Lope de Vega's Non-Homeric Treatment of a Homeric Theme

Abstract

Like all prolific authors, Lope de Vega did not reach posterity with all his writings crowned with the same halo of fame and popularity. Judging by the paucity of editions and critical studies, La Circe, in 3 cantos of 154, 108, and 154 octaves, respectively, has been one of his most neglected poems.1 The 1962 Lope Year remedied the situation somewhat, for a new edition of the poem appeared in France.2 The intrinsic value of this edition is further increased by the sound scholarship and perceptive commentary contained in its 78-page introduction. Though there is no stated attempt to refute earlier adverse criticism of the poetic worth of La Circe, Professor Aubrun's ingenious reading and zestful analysis does much for its revaluation by providing convincing proof of its continued relevance and vitality.3 And Professor Cortes' succinct and informative introducci6n hist6rica delineates deftly the interplay of Lope's and vida, bolstering effectively his belief that historia literaria puede ofrecer anilisis de una obra en cuanto es signo de un momento pero tambiln de una vida personal.'4 In addition, by means of a well-documented but never otiose examination of sources, Mr. Cortes demonstrates that los nuicleos temiticos ... proceden de fuentes diversas, from works of antiquity and the Middle Ages (Metamorphoses, Aeneid, Consolatio philosophiae, etc.) as well as from Humanist and Renaissance authors and mythographers (Pico de la Mirandola, Tasso, Gelli, Baltasar de Vitoria, Sanchez de Viana, Natale Conti, etc.). The result is that, although Mr. Cortes still believes that el episodio central es claramente homdrico, and that certain incidents are t anspositions, amplifications, and contaminations of parallel Homeric episodes, he moves somewhat away from the curiously persisting view that La Circe is a slavish imitation of the Homeric poems and, in particular, of the Odyssey.5 The persistence of this critical commonplace is, indeed, amazing, since neither a perfunctory nor a detailed comparison of the Odyssey with La Circe reveals a direct correspondence between the two poems. The present paper will attempt to demonstrate through a number of antithetical parallels-general and specific-that fundamentally Lope's La Circe is in strident contrast to Homer's Odyssey. In Lope's Circe one can distinguish eight major episodes: (1) the opening by Ulysses' comrades of the hinchada piel, given to the Ithacan by Aeolus; (2) the arrival at Circe's island and the metamorphosis of Ulysses' companions; (3) the confrontation of Circe and Ulysses; (4) the banquet and feast at Circe's palace; (5) the loves of Galatea, Acis, and Polyphemus; (6) the adventures of Ulysses and his companions in the cave of the Cyclops; (7) Circe's unreciprocated love for Ulysses; (8) Ulysses' journey to Hades. Two of these episodes, the fifth and seventh, find no equivalent in Homeric account, but derive mainly from Ovid and Vergil. The other six correspond to wellknown events in Ulysses' nostos, but comparison with the Homeric text fails to suggest that their immediate source is the Odyssey. There are, to be sure, external parallels and thematic similarities, but these suggest the Latin poets, such as Vergil and Ovid, who had incorporated