The Comic Spirit in Diego de Avila's Egloga interlocutoria

Abstract

THE COMIC SPIRIT IN DIEGO DE AVILA'S EGLOGA INTERLOCUTORIA* Charlotte Stern, Randolph-Macon Woman's College In recent years literary critics and historians have evinced a growing interest in the early Spanish theater which springs in large measure from the welter of attractive new editions of Encina and his followers. Numerous monographs and articles have appeared that sharpen our perception of the period. However, despite this laudable burst of activity, we are beset by the gnawing feeling that our image of the early drama, particularly during its formative years, is still largely incomplete. The uneasiness is provoked mainly by the knowledge that in the first four decades of the sixteenth century there were over forty additional dramatists whose works are still largely unknown. One collection , belonging to Bartolomé José Gallardo , contained thirty-eight plays by thirty-eight different poets, but it was evidently destroyed in 1824 when the Spanish administration in Granada was forced to flee to Cádiz.1 Only the titles, authors' names, and opening lines have survived.2 But we should not be unduly pessimistic about retrieving the missing plays. In fact pliegos containing plays by Diego Duran, Diego de Negueruela, and Alonso de Salaya have already surfaced and been edited,3 and there is the remote possibility that still other plays will be found in some private collection. But why should these obviously minor playwrights command our attention ? Firstly, they attest to greater and more varied dramatic activity in the early sixteenth century than is generally conceded. Secondly, Cañete mentions over forty dramatists, many admittedly represented by a single work, but forty individual authors to add to the half a dozen we have focused on in the past. Finally, these minor playwrights may give a more accurate picture of the actual state of dramatic art in Spain than isolated geniuses like Encina, who was more poet than dramatist, or Torres Naharro, who succumbed to sophisticated Italian dramatic techniques. From this perspective Diego de Avila's Egloga interlocutoria hovers as a valuable text." It is a significant example of the early drama's heavy indebtedness to folk tradition. More importantly, the key to understanding the égloga resides in its exuberant, parodie, and licentious spirit, which, while present in other early plays, is more pronounced in Avila's piece. It is this spirit that places the égloga squarely in the tradition of Plautine farce and such medieval celebrations as the festum stultorum and the fiesta del obispillo. The égloga was overlooked by Martinez de la Rosa and the Conde de Schack, but was duly noted by Salva, La Barrera, and Cañete,5 and edited by Gallardo in 1859.6 His text is the source for Eugen Kohler's edition,7 which appeared in time for J. P. W. Crawford to discuss it briefly in his short essay on early Spanish wedding plays and again in his survey of the pre-Lopean theater.8 Since then it has attracted only minimal attention.9 The égloga is a Gelegenheitsstück, dedicated to Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba. According to Crawford, it was composed and performed in 1509 to commemorate the betrothal of the Gran Capitán's daughter to his friend Bernardino de Velasco, constable of Cas62 tile.10 This supposition is strengthened by the otherwise unexplainable intrusion into the middle of the play of a lengthy piece of epideictic rhetoric honoring the Gran Capitán. The designation égloga betrays the influence of the Encina school, while learned interlocutoria underscores its dramatic quality.11 It is composed in verso de arte mayor, which is also used in Francisco de Madrid's Egloga (1496) and in Encina's Fileno y Zambardo. In Avila's play the meter is extremely flexible ; several lines contain eleven or fewer syllables because either the first hemistich is oxytonic or the initial unstressed syllable is omitted.12 At first glance the play seems poorly structured. A preliminary scene introducing father and son is followed by the comic betrothal and comic marriage. Inserted in the middle of the betrothal scene is the poet's fulsome praise of the Gran Capitán. This arrangement is likely to cause a stir among all but devotees...