Le Personnage dans la littérature du siècle d'or: statut et fonction (review)

Abstract

126BCom, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Summer 1988) nombre"—is shown as a faceless man, as the generic sexual male. Don Lucas of Entre bobos anda el juego is drawn as a caricature, with features completely distorted. Don Garcia of La verdad sospechosa is only a shadowy outline, fuzzy and indistinct, as is Garcia's veracity. The u///anos of Fuenteovejuna axe a collective mass, nameless and undifferentiated , a community undivided as they respond to the judge: "Todos los vecinos desta villa." The student of the comedia will find the correlation of texts and illustrations thought-provoking. The catalogue ends with an Index of the illustrations and a bibliography of the editions illustrated. It will be of interest to student and scholar alike. Ruth Lundelius University of Georgia Antonio Prieto, editor. Le Personnage dans la littérature du siècle d'or: statut et fonction. Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1984. Paper. 113 pp. A slim volume of eight essays originally delivered as oral presentations in late 1979 at a conference on characterization in Golden Age literature sponsored by the Casa de Velazquez in Paris, this collection was not published for another four years due to "les difficultés inhérentes à la réunion des textes définitifs," as Didier Ozanam, Director of the Casa de Velazquez, explains in prefatory remarks. This fact does not diminish the relevance of the general topic but is noticeable in the notes and references that accompany some pieces. The essays address an interesting array of subjects having to do with characterization in prose, poetry, and drama but evince an uneveness in substantive conclusions that belies their collective vision. They range, for example, from Maxime Chevalier's "Le médecin dans la littérature du Siècle d'Or," an encyclopedic presentation of literary passages that mention or describe the various popular views of physicians to more theoretical studies such as "Le personnage comme catégorie textuelle" by Edmond Cros who attempts to categorize the picaresque in terms of broad epistemological considerations based roughly, and somewhat mistakenly, on Foucault. A strongly formatlistic approach is taken in several of the contributions, among them Antonio García-Berrio's "Estatuto del personaje en el Soneto amoroso del Siglo de Oro;" Jean Michel Lasperas's "Personnage et récit dans les 'novelas Reviews127 amorosas y ejemplares' de María de Zayas y Sotomayor;" Luciano García Lorenzo's "Estatuto y función del personaje dramático en el teatro del Siglo XVII;" and Victor Infantes de Miguel's "La muerte como personaje literario de los siglos XVI y XVII." Much critical attention has recently been directed to myth in Golden Age literature, and thus Amancio Labandeire Fernández' "Estatuto y función de dos personajes mitológicas: Dido y Eneas en la literatura espa ñola del Siglo de Oro," a particularly well articulated historical study of the development of the Dido and Aeneas myth, is a timely piece. Beginning with a description of each of these figures, the examination proceeds through a lengthy survey of the treatment of the myth in the Middle Ages. The second half of the essay is dedicated to Spain's Golden Age, and a consideration of the parodie quality and other variants in dramatic depictions of the myth culminates the overview. In "Du 'refranero' à la 'comedia': quatre personnages en quête d'auteur," Jean Canavaggio scrutinizes four plays (three by Tirso de Molina and one by Lope de Vega) whose titles and principal female characters derive from refranes. Canavaggio demonstrates the manner in which the dramatic portrayal of the paremiological material in these works serves to open the closed proverbial system. The collection brings to our critical attention numerous aspects of the Golden Age characterization, some of which, though not new, are innovatively presented. Flawed primarily by the tardy publication it has suffered, as well as from typographical/proofreading errors that mar some of the pieces (in particular, that by Garcia Lorenzo), the volume is nevertheless deserving of recommendation for its varied approaches to the topic and for the critical expertise its contributors bring to the project. Teresa S. Soufas Tulane University Robert Fiore, Everett W. Hesse, John E. Keller and José A...