artículo sobre lope el caballero

8/12/2019 Artculo sobre Lope el Caballero

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The Poetry of the Fantastic in "El Caballero de Olmedo"

Author(s): Donald A. YatesReviewed work(s):Source: Hispania, Vol. 43, No. 4 (Dec., 1960), pp. 503-507Published by: American Association of Teachers of Spanish and PortugueseStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/335964.

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THE POETRYOF THE FANTASTICIN"ELCABALLERODE OLMEDO"DONALDA. YATES

Michigan State UniversityAmong the plays of Lope de Vega thathave best weathered the assault of the

shifting winds of theatrical vogue andstyle is his semi-historical drama, "ElCaballero de Olmedo."* It is not only oneof Lope's most engaging dramas; t is alsoone of his most representative.The play,written probablybetween 1620 and 1625,remains remarkablyappealing today-overthree centurieslater-squarely on the meritsof the playwright'schoice of material andhis dramatic treatment of that material.Historian Angel Valbuena Prat has suc-cinctly expressedin the following lines thefirst of two qualifications which broughtLope greatness: "Lope de Vega creael teatro nacional espafiol. Fija en unaf6rmula, en un procedimiento, todos loselementos dispares del periodo anterior.Alma popular en lo esencial, comprendeel sentido'pico, tradicional,de la raza y elque puede agradar y entretener a suptiblico."'This capacity for probing into the soulof the Spanish traditional heritage andcreating a theatre that would delight anaction and emotion-loving audience to-gether with his second qualification forgreatness,a profound sense of poetry,werethe principal elements in Lope's creationof what has come to be known as theGolden Age "comedia."Valbuena has written with respect tothis genre:Puede considerarsea 'comedia'de Lopecomo un extenso cuadro, amplio y variado, de

la vida, en su aspectonacionaly popular.A losmomentosde mas fina calidad supranacional, eIlega precisamente por ahondar en leyendas yproblemasde su raza,como en Peribhiez, en Elcaballero de Olmedo o Fuenteovejuna. (Ibid.,p. 305).In this respect, Lope was attracted bythe traditional ballads-"canciones" and"cantares"-and he employed these im-mediately-recognized Spanish songs tocolor and give appealing national flavorto his plays.In "El Caballero de Olmedo," Lopebuilds an entire dramaaroundone of theseballads. The play is carefully constructedon the incidents of the song in questionand has as its climax the moment whenthe "canci6n"is recited by a minor per-sonage in its complete, familiar, fully-rounded form.

In the play, as Enrique Anderson Im-bert has pointed out in the title of hisessay on the subject, "Lope dramatiza uncantar."2 Professor Anderson Imbert fur-ther specifies the playwright's intent:Y, por lo menos una vez, Lope se complaci6en imaginar el momento inicial de un cantar,ese momento preciso en que alguien lo inventay lo entrega al pueblo. E1 Caballero de Olmedo,es esto: una dramatizaci6n el misteriosoprocesode la poesiatradicional,Ibid., p. 64.)Here, then, is the brief, haunting songin question:

Quede noche e mataronal caballerola galade Medinala florde OlmedoSombrase avisaronque no saliesey le aconsejaronqueno se tueseel caballerola galade Medinala florde OlmedoAt this point there is some basis for rais-

*A paper read at the 62nd meeting of theMichiganAcademyof Science, Arts and Letters,Ann Arbor, Michigan,March21, 1958. 503


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504 HISPANIAing the question: was Lope actually dram-atizing the precise origin of the song, asAnderson Imbert proposes, or was hemerely constructing a play about the de-tails of the familiar song? That is, was theplaywright simply letting the minimal"canci6n" suggest to him the dramaticstructure of an entire play? Further, what,precisely, was the nature of Lope's em-ployment of the ballad of the Caballeroof Olmedo? Not until we have consideredthis question can a fair judgment be givento the degree of success Lope attained inthe use of this particular traditional sub-ject matter.There is an element in the play as Lopewrote it which needs to be interpreted ascautiously as possible, since an under-standing of the playwright'sintent cannotbe reached without determining the pre-cise role assigned to this dramatic factor.This is the element of fantasy.Mystical and supernatural occurrenceswere very much a partof the popularheri-tage of legends and superstitions of theplaywright's age; and Lope incorporatedthis coloring of fantasy quite naturallyintothe tradegyof The Caballeroof Olmedo-as he employed it in many of his otherplays.3This problem of the implicationsof thefantastic element-if not at times the argu-able question of its actual presence-hasbeen commented upon many times. LeoSpitzer, Menindez y Pelayo, AndersonImbert, and Jose Montesinos all havegiven interpretationsof the evident super-natural element in the play. It is notable,however, that the theories put forth arelacking in agreement.Is the song sung by the "labrador" ne"emanating from the anonymous popularpatrimony" as Leo Spitzer claims? Is it"the song of Fabia" as Anderson Imbertproposes?Or is it something yet distinctfrom these? The matter seems worth somedeliberate examination. For if, in "ElCaballero de Olmedo," we give to the

