Bulletin of the Comediantes

Reviews125 Biblioteca Nacional, Lope de Vega y eí teatro español del Siglo de Oro. Dibujos, grabados y ediciones ilustradas por Klaus y Theo Reichenberger . Catálogo de la Exposición celebrada en conmemoraci ón del 350° aniversario de la muerte de Lope de Vega. Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, 1985. During September, 1985, the Biblioteca Nacional commemorated the 350th anniversary of the death of Lope de Vega with an Exposition of books and miscellaneous items—first editions, engravings, sketches, etc.—pertaining to the drama of the seventeenth century. The directors sought to relate the viewer to the drama of that age by a display that was itself a visual work of art. The present attractive volume is the carefully prepared Catalogue of the Exposition, entitled, perhaps somewhat too narrowly, Lope de Vega y el teatro español del Siglo de Oro. An introductory essay by Sebastián Neumeier of the University of Berlin presents an overview of areas of scholarly agreement and controversy concerning the comedia. In his opinion the comedia "no sólo presenta la imagen completa de la vida social y mental de la época y de sus conflictos, sino que transforma todo esto en un cosmos poético autónomo ." At the same time the comedia is described as a great semiotic panorama, static and dynamic at once, in which the characters and the dramatic action give the spectator/reader a rich and authentic vision of the historical period it reflects. The main body of the Catalogue, which includes documents and illustrations , is divided into seven sections: comedias de figurón, comedias de capa y espada, comedias históricas, comedias bíblicas y religiosas , fiestas mitológicas, autos sacramentales, and entremeses. The visual impact of this section of the Catalogue—extending from El burlador de Sevilla (ca. 1622) to Calderón's entremés, Los degollados (1670)—consists of photographs of manuscripts, fascimiles of title pages, portraits and sketches of several of the most representative authors, such as Lope, Guillen de Castro, Tirso, Calderón, Lobo y Lasso de la Vega, Quiñones de Benavante, and Moreto. These reproductions are augmented by impressionistic sketches, in a stark black and white style, done by Klaus and Theo Reichenburger, scholars of the comedia , hexe turned artists, which depict pivotal scenes from various corned /as. On the facing page are key passages or textual summaries of the scenes thus depicted or bibliographical information. Among the illustrations that are especially evocative of the text are don Juan, who, answering with the famous line—"¿Quién soy? Un hombre sin 126BCom, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Summer 1988) nombre"—is shown as a faceless man, as the generic sexual male. Don Lucas of Entre bobos anda el juego is drawn as a caricature, with features completely distorted. Don Garcia of La verdad sospechosa is only a shadowy outline, fuzzy and indistinct, as is Garcia's veracity. The u///anos of Fuenteovejuna axe a collective mass, nameless and undifferentiated , a community undivided as they respond to the judge: "Todos los vecinos desta villa." The student of the comedia will find the correlation of texts and illustrations thought-provoking. The catalogue ends with an Index of the illustrations and a bibliography of the editions illustrated. It will be of interest to student and scholar alike. Ruth Lundelius University of Georgia Antonio Prieto, editor. Le Personnage dans la littérature du siècle d'or: statut et fonction. Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1984. Paper. 113 pp. A slim volume of eight essays originally delivered as oral presentations in late 1979 at a conference on characterization in Golden Age literature sponsored by the Casa de Velazquez in Paris, this collection was not published for another four years due to "les difficultés inhérentes à la réunion des textes définitifs," as Didier Ozanam, Director of the Casa de Velazquez, explains in prefatory remarks. This fact does not diminish the relevance of the general topic but is noticeable in the notes and references that accompany some pieces. The essays address an interesting array of subjects having to do with characterization in prose, poetry, and drama but evince an uneveness in substantive conclusions that belies their...