Love is no Laughing Matter (No hay burlas con el amor)
1990; Auburn University; Volume: 42; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/boc.1990.0006
ISSN1944-0928
Autores Tópico(s)Early Modern Spanish Literature
ResumoREVIEWS Calderón de la Barca, Pedro, Love is no Laughing Matter (No hay burlas con el amor). Translated with an Introduction and Commentary by Don Cruickshank and Sean Page. Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1986. Pp. 201. As I have insisted on other occasions, no translation of a comedia, prepared by any one else can ever satisfy me nor would mine ever content another specialist in Golden Age Drama. This is because every translation results from individual interpretation of a work that is, like any great piece of writing, subject to myriad interpretations. The present work is no exception to that subjective rule but, what is worse, 1 believe it suffers from major weaknesses that can be objectively determined. In spite of the fact that the Spanish text provided, printed with the English translation on facing pages, presents the finest edition this wonderfully witty text has had, the English text suffers from serious weakness. There are, as well, problems in the introductory material provided with the texts. The introduction includes a sketch of Calderón, his time, and his genre, but I doubt the wisdom of describing the all but unplayable El agua mansa as "one of his funniest comedies (p. xii)." The work is, in my opinion, a poorly disguised and cheap reworking of Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza's much more theatrical Cada loco con su tema that Calderón prepared in haste to celebrate the royal wedding so thoroughly and tiresomely described in the extremely lengthy narrations that form the center of each of its three acts. I would also disagree with the statement that "Spanish Golden-Age comedy was either comedy of manners or comedy of intrigue... (p. xv)." It seems to me that judgment, as well as the discussion of dramatic action that follows it, reflects the discredited five principles prescribed by Alexander Parker rather than the reality of a theater that had already produced the memorable characters of the best Lopean comedy (Fenisa and Belisa of La discreta enamorada, Marta of Marta Ia piadosa, Don Alvaro of La segunda de don Alvaro, Rodrigo and Jimena of Las mocedades del Cid, among others, let alone Tirso's Don Juan.) In the discussion of "Beatriz: the précieuse ridicule (especially pp. xxi-xxii), 215 216BCom, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Winter 1990) we are told "Beatriz, in fact, seems to have no precedent in other plays," despite the reference within the text to Antonio Mira de Amescua's Cuatro milagros de amor, a play that does, indeed contain just such a precedent character. The problem is made worse by the insistent ignorance of such a relationship in the note to lines 104-05 of the text where an article by Arellano is cited as making that claim. Even a perfunctory glance at the text of that play would have made the point obvious. The translation itself suffers from an over-interpretation of certain passages, a lack of precision and a wordiness that would make this play impossible to perform satisfactorily: (1) Moscatel, the gracioso, (vv. 1763-64), tells his beloved Inés, "Amo, y no has de estar a tiro de mi amo sin escucha." This becomes, "Because I'm in love. My master won't get within range of you except with me standing guard." This statement could he much more simply and accurately put, "I'm in love, and you're not to get within range of my master without a guard." (2) Later, when Inés says (vv. 1981-82) "Ahora sin duda da en su aposento con él," the English is given as "Now I suppose he's going to walk right in on top of Don Alonso." Wouldn't it be better translated as "No doubt he'll run into him in his room"? The economy of words may not seem much but when the total number of added words is multiplied through the 3120 verses of the play, it makes the difference between playable text and mere literary translation. (3) Then, too, the poetry of the great set-piece on the theme of trifling with love (vv. 2905-2954) loses its effect in the translation given here. Lost are the use of...
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