several factors which contribute to themood of fantasy yet another of the pos-sible interpretations, we find we havebrought about the emergence of furthertestimony of Lope's dramatic art and astriking manifestation of his profoundpoetic nature.Let us turn to the play.The action is set in Medina in the timeof king Juan II. Historically, the year is1451. Don Alonso, the proud gallantcaballero of the title, has fallen in lovewith the young and beautiful D6na Ines.Following their first casual and star-crossedmeeting at the fair in Medina, Don Alonsoenlists the aid of old Fabia, an enterpris-ing crone outwardly patterned after thecelebrated Spanish folk-figure, the Cele-stina, to deliver to Inds' hand an amorousnote declaring his devotion. Fabia per-forms her duty well and arranges for anocturnal meeting between Don Alonsoand the equally involved Inds in the lat-ter's garden. When Don Olonso and hispage, Tello, arrive at the rendezvous, theycome across Don Rodrigo and a compan-ion who, themselves, have matrimonialin-tentions-Don Rodrigo toward Ines andhis friend toward her sister Leanor. Therivals quickly come to swordplay and thetwo would-be suitors are sent off into thenight in rout by Don Alonso and Tello.The following morning, Rodrigo and hisfriend-not to be denied-present them-selves before the girls' father, Don Pedro,state their marriageplans, and are acceptedas prospective sons-in-law.When Dofia Inds, now hopelessly en-amored of Don Alonso, hears of the fateher father has arrangedfor her, she forth-with gives her family to believe that shewishes to enter a convent. Exploiting thispretense, 'the resourceful Fabia and DonAlonso's companion, Tello, find anop-portunity to enter regularly into DofiaIn.s' home (as intermediaries for thelovers) in the guise of tutors who are toprepare Dofia Inks for convent life. At


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506 HISPANIAsword, is wounded and left to die.The falling action of the play relatesTello's discovery of the foul act and theimmediate condemnationof the villains bythe king. On the pronouncement of theirsentences, the play ends.It is proper now to ask: what, in themind of the dramatist-but above all ofthe poet-was the physical setting of thisplay? Was it a world of fact, of reality-orof half fact and half fantasy?We are guided by some observations.We know that in this play Lope juggledhistorical events to suit his purpose. Thetime of the play, as we have noted, is set,by the intervention of Juan II, in 1451.The actual assasinationof the true Caba-llero of Olmedo (a certainMiguel Ruiz dela Fuente4) is documented as taking placein 1521. One feels assured that this wasnot a case of ignorance on the dramatist'spart, for by setting the crime back seventyyears, he situated the story in the tragic,violent reign of Juan II-a time of sus-picion, intrique and superstition. Thisbackground enhanced the telling of thetragedy. In this, Lope clearly drew onhis poetic license.Is it possible now that Lope in a likemanner, and for some deliberate purpose,wove fantasy together with reality in hisdramatizationof the ballad? Several dra-matic incidents above mentioned suggestthat this is so.These incidents form the series of fore-warnings that Don Alonso receivedagainst making his way back to Olmedoby night. First, there was a waking pre-monition which Don Alonso recounted toTello. Then there was the shadowy figure-interpreted by Valbuena as a manifesta-tion of Don Alonso's own shadow (Valbu-ena, p. 312)-which tried to block thecaballero's departure. And finally, therewas the '"labrador"ho appearedand van-ished under the cover of darkness alongthe road between Medina and Olmedo-the peasant who sang the "canci6n"which

