HONOR IN SPANISH GOLDEN-AGE DRAMA: ITS RELATION TO REAL LIFE AND TO MORALS

Abstract

Since the critical study of honour in Golden-Age drama began early in the nineteenth century, the question whether the sentiment of honour in the plays was compatible with Christian morality has, as Don Américo Castro pointed out, been one of those which have most frequently occupied the minds of those scholars who have given their attention to the theme. Generally, it has been the foreign critics who have been most violent in their condemnation of the immorality of the Spanish code of honour, as it is seen in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century drama. A. F. von Schack, writing in 1845, pointed out the incompatibility of the law of honour with “true”, i.e., with Christian morality. Ticknor, in 1849, wrote in typically robust style of “an exaggerated sense of honour”, and found an explanation of it in the “wild laws” inherited from Gothic times, laws whose “fearful principles” were still preserved in poetic drama. Other critics, chiefly Spanish, have often felt it necessary to defend the morality of the dramatic code of honour.

BSS Subject Index:

• HONOUR [AS SOCIAL CODE & LITERARY/CULTURAL THEME]
• SPAIN — LITERATURE — GOLDEN AGE/16th–17th CENTURIES — DRAMA/THEATRE & PERFORMANCE-HISTORY

Notes

¹“Algunas observaciones acerca del concepto del honor en los siglos XVI y XVII”, RFE, III (1916), 2.

² Historia de la literatura y del arte dramático en España, IV, trsl. E. de Mier (Madrid 1887), 350–52.

³G. Ticknor, History of Spanish literature, II (London 1849), 363–64.

⁴“Notas y observaciones”, Comedias de D. Pedro Calderón de la Barca, IV. BAE XIV, 695–96.

⁵ Comedias de Calderón, I, BAE VII, vii-xi.

¹ B. de Torres Naharro, “Prohemio”, Propaladla.

²“Observaciones preliminares” to the Academy edition of Lope's Obras, XI, lxiv.

³Cf. A. Valbuena Prat, Calderón (Barcelona 1941), 153–62.

¹loc. cit., 39.

²Cf. E. Cotarelo y Mori, Bibliografía de las controversias sobre la licitud del teatro en España (Madrid 1904).

¹Quoted by Cotarelo, 356–57.

²Loc. cit., 126 and 263–64.

¹Loc. cit., 43–44.

²Op. cit. (Rome 1588), 320–21. Cf. 325–27.

¹op. cit. (Salamanca 1579), 173.

²op. cit. (Lyons 1659), 113. It is perhaps worth noting that Castro, in quoting as the opinion of the casuist Pedraza that one can conceal sins from a confessor to avoid dishonour, has not noted that Pedraza is here drawing inferences from an argument of Azpilcueta which he (Pedraza) is condemning, by showing the absurdity involved in such inferences, reasonable as they are from the argument.

³ loc. cit., 48.

¹Cf. Summa, IIaIIae, 64, 7, Resp. and 41, I, Resp.

²Quoted by A. Valbuena Prat, Literatura dramática española (Barcelona 1930), 226.

³Cf. R. Manvell, Film (Harmondsworth 1946), passim. Professor E. M. Wilson has suggested that Bances Candamo's argument is much more serious than this; and it is fair to add that the view of the drama as a school of manners did exist, and was expressed by Luis de Ulloa y Pereyra, in his Defensa… de las comedias (Madrid 1674).

¹Op. cit. (New York 1925), 56.

¹op. cit., Colección escogida de obras no dramáticas, ed. C. Rosell (Madrid 1872), 34a. The word mds does not occur in the title of the first edition.

²Cf. E. Juliá Martínez, “Observaciones preliminares”, Obras de Don Guillén de Castro, I (Madrid 1925), passim.

³Cf. E. Gijón, “Concepto del honor y la mujer en Tirso de Molina”, Tirso de Molina, ed. Revista Estudios (Madrid 1949), 479–655.

⁴“Honor in the sacramental plays of Valdivielso and Lope de Vega”, MLN, LXVI (1951), 81–88.

¹“De l'honneur comme ressort dramatique”, Revue des deux mondes, XXV (1841), 397–421. Quoted by J. E. Hartzenbusch, Comedias de Calderón, IV, BAE XIV, 688–91.

² W. J. Entwistle, “Honra y duelo”, Romanistisches Jahrbuch, III (1950), 404–20.

³“La discreción de Don Lope de Almeida”, Clavileño, II, No. 9 (1951), 1–10.

¹Professor P. E. Russell has suggested to me that Calderón's depiction of the husbands' concern to show themselves that they are not killing their wives out of mere jealousy might perhaps reflect the casuists' views. But it would scarcely be surprising if Calderón's thought were influenced by casuistry, and it would not necessarily follow that casuistry dictated his basic attitudes in the early comedias.

²“Honor in El alcalde de Zalamea”, MLR, L (1955), 444–49.

³H. W. Hilborn, A chronology of the plays of D. Pedro Calderón de la Barca (Toronto 1938).

¹ A. Rubió y Lluch, El sentimiento del honor en el teatro de Calderón (Barcelona 1882).