Translating Calderón: A Policy of Continuous Improvement^*

* This piece, with the title ‘A Policy of Continuous Improvement’, was originally written in 1987 for inclusion in a volume of short articles contributed by his colleagues, past and present, to commemorate at Liverpool University, Professor Kenneth Muir's eightieth birthday. Omitted unintentionally from KM 80: A Birthday Album for Kenneth Muir (Liverpool: Univ. of Liverpool, 1987), the article has been revised and updated, to be published here, for the first time, in this Festschrift to honour Ann Mackenzie, colleague and friend of both its author and of Kenneth Muir, and his co-translator of Calderón. For present purposes, and to assist, in particular, scholars of Calderón, some material which was originally placed or referenced in footnotes, is incorporated into the main text of the article. Other changes are limited to a few brief updates, some factual insertions and several additional footnotes.

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Notes

* This piece, with the title ‘A Policy of Continuous Improvement’, was originally written in 1987 for inclusion in a volume of short articles contributed by his colleagues, past and present, to commemorate at Liverpool University, Professor Kenneth Muir's eightieth birthday. Omitted unintentionally from KM 80: A Birthday Album for Kenneth Muir (Liverpool: Univ. of Liverpool, 1987), the article has been revised and updated, to be published here, for the first time, in this Festschrift to honour Ann Mackenzie, colleague and friend of both its author and of Kenneth Muir, and his co-translator of Calderón. For present purposes, and to assist, in particular, scholars of Calderón, some material which was originally placed or referenced in footnotes, is incorporated into the main text of the article. Other changes are limited to a few brief updates, some factual insertions and several additional footnotes.

1 The Drama of the Renaissance: Essays for Leicester Bradner, ed. Elmer M. Blistein (Providence: Brown U. P., 1970), 123–33 (p. 125).

2 This quotation from Calderón's comedy is taken from the following edition of Casa con dos puertas, mala es de guardar: Don Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Obras completas, tomo II. Comedias, ed., prólogo & notas de Ángel Valbuena Briones, 2ª ed. (Madrid: Aguilar, 1973). For Casa con dos puertas, see pp. 273–309. For the passage quoted, see Act I, p. 276; my italics serve to highlight the words and phrases I propose to comment upon.

3 See Muir, ‘The Comedies of Calderón’, in The Drama of the Renaissance, ed. Blistein, 130 (my italics). It should be noted that this excerpt is taken from a free rendering into English blank verse of the entire comedy, done by Kenneth Muir in 1962, and published in the Tulane Drama Review (Kenneth Muir, ‘A House with Two Doors Is Difficult to Guard’, Tulane Drama Review, 8:1 [1963], 157–217); this version was first performed by the Drama Department, University of Pittsburgh, and afterwards (1965) at the University of California, Davis.

4 Three Comedies by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, trans., with an intro., by Kenneth Muir & Ann L. Mackenzie (Lexington: The Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1985). For the translation of Casa con dos puertas, see pp. 1–70.

5 This passage from A House with Two Doors Is Difficult to Guard, Act I, is to be found in Three Comedies, trans. Muir & Mackenzie, at pp. 3–4. I have inserted line-numbers here, as I did above for the same passage as translated by Kenneth in 1970, so as to assist the readers to compare the two versions.

6 See Three Comedies by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, trans. Muir & Mackenzie; Introduction, by Mackenzie, xiii–xliv (pp. xliii–xliv, n. 36). For more on Muir's views on Calderón, see Kenneth Muir, Shakespeare: Contrasts and Controversies (Brighton: The Harvester Press, 1985), Chapter 8, ‘Shakespeare and Calderón’, 107–26; for Muir's comments on Mañanas de abril y mayo, see pp. 122–23. See also Kenneth Muir, ‘Comic Tradition and the European Context: The Testing of Love’, in Comedy from Shakespeare to Sheridan: Change and Continuity in the English and European Dramatic Tradition: Essays in Honor of Eugene M. Waith, ed. A. R. Braunmuller & J. C. Bulman (Newark: Univ. of Delaware Press, 1986), 53–73. For J. E. Varey's article cited above, see ‘Casa con dos puertas: Towards a Definition of Calderón's View of Comedy’, Modern Language Review, 67 (1972), 83–94.

In the later 1980s Muir and Mackenzie's translation of Mañanas de abril y mayo (Mornings of April and May) was performed in the USA, ‘in schools all over the country, apparently with great success, by the National Theater of the Performing Arts' (review by Michael McGaha, Bulletin of the Comediantes, 38:2 [1986], 260–62 [p. 261]).

7 Four Comedies by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, trans., with an intro., by Kenneth Muir; with intros & notes to the individual plays by Ann L. Mackenzie (Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1980). Muir's consultation over many years with the late Harold Hall should also be noted.

8 See Pedro Calderón de la Barca, The Schism in England (La cisma de Inglaterra), trans. Kenneth Muir & Ann L. Mackenzie; intro., commentary & ed. of the Spanish text by Ann L. Mackenzie, Hispanic Classics Golden-Age Drama (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1990).

9 See Muir, Shakespeare: Contrasts and Controversies, ch. 8 ‘Shakespeare and Calderón’, 107–26 (pp. 107–17).

10 See her article comparing a Golden-Age drama, possibly by Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla, with an anonymous English play (c.1598–99), both of which dramatize the same Siege of Antwerp (1576): Ann L. Mackenzie, ‘A Study in Dramatic Contrasts: The Siege of Antwerp in A Larum for London and El saco de Amberes’, BHS, LIX:4 (1982), 283–300.

11 See Calderón, The Schism in England (La cisma de Inglaterra), trans. Muir & Mackenzie; Introduction, 1–44 (passim; & pp. 37–44).

12 See Ann L. Mackenzie, ‘Shakespeare y Calderón: dos interpretaciones dramáticas de Henry VIII y La cisma de Inglaterra’, en Shakespeare en España: crítica, traducciones y representaciones, ed. José Manuel González Fernández de Sevilla (Alicante: Univ. de Alicante/Zaragoza: Libros Pórtico, 1993), 63–93.

13 For their reasons for using blank verse, and other comments relevant to their joint translations of Calderón, see Kenneth Muir, ‘Translating Calderón: Some Problems’, in Comedias del Siglo de Oro and Shakespeare, ed. Susan L. Fischer, Bucknell Review, 33:1 (1989), 132–41; Muir, ‘Translating Golden Age Plays: A Reconsideration', Translation and Literature, 1:1 (1992), 104–11.

14 Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Jealousy, the Greatest Monster (El mayor monstruo, los celos), critical ed., with intro. & commentary, by Ann L. Mackenzie & José María Ruano de la Haza; verse-translation by Kenneth Muir & Ann L. Mackenzie, Aris & Phillips Hispanic Classics (Oxford: Oxbow Books), forthcoming.

* Disclosure Statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.