Cervantes’ Numancia as Tragedy and as Tragicomedy
1987; Liverpool University Press; Volume: 64; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/1475382872000364015
ISSN1469-3550
Autores Tópico(s)Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Neopbilologus, LVIII (1974), 34–40. 2. No one suggests that Aeschylus actually influenced Cervantes. It is simply thought that Aeschylus and Cervantes had similar dramatic intentions. Cervantes, I suppose, was aware of the existence of Aeschylus' tragedy, but he could not have read it and it is doubtful indeed that it provided him with any inspiration: in the sixteenth century Aeschylus was very much overshadowed by Sophocles, Euripides, and Seneca; all three were both better known and more respected. 3. Joaquin Casalduero, 'La Numancia', NRFH, II (1948), 71–87, reprinted in Casalduero, Sentido y forma del teatro de Cervantes (1951; second edition: Madrid: Gredos, 1966); Gustavo Correa, 'El concepto de la fama en el teatro de Cervantes', HR, XXVII (1959), 280–302. 4. El cerco de Numancia, ed. Robert Marrast, second edition, revised (Madrid: Cátedra, 1984). I use this edition for all quotation and reference. Except where indicated, arabic numerals in references stand for lines; line-numbering is consecutive rather than by Act. Marrast's 1984 edition revises his 1961 edition (Salamanca: Anaya), which was based on the Schevill and Bonilla edition of the manuscript copy held in the Biblioteca Nacional. The revision is made in the light of Jean Canavaggio's study of the manuscript copy held in the Library of the Hispanic Society of America ('À propos de deux comedias de Cervantès: quelques remarques sur un manuscrit récemment retrouvé', BHi, LXVIII [1966], 5–29). El cerco de Numancia is the title of the play in the manuscript of the Biblioteca Nacional. Numancia is the title in that of the Library of the Hispanic Society of America. Cervantes himself recollects the play as La destrucción de Numancia (Prologue, Ocho comedias) and La Numancia (Don Quijote I, xlviii and Adjunta al Parnaso). 5. Armas is probably not alone in regarding Scipio as a tragic character, however. Willard F. King has declared, in a passage in need of some clarification, that Scipio's 'intention was never to destroy the city; and it is he alone who is capable of perceiving the meaning of the catastrophe in a moment of anagnorisis which confers on him something of the dignity of the classical tragic hero, as he addresses the body of the last Numantine, who has hurled himself from a tower to his death, thus depriving Scipio of his last chance for a triumph' ('Cervantes' Numancia and Imperial Spain', MLN, XCIV [1979], 200–21 [p. 200]). Alfredo Hermenegildo seemingly implies that Scipio is tragic when he suggests that he grieves for his enemy. See La 'Numancia' de Cervantes, Colección 'Biblioteca de crítica literaria', No. 1 (Madrid: S.G.E.L., 1976), 72. The view that Scipio feels pity for his enemy has been discredited by Stanislav Zimic. See 'Visión política y moral de Cervantes en Numancia', ACerv, XVIII (1979–80), 107–50 (pp. 126–30). 6. Tragedy: Serious Drama in Relation to Aristotle's 'Poetics', second edition, revised (London: Chatto and Windus, 1957), Chapter 5. 7. It is generally agreed that Numancia's date of composition falls between 1581 and 1585. 1583 is the terminus a quo proposed by Jean Canavaggio. See Cervantès Dramaturge: un théâtre à naître (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1977), 21. Aristotelian poetic theory was beginning to be disseminated in Spain at this time. Fernando de Herrera shows some knowledge of it in his annotated edition of the Obras of Garcilaso de la Vega (Seville, 1580). Likewise Juan de la Cueva in El viaje de Sannio (autographic MS, 1585). In the Prologue of Alejandra (early 1580s) Lupercio Leonardo de Argensola refers to Aristotle specifically as a theorist of tragedy, though does not state any of Aristotle's doctrines. 