The "Comedia's" Plurality of Worlds: Some Observations

Abstract

SCHOLARS who have followed even cursorily during the past thirty or forty years the evolution of theories of literature and of its criticism have discovered new, stimulating and occasionally beguiling ideas in that complex area. The exploration and discussion of theory have resulted in fresh approaches to the task, and a bewildering array of labels for some of the new areas has been devised. Among these are post-New Criticism, neo-Aristotelianism, archetypal theory, information theory, psychoanalytic theory, functional theory, gestalt theory, Russian formalism, phenomenology, monism, pluralism, existentialist theory, contextualist theory, system-context theory, structuralism, deconstructionism, Marxist theory, semiotics and perhaps others that do not come to mind. Revisionism is a term that may be applied to any of them. The boundaries between the areas are often confused and uncertain.' Not all of the new approaches will persist in their present form; some will lose their appeal and efficacy. Others may survive the severe tests to which they will be subjected. In the meantime it seems desirable to continue the careful investigation of the various areas. Students of the Hispanic literatures, with some exceptions, have been less conscious of the theories than have scholars who probe other literatures, especially in France, Germany and the United States. One may expect interest to grow in the new approaches among scholars in the Hispanic area.2 Among the terms above there is pluralism, that is, the theory that any text will have more than one interpretation, and that it is not possible to state with finality that any one of the interpretations is correct and all others false. Monism, on the contrary, holds that a literary text has one and only one correct interpretation. This theory could possibly be acceptable if the proof of its validity were projected into the future, at which time the other theories will have been proved false. But as of now, in Hartman's chaos, pluralism rules over monism. It will be the purpose of this paper to take a brief glance at aspects of pluralism and some of the questions to which it gives rise; no other approach among those named in the paragraph above will be considered here except as it may enter obliquely into the discussion. It is apparent that in a journal article the subject may receive comment in only a few of its major features. It is also apparent that pluralism has always existed.3 The fantastically complex series of words that we call a piece of literature may, and often does, give rise to a great many different interpretations.