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Notes
Franklin L. Baumer, Modern European Thought: Continuity & Change in Ideas, 1600–1950 (New York: Macmillan, 1977), chapter 1.
The classical study on this subject is the homonymous book by Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960). Another excellent book on the same subject: E. M. W. Tillyard, The Elizabethan World Picture (London: Chatto & Windus, 1943).
On the particular meaning of the term I use here, see Bolivar Echeverráia (Comp.), Modernidad, Mestizaje Cultural, Ethos Barroco (Mexico City: UNAM/EI Equilibrista, 1994), p. 19 and ff.
Anthony Rey Hazas, “Introducción a las Comedias de Enredo” in Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Obras Maestras, J. Alcalá-Zamora and J. M. Díez Borque (eds.) (Madrid: Castalia, 2000), p. 333.
Octavio Paz, El Arco y la L ira, in Obras Completas, 14 vv. (2nd. ed., México City: FCE, 1994), vol. I, p. 209.
Paul Jauralde Pou, “El Teatro en el Siglo XVII”, in Historia y Crítica de la Literatura Española, 8 vv., comp. Francis Rico (Barcelona: Crítica, 1983), vol. III, p. 206.
Ernst Cassirer, Descartes. Corneille. Christine de Suède, Magdalena Frances and Paul Schrecker (trans.) (Paris: Vrin, 1997), chapter 1.
Octavio Paz, El Arco y la Lira, in Obras Completas, 14 vv.(2nd. ed., México City: FCE, 1994) vol. I op. cit., idem.
That is José Anthony Maravall’s interpretation. For him, the phenomenon we study were directed more to suffocate any possible individual discrepancy with regard to social values than to express the creative power of the Hispano-American society: “[...] I think that our baroque theatre, although it has been called a ‘national theatre’ and has been understood by some author as a kind of Hispanic ‘paideia’, did not exert in any moment an educative function for the people; but I want to follow this remark with another that completes it: [this theatre] had certainly the function to manipulate the whole people, with the aim of realizing a configurative operation of ideological nature on wide sectors of the population” (“Teatro, Fiesta e Ideologia en el Barroco”, in Teatro y Fiesta en el Barroco. España e Iberoamérica, comp. Joseph Mary Díez Borque (Barcelona: Serbal, 1986), p. 77. Although I recognize Maravall’s great authority on any subject related to the baroque culture, I believe in this case his interpretation does not allow a grasping of the intellectual contributions of Golden Age theatre, which is the subject of this study.
Alexander A. Parker, “Una Interpretacioń del Teatro Español del Siglo XVII”, in Francis Rico (comp.), op. cit., pp. 259–60.
My brief commentaries on this subject come from: Alan Bullock, The Humanist in the West (London: Thames & Hudson, 1985), chapter I: the Renaissance.
L. E. Halkin, Érasme et l’Humanisme Chrétien (Paris: Éditions Universitaires, 1969), 2nd part, chapter III.
Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1960), chapters I and 2.
Ernesto Grassi, Einführung in philosophische Probleme des Humanismus (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1986), chapter VI.
Ibid., introduction by Emily Hidalgo-Sema to the Spanish translation (Barcelona: Anthropos, 1993), pp. VIII–IX.
Agudeza y Arte de ingenio, ed. Gillesbert Prado Galán, Our Classics 79 (Mexico City: UNAM, 1996). There is a more extensive study on wit in my book La Sombra Fugitiva (Mexico City: UNAM, 2001), where I analyze Hispano-American humanism as the ground of First Dream, the great metaphysical poem by Sister Jean Agnes of the Cross, the famous New Spain poetess. Another book on wit in the 17th century European culture is L’idea del barocco. Studi su un problema estetico by Luciano Anceschi, Spanish translation by Rosalía Torrent (Madrid: Tecnos, 1991).
Op. cit., p. 33.
On this specific question, see the excellent introduction by Alexander A. Parker to Góngora’s Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea, Letras Hispánicas 171 (Mexico City: REI Mexico, 1987), pp. 23–129.
Agudeza y Arte de Ingento, p. 231 and ff.
Idem.
Ibid., pp. 431–432. In this particular passage, I have strived to reproduce Gratian’s extremely complex prose, one of the most awkward in the Spanish language.
René Descartes, Oeuvres, 12 vv., Charles Adam and Paul Tannery (eds.) (Paris: Vrin/CNRS, 1964–1976), v. VII, pp. 30–1. I cite by John Veitch’s English translation.
Benjamín Garcia-Hernández, Descartes y Plauto. La concepción dramática del sistema cartesiano (Madrid: Tecnos, 1997), p. 133. This book, which is interesting, although perhaps debatable, is concerned with the relationships between Descartes and the dramatic tradition, especially with the plays of Antiquity. Although it offers a coherent interpretation, I would limit somehow the idea that cartesianism was generated, practically as a whole, by the anecdote of an ancient play. I recognize that the similarities that Garcia-Hernández discovers between Plautus’ Amphitryon and the Metaphysical Meditations are really suggestive. Furthermore, we ought to take into account that the school where Descartes spent his youth was ruled by Jesuits, a religious order wherein Gratian had professed.
Op. cit., pp. 409–440. In this and in the following translations of the Spanish verses, I will change the respective Spanish metre by irregular metrics.
Act II, v. 1019 and ff.
Obras Completas, 3 vv., Augustine Millares Carlo (ed.) (2nd. ed., Mexico City: FCE, 1977), v. I, act II, p. 667 and ff.
Op. cit., p. 32.
Op. cit., v. II, p. 391 and ff.
Comedias, ed. Jean of Ontañón, Sepan cuantos 32 (7th. Ed., Mexico City: Porrúa, 1977), act III, p. 62 and ff.
Of course, these criticisms have to be understood not as a total condemnation but rather like a integration of the passions within an individual existence’s rational paradigm, as Cassirer explains in a very lucid passage of the book we have quoted in note seven: “The Cartesian theory on passions, the judgment that what the philosopher makes about them, moves away from the classical stoicism. What this last demands, what it raises to the level of an ideal, is contempt for passions. The impassibility, the true ‘ataraxy’, can not originate but from a complete ‘apathy’. But in the eyes of Descartes, this exigency is a chimera, a daydreaming. For he examines passions not just like a moralist, but, above all, with the attitude of a wise man. These are for him simply natural phenomena, which are, therefore, subordinated to laws of mechanical necessity” (op. cit., p. 92).
Op. cit., p. 19.
Ibid., p. 89.
Tirso de Molina, Don Gilles de las Calzas Verdes, Alonso Zamora Vicente (ed.), Clásicos Castalia 187 (Madrid: Castalia, 1990).
Sister Jean Agnes of the Cross, Obras completas, 4 vv., eds. Alfonso Méndez Plancarte and Albert G. Salceda (Mexico City: FCE, 1957), v. IV, act III, vv. 1103–8, p. 345.
Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, op. cit., v. II, p. 382, vv. 212–16.
Op. cit., p. 363 and ff.
José Anthony Maravall, La cultura del barroco. Análists de una estructura histórica, Letras e ideas 7 (Barcelona: Ariel, 1975), p. 91.
Felix Lope de Vega Carpio, Obras (Madrid: Májera, 1984), pp. 29–113. The quoted verses appear in act III, scene 3).
See note 40.
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Rivas, V.G. (2005). “With Foolish Shadows, With Hollow Signs”: A Reflection on Subjective Perception and Personal Identity in Hispano-American Golden Age Intrigue Comedies. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) The Enigma of Good and Evil; The Moral Sentiment in Literature. Analecta Husserliana, vol 85. Springer, Dordrecht . https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3576-4_26
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