a century, an international team of 22 Calderón scholars has joined forces to provide us with this intriguing volume on the Spanish playwright's works across a wide array of literary and cultural traditions and time [End Page 164] periods. Calderón más allá de España considers the textual transmission, performance history, recreations, adaptations, and enduring philosophical and literary influences of Pedro Calderón de la Barca's bibliography beyond Spanish territory, examining its presence in countries like Austria, Germany, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. In addition to transcending these political and linguistic boundaries, this compilation also offers a comprehensive overview of the titular author's presence in a variety of media and literary movements spanning the centuries since his death in 1681. Following a brief prologue from the collection's editors that delves into the origins of the colloquium and provides a brief explanation of the selection of topics included, we begin our journey back in the seventeenth century when Calderon's works first left Spanish shores and landed in Italy, where they were performed, rewritten, reworked, and adapted for new audiences. In the volume's first article, Fausta Antonucci compiles, systematizes, and analyzes an abundance of data on Calderón's presence in Italy over the course of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. The conclusions drawn from this examination shed light on the author's lingering reception throughout this time of sociopolitical and literary transition from early modern to modern sympathies. The article goes on to explain that he was widely considered a "príncipe del drama y de la tragedia," surpassing even the esteem of his rival Lope de Vega on the Italian Peninsula (16). Andrea Baldissera provides readers with complementary data to Antonucci's findings by examining the textual transmission of an Italian translation of Calderón's semi-opera El hijo del sol, Faetón. The study offers a side-by-side close reading of the source text and translation in order to draw fascinating conclusions about how both the original author and the translator were able to customize the texts to accommodate local tastes and sensitivities. A similar—though no less fascinating and meticulous—consideration of a Dutch translation of La dama duende is provided by Robert Folger in the volume's subsequent contribution. The compilation continues with three articles that provide innovative studies of the television adaptations, first English translations, and rewritings of Calderón's dramas in their native Spain, England, and Italy, which offer invaluable insight into the malleability of the works that allow them to be tailored to audiences' tastes and sociocultural sensitivities across different linguistic, political, and audiovisual landscapes. Once the thematic versatility of Calderón's texts has been established by these articles, the volume transitions to demonstrations of how this literary flexibility permitted varying performative interpretations of some of the author's most emblematic pieces. Françoise Gilbert offers a thorough and eye-opening analysis of how Darlo todo y no dar nada was originally performed in 1651 and how this performance, along with printed translations of the source text opened foreign—non-Spanish-speaking—audiences to the luxury and "ostentación del poder de la monarquía" (165). Agustín Gómez and Nekane Parejo continue this examination of the adaptability of Calderón's texts for a broad audience in their contribution on the four film adaptations of El alcalde de Zalamea. Their study paves the way for an in-depth exploration of Calderón's texts in Venetian and Mexican operas and a thought-provoking reflection on the...