proved to be the death knell for DonAlonso.What are the possible explanations ofthe appearance of the spectre and the"labrador"?n the case of the former, An-derson Imbert has proposed three possi-bilities: the spectre is Don Alonso's ownghost, arriving, supernaturally, from thefuture to warn him of his imminent death;the spectre is an hallucination of DonAlonso; or, he is an agent of Fabia, dis-guised and sent to avert the tragedy (An-derson, p. 68). The same interpretations,one realizes, can apply equally to thefigure of the "labrador."Which, then of these?Rejecting categorically the element offantasy, some critics have seen in theseevents only the handiwork of Fabia. Andtheir stand is apparently supportedby thefact that, throughout the play snatches ofthe ultimate song-a word here, a phrasethere-are heard falling from the lips ofthe old woman.5 Yet, what is interestingto note here is the fact that Fabia her-self has supernatural powers ascribed toher by other characters n the play. Telloaddresses Fabia as "t6i, Fabia, ensefiadaestais/a hablar al diablo (Blecua, p. 50,lines 615-616). And Don Rodrigo, at onepoint speaks of Fabia "que puede tras-poner un monte;/Fabia, que puede dete-ner un rio/... Fabia,que ... puede Ilevara un hombre por el aire/(Ibid., p. 106,lines 506, 507 and 512).So Fabia, named as instigator of the"supernatural"occurrences, has apparentsupernatural qualities in her own right.Lope's great popular audience, one mightadd, would believe in those powers, too.It is worth noting that Don Alonso, whoon repeated occasions, denies any beliefin witchcraft, and who suspects Fabia'sscheming manipulations behind the ap-pearance of the spectre, has a tardychange of mind. In the midst of the se-quence of tragic events on the road toOlmedo, Don Alonso, even after hearing


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"EL CABALLERO DE OLMEDo" 507the "labrador's" reference to Fabia,searches his mind for the meaning of the"canci6n,"but does not consider the ter-rible song as a design of Fabia.These are some of the problems of in-terpretationcreatedby the element of fan-tasy in this play.Now if we consider the type of theatrethat Lope created before and after thecomposition of this single drama, we areconfronted with the suggestion of a pos-sible inspiration the playwright may havereceived when he contemplated the ori-ginal ballad as a basis for a poetic drama.It would be this: his intent was to pro-pose an origin for the ballad, but at thesame time, by leaving the principal char-acters in the creation of the song withinthe shadow of fantasy, make the momentof creation poetic, mystical-as if he wereattempting consciously to avoid namingthe name of the true originatorsfor fearof spoiling, or diminishing the appeal ofpopular anonymous tradition. Lope, there-fore, would propose a dramaticorigin forthe song, without reducing the charm ofthe mystic process of creation.Just as Lope took poetic license withhistorical fact, he may have exercised thesame right with respect to the documenta-tion of the song's origin. The song, there-by, would be the creation of no man. Itwould be a "canci6n" that simply ap-peared, magically, in the woods, onenight, along the road from Medina toOlmedo.

Surely, such an interpretation does

nothing to detract from the world's ad-miration for so able a dramatist and per-fect a poet as the incomparableLope whohere, regardlessof interpretation, has in-fused the feeling of a people, the moodof a time, the grace of his own poeticgenius into a remarkable drama wovenaround the traditional Spanish balladwhich opens with the quietly tragic lines:Que de noche le mataronal caballerola gala de Medinala florde Olmedo ...

NOTES1A. Valbuena Prat, Historia de la literatura es-paiola, (Barcelona, 1958), I1, p. 303.2 Enrique Anderson Imbert, Los grandes librosde occidente,(Mexico, 1958), pp. 63-74.3Among the numerousplays of Lope in whichthe element of fantasy figuresprominentlyare:El rey don Pedro en Madrid, El duque de Viseo,Las paces de los reyes, San Nicolas de Tolentino,El marques de las Navas, and El infanzdn deIllescas.4 For a discussionof the historicalbackgroundofthe legend of the Caballero, ee the Introductionby Jos6 Manuel Blecua to El caballero de Olmedo,EditorialEbro, (Zaragoza,1947), p 15.5We note that near the end of the first act,Fabia has on her lips bits of the final song:"No te desconsueles,hija;vuelve en ti, que tendris prestoestado con el mejory mis noble caballeroque agora iene Castilla;porqueseri por lo menosel que por iinico llamanEl Caballero de Olmedo."and"Don Alonsoha de ser tuyo;que serIs dichosaesperocon hombreque es en Castilla

la flor de Olmedo."la flor de Olmedo."

OUR ANNUAL MEETINGDon't forget the dates of our 42nd Annual Meeting in San Diego, December 28-30, 1960. The El Cortez Hotel rates will be $7.50 for a single room with bath, and$10.50 for a double (or twin bed) room with bath. Further details appear inthe program on p. 575 of this issue.

artículo sobre lope el caballero

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