8. Their decision reflects their deliberations at the beginning of Act II. They agree here that they should die in an act of aggression, if die they must. To stay in the city would be 'to show signs of cowardice': 'En la ciudad podrá muy bien quedarse / quien gusta de cobarde dar las muestras' (597–98). 9. Its origins lie in the story of Numancia as told in the Crónica de España abreviada of Diego de Valera (1482), though its immediate source appears to be a romance by Juan de Timoneda, which is one of two on the Numancia story composed before 1580. See Jean Canavaggio, 'Le Dénouement de Numance: jalons d'une tradition', in Les Cultures Ibériques en devenir: essais publiés en hommage à la mémoire de Marcel Bataillon (1895–1977), with a foreword by Georges Duby (Paris: Fondation Singer–Polignac, 1979), 647-53. 10. Events are set in a moral perspective in the scene in which Scipio receives and rebuffs Numancia's friendly ambassadors (I. 225–304). Rome stands for persistent tyranny, Numancia for just rebellion. 11. A lack of valor on the part of his army is further evidenced by the state of shameless moral decay in which Scipio finds it and by the Roman soldiers' acquiescence, which he clearly anticipates, in a plan of campaign which virtually relieves them of the responsibility for avenging their defeats. 12. This is primarily the Spain of Philip II, who has completed the unification of Spain with his annexation of Portugal—allegedly a long-lost member of the Spanish family (513–20). 13. Comedia is the titular designation in the manuscript of the Biblioteca Nacional, tragedia in that of the Library of the Hispanic Society of America. 14. Tragedy of Error is 'that form of tragedy where the whole plot is itself built on the irony of fate, where the engineer is hoisted with his own petard, and the very means which should bring safety brings only ruin, or what was meant to destroy, on the contrary, preserves' (Lucas, op. cit., 110). 15. On Cinthio's contribution to the theory and practice of tragicomedy, see Marvin T. Herrick, Tragicomedy: Its Origin and Development in Italy, France, and England (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1962), Chapter 3. 16. Comoedia was supposedly a criticism of mores. Juan de la Cueva's more solemn drama is perhaps concerned with the political mores of his king. See A. I. Watson, Juan de la Cueva and the Portuguese Succession (London: Tamesis, 1971). It seems to me that three or four of Cueva's comedias can be described as tragedie miste: the Comedia de los siete infantes de Lara; Comedia de la libertad de España por Bernardo del Carpio; Comedia de la libertad de Roma por Mucio Cévola; and perhaps the Comedia de la muerte del rey don Sancho y reto de Zamora por don Diego Ordóñez. I exclude the Comedia del príncipe tirano chiefly because its happy ending is a fragile one and forebodes a tragic sequel: the Tragedia del principe tirano. Duncan Moir cites two other plays by Juan de la Cueva as examples of Cinthian tragicomedy: the Comedia del degollado and Comedia del infamador. See vol. 3 of A Literary History of Spain, edited by R. O. Jones, 8 vols. (London: Benn, 1971–73): Edward M. Wilson and Duncan Moir, The Golden Age: Drama 1492–1700, 36. These two plays in fact owe too much to Classical comedy for the comparison to be valid. 17. For López Pinciano it was a form of 'tragedia morata'—'tragedy' that was rigorously governed by principles of poetic justice and whose distinctive virtue was the power to improve men's morals. See Alonso López Pinciano, Philosophia antigua poetica, 3 vols. (Madrid: CSIC, 1953), II, 319–21. 18. Duero looks forward to this abstractly at the prophecy's very beginning, where he announces that in due course of time the Romans will be 'oprimidos / por los que agora tienen abatidos' (471–72). He develops the idea in references to the sacking of Rome by the troops of Charles V (1527) and siege of Rome by the Duke of Alba in the aftermath of the Battle of St Quentin (1557). See 485–96 and corresponding footnotes in Marrast's edition.
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