Calderón's agudos in Italianate VerseAuthor(s): Harry W. HilbornSource: Hispanic Review, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Apr., 1942), pp. 157-159Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/469500 .

Accessed: 12/12/2013 18:15

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

University of Pennsylvania Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toHispanic Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 148.206.159.132 on Thu, 12 Dec 2013 18:15:34 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

VARIA

CALDERON'S AGUDOS IN ITALIANATE VERSE

THROUGHOUT the Golden Age criticism became increasingly hostile to agudos, and in a lesser degree to esdryjulos, in Italianate verse. The history of this criticism, with copious bibliographical references, has been given us by Dorothy Clotelle Clarke.1 Though the agudo was not categorically excluded, there arose a strong feeling against its use, with the reservation that the rule might be transcended by genius. The agudo was especially condemned in rimed verse when used in company with the

llano. Calder6n, according to Miss Clarke, disregarded the convention, "and was applauded for the elegance, the grace, and the majesty of his agudos." 2 In the present article, I propose to show to what extent Calder6n took liberties in this regard, while at the same time noting the conservative elements in his practice.

Examining first Calder6n's use of agudos in assonant and unrimed Italianate verse, in which the agudo was not condemned so early nor so completely as in rimed verse, we discover the results set forth in the following tables:

Volume and page

Comedia Type of verse (Harten-Lines Agudos edition

in BAE)

La gran Cenobia ............ endechas I, 197a 104 4 (3.8%) Judas Macabeo. ............. endechas I, 318c 102 1 (1.0%)

endechas I, 323c 42 1 ( 2.4%) El astr6logo fingido ........... endechas I, 584a 160 18 (11.2%) El jardin de Falerina ......... endechas (ass. in i) II, 303c 294 174 (59.2%)

song in 7's II, 304c 4 3 (75%) Fieras afemina amor........... endechas (sung) II, 547c 32 5 (15.6%)

endechas (sung) II, 586a 84 3 ( 3.6%) El laurel de Apolo............ endechas (ass. in i; partly sung) II, 662a 220 131 (59.5%)

endechas (ass. in i; agudo 11 II, 663c 52 29 (55.8%) four times)

endechas (partly sung) II, 671a 38 3 ( 7.9%) La piirpura de la rosa......... endechas (ass. in i; 9 pairs of 7's II, 679a 238 154 (64.7%)

and 11's in i ass.) Celos aun del aire matan ....... endechas (11's at intervals) III, 473a 354 23 ( 6.5%)

assonant 7, 7, 7, 11 strophes III, 483a 76 8 (10.5%) Ni amor se libra de amor...... endechas III, 670b 202 3 ( 1.5%) La estatua de Prometeo ........ endechas (ass. in i) III, 713a 184 115 (62.5%) La aurora en Copacabana ...... endechas (ass. in i; largely sung) IV, 259a 80 63 (78.7%) Fineza contra fineza ........... endechas (broken by songs) IV, 268c 30 2 ( 6.7%) Duelos de amor y lealtad ....... endechas (ass. in i; broken by IV, 304a 162 100 (61.8%)

songs) Hado y divisa de Leonido y Mar-

fisa.................... endechas (sung) IV, 357b 24 1 ( 4.2%) endechas (ass. in i) IV, 388c 78 50 (64.1%)

1 "Agudos and esdrujulos in Italianate verse in the Golden Age," in PMLA, 1939, LIV, 678 ff. Cf. John T. Reid, "Notes on the History of the verso esdrijulo," in Hispanic Review, 1939, VII, 277-294.

SOp. cit., p. 283. 157

This content downloaded from 148.206.159.132 on Thu, 12 Dec 2013 18:15:34 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

158 HISPANIC REVIEW: VOL. X, 1942

Volume and page Auto sacramental Type of verse (Pando ageLines Agudos

Mier's edition)

A Maria el coraz6n........... endechas (some 11's) I, 73 324 26 ( 8.0%) endechas I, 77 8 1 (12.5%)

Psiquis y Cupido (Madrid).... endechas (ass. in 6) I, 293 222 145 (65.3%) Psiquis y Cupido (Toledo)...... endechas (ass. in ? ) II, 60 160 92 (57.5%) El verdadero Dios Pan ........ ass. 7's and 11's (usually each 4th III, 65 226 9 ( 4.0%)

line 11) El santo rey D. Fernando (Pt. II) endechas (ass. in 6) III, 241 68 48 (70.6%)

assonant 7, 7, 7, 11 strophes in 6 III, 262 16 10 (62.5%) Suefios hay que verdad son ..... ass. 7's and 11's III, 278 20 1 ( 5%)

ass. 7's and 11's III, 280 24 2 ( 8.3%) El maestrazgo del Toisn ...... endechas (ass. in i; one agudo 11 III, 420 44 24 (54.5%)

repeated at intervals) El valle de la zarzuela......... four 7's in passage of romance; IV, 51 4 2 (50%)

ass. in ? song in 5's and 7's IV, 69 6 2 (33.3%)

