"La Segunda Celestina": XVIIth and XIXth Centuries

Abstract

The transition on the popular stage from the neoclassical to the romantic drama was accomplished to a considerable extent by the presentation of seventeenth century plays. The early years of the nineteenth century were particularly barren of significant native contributions to the development of the drama; only one dramatist of the period, Moratin the younger, attained any considerable favor with later generations. The academic interest of B6hl von Faber and the Schlegels in the plays of the siglo de oro had its rather more practical reflection in the theaters where the managers catered to popular taste with productions of the great and not so great plays of the Golden Age along with translations of foreign plays.1 The lapse of well over a century necessarily produced changes in taste that made unacceptable the presentation of the old plays in their original form. It became the practice to produce them in altered form, adaptations made to meet the demands of a public far removed from those audiences that first accepted the classic Spanish drama. One of the most successful adapters of the Golden Age plays was Dionisio Solis whose refundiciones entertained Madrid audiences for a number of years. Solis, or Dionisio Villanueva y Ochoa to give him his true name, was a writer of the neoclassical persuasion who, in addition to his work in the Madrid theaters as prompter, translator, musician, producer, adapter and playwright, wrote a number of fables in the manner of Samaniego.2 It was not with any of his original work, however, that Solis made his contribution to Spanish letters; his efforts in the revival of the Golden Age drama rank him as the chief connecting link, both in years and in spirit between the eighteenth century and Romanticism.3 Among the plays whose survival was due to Solis is El encanto es la hermosura y el hechizo sin hechizo, or as Solis calls his adaptation La segunda Celestina which despite its title has nothing to do with Feliciano de Silva's Segunda comedia de Celestina. The author was Augustin de Salazar y Torres (1642-75), poet and dramatist whose works were collected and published after his death by his friend Juan de Vera Tassis y Villarroel who was also the friend and editor of Calder6n.4 Nine comedias are included in the works, but none of them, with the exception of El encanto es la hermosura, ever became popular in the theaters. Salazar was a prominent figure in the court and it is likely that his plays were intended not for the general public but for a more restricted audience. Vera Tassis, in the biography published with Salazar's works, says he provided plays for las mis c6lebres fiestas de sus Reales Majestades. El encanto es la hermosura was apparently commissioned as a part of the festivities in honor of the birthday of the Queen Regent, Mariana de Austria. Vera Tassis in his biography says, sell6 su vida, qual dulce numeroso Cisne, celebrando sus postrimerias al compas de su canto sonoro, con la comedia que intitul6, El Encanto es la Hermosura, y escribia por superior decreto. The play was left unfinished at his death. About two-thirds of the last act was written by Vera Tassis, as he indicates in a note and in the final speech of the play. Whether the play was produced on the occasion for which it was