La lepra de Constantino ....... song, repeated, in 7's IV, 70 2 2 (100%) La vifia del Sefor............ song, repeated, in 5's and 7's IV, 160 2 2 (100%) El tesoro escondido endechas IV, 369 58 2 ( 3.5%) El jardin de Falerina ......... endechas (ass. in i) V, 184 358 222 (62.0%) El diablo mudo............... assonant 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 11 strophes; VI, 169 54 40 (74.1%)

br6ken; ass. in i El divino Orfeo. .............. endechas VI, 253 114 10 ( 8.8%)

Only passages containing agudos are included. Passages in non-rimed Italianate verse without agudos, though numerous, consist invariably of only a few lines.

We learn from our examination that agudos are present in all but the shortest passages of assonant or unrimed Italianate meter. Calder6n does not hesitate even to use agudo assonances, whereby half of the lines must necessarily be agudos. Nearly all of these assonances, however, are in i, which suggests a tendency to avoid other agudo assonances in Italianate verse. Apart from these assonances, only rarely is there any large number of agudos. In Judas Macabeo, we find but one agudo in a passage of 102 lines of endechas, and in Ni amor se libra de amor, there are only 3 agudos in a passage of 202 lines of the same meter. We conclude, therefore, that while Calder6n did occasionally make free use of agudos in non-rimed heptasyllabics and hendecasyllabics, he generally used them with strict parsimony except for the assonance in i.

In rimed verse, I find only one occurrence of agudos in the comedias. In El monstruo de los jardines (Hartzenbusch, IV, 232a), we find a pair of agudos in a passage of silvas:

"REY. ZQu6 ser6 este terror? ToDos. Prodigio, asombro, escindalo y horror."

There is no other case, in comedias or autos, of rimed agudos occurring in the company of llanos. Considering the imperfect character of Hart- zenbusch's edition, suspicion arises with regard to the authenticity of such a couplet. In the entremes, La Franchota, we do indeed find one instance of rimed agudos accompanying a llano in the lines (Hartzen- busch, IV, 640a):

This content downloaded from 148.206.159.132 on Thu, 12 Dec 2013 18:15:34 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

VARIA 159

"Monsiur de la Valeta, jPor qu6 me mata vui Si soy tan bon soldat En guerra cuanto tii? Lanturi, lanturti."

The burlesque character of this verse obviously constitutes a case apart. In the autos, though rimed agudos never accompany llanos, passages

written entirely in agudos are frequent. Agudos in rimed Italianate verse occur as shown in the following table:

Volume and page Auto sacramental Type of verse (Pando y Mier's Lines

edition)

La cena de Baltasar .............. octavas I, 210 88 Llamados y escogidos ............. sonnets I, 312 28 El nuevo palacio del Retiro ........ octavas II, 411 40 La lepra de Constantino ........... silvas IV, 86 53 La vida es sueno ................. silvas VI, 15 74 El pleito matrimonial ............. octavas VI, 40 48 El diablo mudo .................. silvas VI, 160 68 La cura y la enfermedad. .......... silvas VI, 196 68 La siembra del Seior ............. octavas VI, 284 48 La segunda esposa ............... silvas VI, 296 56 Las espigas de Ruth .............. sonnet VI, 373 14 El laberinto del mundo ............ octavas VI, 425 56

It is in the above-mentioned autos that Calder6n's applauded Italia- nate agudos occur. Men6ndez y Pelayo mentions specifically the passage in La cena de Baltasar.3 Since Miss Clarke writes: "Poems, especially sonnets, were at all times written completely in agudos or completely in esdrujulos," 4 these verses do not technically violate convention. But Miss Clarke describes such verses as a "tour de force," and they were generally confined to comic verse. With Calder6n, on the other hand, their use exclusively in autos suggests that in his mind they struck a note of special solemnity.5

Our general conclusions, then, are:

1) Calder6n only rarely used agudos freely in non-rimed Italianate verse, except for the i assonance.

2) He was thoroughly conservative with regard to the mingling of agudos and llanos in rimed Italianate verse.

3) His chief departure from the practice of his contemporaries lies in his lending a majestic and solemn quality, rather than a comic effect, to passages written entirely in agudos.

HARRY W. HILBORN Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia

3 Antologia de poetas liricos castellanos, XIII, 225. 4 Op. cit., p. 679. 5 See Adolfo de Castro, Poetas liricos de los siglos XVI y XVII, II (BAE,

42), xxxviii.

This content downloaded from 148.206.159.132 on Thu, 12 Dec 2013 18:15:34 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions