plik

Bulletin of the Comediantes •

2012

Vol. 64 No. 2

153

Cognitive Theories of Genre: The Prototype Effect
and Early Modern Spanish Tragedy

Barbara Simerka
Queens College, CUNY

inCe

its

advent

over two millennia ago, tragic drama has

captivated us: as audiences, readers, philosophers, and literary
scholars. At the close of the last century, there was a brief
decline of interest in genre theory as an academic enterprise,
when poststructuralist approaches shifted emphasis away from
the analysis of form in order to highlight issues of ideology

and identity. Currently, we are witnessing a rebirth and reconsideration of a
genre-oriented theory of tragedy, often informed by the insights of materialist
and postmodern studies. Recent advances in cognitive study have also brought
to  light  new  knowledge  about  the  human  categorization  processes,  such  as
the  prototype  effect,  that  can  inform  genre  theory.  In  the  present  essay,  I
will  use  these  developments  in  genre  study  and  prototype  theory  as  points
of departure to offer an extended review of the anthology Hacia la tragedia
áurea: Lecturas para un nuevo milenio (2007), edited by Frederick de Armas,
Luciano  García-Lorenzo,  and  Enrique  García  Santo-Tomás.

Prototype theories

of categorization provide insights into both the history and current status of
tragedy theory, illuminating such diverse aspects as the enduring legacy of
Aristotelian approaches, how the canon of prized tragedies changes over time,
and the status of hybrid dramatic forms.

Over the past two decades, cognitive psychologists have undertaken a

thorough reconsideration of the psychological, cultural, and social factors that
influence the processes of category formation as an intellectual process. One
of the leading figures in this field, George Lakoff unites research from various
strands of cognitive neuroscience in order to propose a new interdisciplinary
model of categorization as mental and social activities. In his groundbreaking
study, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, Lakoff asserts that the classical
model of categorization, based on the identification of “shared properties,” is
not incorrect but incomplete (5-7). The new paradigm of prototype theory,
associated most strongly with the work of Eleanor Rosch, takes into account
such factors as preferences within any given category. This approach reveals

154

Bulletin of the Comediantes •

2012

Vol. 64 No. 2

___________________________________________________________Barbara Simerka

that  category  formation  is  neither  disembodied  nor  completely  objective
(Lakoff  15;  Rosch,  “Reclaiming”  62-64).  Rosch’s  cross-cultural  research  also
indicates  that  categorization  processes  are  socially  constructed  and  depend
upon highly variant notions of the relationship between material objects and
human  perception  (“Reclaiming”  65-66).  Because  the  assignment  of  generic
labels to dramatic texts is in its essence a taxonomical activity, these cognitivist
insights  are  of  immense  value  to  comedia  scholars  engaged  in  the  ongoing
effort to determine the nature of tragic dramaturgy in early modern Spain, and
to those interested in metacriticism of that enterprise.

Classical theories of categorization depict prospective members as

belonging  to  a  group  or  not,  depending  upon  the  presence  or  absence  of
requisite  attributes.  Lakoff  observes  that  such  paradigms  depict  categories
via  spatial  metaphors,  with  each  grouping  as  an  “abstract  container”  and
individuals as “inside” or “outside” (6). Lakoff and Mark Johnson have identified
the  container  metaphor  as  a  key  component  of  evidence  for  embodied
cognition (Metaphors 92-94). Their study, Metaphors We Live By, links human
understanding of the world to a series of paradigms that are specifically related
to  the  nature  of  the  human  body.  A  containment  metaphor  is  an  embodied
metaphor  in  which  some  concept  is  represented  as  having  an  inside  and
outside, and as capable of holding something else. Embodied cognition helps to
explain classical approaches to literary genre theory that likewise state or imply
generic form as a container. Traditionally, the genre-theory critic has been seen
as  an  expert  sorter  who  places  prized  texts  within  the  most  desired  generic
boxes, while exiling deficient candidates to less prized containers. One of the
most  interesting  aspects  of  taxonomy  is  the  process  through  which  certain
forms of popular fiction, which are initially excluded from all receptacles and
hence  denied  status  as  “literature,”  eventually  obtain  entrée  into  the  club.
Prototype theory enables us to explore more deeply the way readers and critics
conceptualize  the  members  within  each  container  as  well  as  relationships
among various textual “cookie jars.” The binary classical model of inclusion or
exclusion, with no middle grounds or shades of gray, also helps to understand
the anxiety provoked by hybrid entities such as Golden Age tragicomedy

In his analysis of taxonomical processes, Lakoff notes that the “genus” level

functions as the default position for folk categories, the instinctual models of
taxonomy that all cultures, even preliterate, ones, use to organize their worlds.
This

is “the level of biological discontinuity at which most human beings most

easily perceive, agree on, learn and remember” (Lakoff 35). This is also the level
at which cultures all over the world agree, as they do not at more specific or
more general level categories. In literary taxonomy, the categories of narrative,
drama, and poetry occupy the genus level; genre scholarship tends to agree
about the distinctions that separate these entities, and so

this level has not

been an area of focus. Lakoff also notes that at the species level of taxonomy,

Bulletin of the Comediantes •

2012

Vol. 64 No. 2

155

Barbara Simerka __________________________________________________________

specialized training is needed both to recognize differences and to have an
interest in debating category assignments (35). The study of literary genre, such
as the determination of the nature and boundaries of tragic drama, occurs at the
species level of very narrow or fine levels of distinction; here, the insights of
prototype theory are especially valuable.

The model of prototypes and graded structures is based upon the premise

that the classical model is flawed in its failure to account for variations in status
among group members within a given container or taxonomy. Research across
many folk categories and across cultures has shown that not all members of a
given category are held in equal esteem (Rosch, “Reclaiming” 64-66). Eleanor
Rosch’s  research  on  folk  categorization  of  colors,  birds,  and  even  types  of
furniture  demonstrates  that  people  consistently  judge  some  members  of  a
category to be better or more representative examples than others. Categories
thus inevitably have a gradient structure that ranks members on a continuum or
scale from central to peripheral; this system of graded preferences is known as
the prototype effect (Lakoff 83; Rosch, “Reclaiming” 64). For example, within
the category of birds, robins are consistently judged to be more representative
than  chickens;  hence,  we  would  say  that  robins,  as  the  prototype  bird,  are
central  while  chickens  occupy  a  more  marginal  position  within  that  graded
structure  (Lakoff  40-41;  Rosch,  “Reclaiming”  44).  Within  the  field  of  literary
studies, this form of weighted taxonomy is readily observable; in the case of
tragedy theory, Aristotle’s essay not only describes a set of typical attributes,
but it also clearly delineates a gradient structure of more and less representative
tragic authors and texts.

Lakoff notes that while the taxonomies of the natural world are mostly

transparent,  the  central  features  and  the  limits  of  radial  structures  for  many
social  and  institutional  categories  are  not  human  universals  but  rather
relativistic, culturally determined structures. Such taxonomies must be learned
in the processes of social interpellation and are often the subjects of vociferous
debate (83). As the controversies of recent decades have shown, educational
interventions  concerning  the  norms  and  taxonomies  of  the  liberal  arts  can
become a politically charged and highly fraught arena, in which generic labels
such as “autobiography” and “testimony” played a central role in reshaping the
literary canon (Bolt).

Within a graded system, cue validity is the process by which we assess

the  various  features  of  an  object  and  determine  which  characteristics  are
deemed  most  important  (Rosch,  “Principles”  37-40).  At  the  genus  level  of
categorization, cue validity is uncomplicated: all chairs have a back and legs,
and  all  drama  includes  words  spoken  by  an  actor  to  an  audience.  At  expert
levels of subordinate categorization, however, gradient systems come into play;
attributes that are deemed as central to a prototype will be the ones that have
the highest cue validity. In the case of a theory of tragedy, scholars have long

156

Bulletin of the Comediantes •

2012

Vol. 64 No. 2

___________________________________________________________Barbara Simerka

prioritized a set of features for which Aristotle established high cue validity,
such as serious subject matter; the hamartia associated with a noble tragic hero;
anagnorisis; and the tragic reactions of pity, fear, and catharsis. The fact that
literary scholars across the Western world are expected to know the meaning
of these terms in Greek is evidence of their long-standing centrality. Those
who seek inclusion of a nontypical text within the tragedy taxonomy—or to
improve a marginal play’s position within that graded system—often do so by
offering reconsiderations of Aristotle’s key terms.

Many taxonomical systems include one further level of gradience. In

debates  concerning  both  basic  membership  and  gradient  ranking  within  a
category,  some  members  hold  a  special  status  as  “paragons”  or  “prestige
prototypes” (Lakoff 87). Lakoff characterizes the paragon or prestige members
of a prototype as those that have been awarded significant social recognition,
such as prizes, awards, or inclusion in halls of fame (87). These paragons are
highly revered within a prototype even if they are not typical members; early
examples  or  “generators”  of  a  new  category  are  often  considered  paragons
(Lakoff 12). In the case of literary study, the Nobel, Pulitzer, or related prizes
convey  paragon  status  to  contemporary  texts  and  authors;  for  earlier  texts,
paragon status is linked to canonicity and inclusion in widely used anthologies
as  well  as  on  reading  lists.  Debates  concerning  the  nature  of  early  modern
Spanish  tragedy  are  particularly  acute,  precisely  because,  within  the  canon
of Western literature, tragedy occupies a central space as one of the seminal
generators  of  literature  in  Ancient  Greece,  as  well  as  holding  the  central
location within the radial structure of dramatic forms. As a prestige or cherished
prototype,  the  label  tragedy  thus  confers  status  on  any  text  that  bears  it;  in
addition,  literary  periods  that  produce  a  significant  number  of  plays  that  are
categorized as tragic—and thus as central rather than peripheral to the history
and development of drama—are themselves given a more central place within
the graded structure of the canon. In the Tragedia áurea volume, all of these
new approaches to tragedy are employed; several of the essays confirm the cue
validity of Aristotle’s key terms, some seek to redefine the established cues, and
others offer new, non- or even anti-Aristotelian criteria by which they seek to
establish cue validity.

The prototype effect helps to explain why Lope and Calderón do not

occupy a more central place in the Great Books curriculum, as compared to
dramatists such as Racine who did not write in English. Here, two different
prototype systems are at work.

The cue validity that Hispanists have historically

employed when selecting the greatest and most representative dramatic works
of Spain’s Golden Age does not overlap in a consistent way with that used
to create the gradient system for Western drama. Spanish dramas whose cue
qualities align with the tragedy prototype are not esteemed among aureístas
because of perceived deficiencies concerning other attributes; on the other

Bulletin of the Comediantes •

2012

Vol. 64 No. 2

157

Barbara Simerka __________________________________________________________

hand, the mixed genre works by Lope and Calderón that are granted prestige
status as paragon comedias occupy a space at the outer edges of the world
drama gradient. For this reason, scholars of comparative literature

who study

prototypical early modern tragedies are likely to overlook most Spanish dramas.
And, because literary anthologies are organized according to prototype schema,
they are less likely to include works that are recognized as well written and
exciting but that do not fit within the established hierarchy of prototypes and
paragons. The contributors to the Tragedia áurea volume reflect upon this
quandary and offer a variety of (contradictory) solutions.

Two of the essays in the volume raise issues that are relevant to the study

of tragedy as a paragon prototype. Florence D’Artois analyzes the way in which
Lope de Vega marketed himself and his own writings in the early years of Philip
IV’s reign, when he sought an elevated court position such as royal historian
(293). D’Artois notes a change in the types of texts that Lope included in the
Partes volumes of collected works published between 1622 and 1627, asserting
that Lope moved away from presenting himself as an acclaimed popular author
of mixed genre, comic-inflected dramas because that identity would not further
his political goals (294). Instead, Lope’s new “estrategia promocional” entailed
collecting and presenting for publication volumes that featured mythic, epic,
and tragic pieces in order to showcase “obras destaca[das] por su grandeza y
seriedad”  (294-95).  What  D’Artois  points  to  here  is  Lope’s  awareness  of  the
differences in criteria between public theaters and official institutions. The shift
that Lope initiated reflects the paragon status that tragedy was accorded by the
literary  establishment  of  his  day  and  the  desirability  of  highlighting  his  own
abilities in that genre in order to receive serious consideration for a royal post.
Lope’s (failed) attempt at self-fashioning as a tragedian reminds us that, even
though  prototypical  tragedy  was  not  in  vogue  with  corral  audiences,  it  was
nonetheless esteemed by official taste makers of his day.

Santiago Fernández Mosquera highlights the enduring importance of the

designation of “tragic,” if not tragedy per se, within the modern academic world,
for improving the status of hybrid plays and the reputation of scholars who work
on those texts. He observes that, when scholars such as Alexander A. Parker
and Bruce W. Wardropper sought to reconsider the gradient position of mixed
genre works in the Calderonian corpus, which had not been accorded centrality
within the comedia canon by the founding fathers, they often emphasized “el
descubrimiento de los valores trágicos de sus comedias…[para] comprobar su
valor crítico” (162). (Francisco Ruiz Ramón follows a similar approach in his
study of Calderonian tragedy). Fernández Mosquera notes a related trend in de
Armas’s and Margaret R.

Greer’s studies of mythological drama and posits that

attempts to gain recognition for the tragic elements of underappreciated drama
might also be linked to “el mayor prestigio ‘intelectual’ que el estudio de la
tragedia tiene” (163). The essays by Fernández Mosquera and D’Artois confirm

158

Bulletin of the Comediantes •

2012

Vol. 64 No. 2

___________________________________________________________Barbara Simerka

the underlying premise of the volume as a whole: that because of tragedy’s
continued status as the most cherished literary prototype, scholars who study
the dramatic production of any era or culture are attracted—even compelled—
to engage with this siren song.

Hispanists undertook a large scale reconsideration of early modern drama

in  the  1960s  and  70s  in  order  to  refute  the  traditional  belief  that  Spain’s
Golden  Age  dramatists  produced  few  authentically  tragic  plays;  prototype
models of categorization can help us to explore the cognitive processes that
underlie genre theory and that enable the evolution or modification of literary
taxonomies. Raymond MacCurdy was one of the leading figures of that moment;
he noted that prior assertions of the paucity of tragedy derived from the way
in which these scholars “understood” tragedy, alluding to a broad consensus
concerning the gradient system for cue validity in tragic drama that he proposed
to dispute (19). MacCurdy devotes the entire first chapter of The Tragic Fall
to  the  “problem”  of  Golden  Age  Spanish  tragedy:  the  debate  over  whether
such an entity even exists. He points to Federico Sainz de Robles’s assertion,
in his 1949 Diccionario,  that there was no true tragic drama in Renaissance
Spain, as representative of a broad critical consensus that denied, ignored, or
marginalized Golden Age tragedy (18). He cites theories of a unique national
Spanish character and of a distinct sociocultural landscape as the factors that
scholars posit to explain the dearth they claim exists (18-19). One of the most
common explanations is that the Counter Reformation version of Catholicism,
with  its  emphasis  on  death  as  a  transient  phase  on  the  pathway  to  eternal
life,  was  completely  incompatible  with  the  tragic  view  of  death  (MacCurdy
23).  In  addition,  David  Hildner  points  to  the  enduring  impact  of  Voltaire’s
neoclassically influenced critique of comedia authors as flawed or even failed
tragedians (411).

The ghost of this condemnation from the past continues to haunt

contemporary scholars; in her essay on Rojas Zorrilla, María Reyna Ruiz takes
pains to reiterate that many of the works penned by this dramatist do indeed
merit the label of tragedy according to classical precepts. Likewise, Christopher
Weimer’s  study  of  La  hija  del  aire  highlights  the  play’s  strict  adherence  to
Aristotelian norms. He delineates the central importance of the three oracular
figures (including one who bears the name Tiresias) that appear across the two
parts of the diptych, who establish the classical cue quality of an inescapable
tragic destiny for Semíramis and the other main characters. Weimer emphasizes
a  very  pagan  notion  of  fate  in  order  to  bestow  the  laudatory  designation  of
“tragedia verdadera” on these plays (405). Several other authors in the volume,
including  Margaret  Greer  and  Evangelina  Rodríguez  Cuadros,  also  express
vehement support for the existence of truly tragic drama according to classical
cue qualities; this insistence points to a lingering anxiety of absence or inferiority
in  the  comedia  corpus,  as  well  as  to  the  indefatigable  persistence  of  the

Bulletin of the Comediantes •

2012

Vol. 64 No. 2

159

Barbara Simerka __________________________________________________________

Poetics as the paragon theoretical model. These essays, as well as the studies of
Renaissance drama considered below, substantiate that Spanish dramatists did
produce tragic dramas across the entire gilded century and that these tragedies
are meritorious according to even the most strict prototype scale.

One key point of MacCurdy’s study of privado drama was to reconceptualize

primary  tragic  terms  and  cue  validity  so  that  early  modern  dramatizations  of
“tragic  falls”  could  gain  admission  to  the  tragic  radial  structure;  his  body  of
work on Rojas Zorrilla employed a similar strategy. This tactic of aligning plays
more closely with the cue qualities of tragic prototypes, by redefining the cue
qualities themselves or by recalibrating their importance, is echoed in several of
the essays in the Tragedia áurea anthology. Jonathan Ellis enriches MacCurdy’s
model  of  the  tragic  fall  in  his  study  of La  gran  Cenobia,  as  he  explores  the
epistemological quandaries the protagonists confront. Ellis’s vision of tragedy
moves  beyond  Aristotelian  questions  of  fate  and  individual  hamartia  as  he
delineates  the  Stoic  and  Skeptical  elements  in  the  text  that  undermine  the
possibility  of  true  knowledge  and  provide  the  framework  for  a  tragic  vision
(369). Similarly, in his study of En la vida todo es verdad y todo mentira, David
Hildner  disputes  the  judgment  of  Voltaire  and  other  neoclassical  critics  that
Calderón’s epistemological plays are too abstract to count as true tragedies (413).
Hildner reconfigures the cue quality of tragic anguish to include philosophical
quandaries  as  sources  of  genuine  anguish  and  pathos,  and  also  expands  the
range of activities that define the tragic hero to include intellectual struggles
(415). Rodríguez Cuadros notes that Thomas Kyd’s notoriously brutal Spanish
Tragedy gave rise to an enduring stereotype of Iberian tragedy as irredeemably
sensationalist and nonclassical (187). She concedes that this corpus lacks many
of the prototypical elements but insists that most plays do conform to the most
central cue quality--eliciting the tragic responses of empathy and terror (188).
She cites the centrality of “la teoría de los afectos” in theorists ranging from
Aristotle  to  Alonso  López  Pinciano  and  Jusepe  Antonio  Gonzalez  de  Salas  to
Ramón del Valle Inclán to substantiate this claim (186-204). Terry Eagleton’s
recent  study  of  tragedy,  Sweet  Violence,  also  assigns  über-paragon  status  to
such responses, in his bid to obtain tragic status for the excluded category of
real life horrors, such as genocidal massacres (15, 19). Rodríguez Cuadros and
Eagleton focus a laser beam on one particular tragic cue quality and relegate all
others to the periphery in order to make their point.

In her introduction to the recent essay collection Rethinking Tragedy, Rita

Felski points out that critics have long wrestled with the problem of works
that convey a “tragic sensibility” although they do not conform to a strict
Aristotelian model in terms of form, style, and content. Her primary examples
are Nietzsche’s championing of opera as an ideal vehicle for this sensibility, as
well as modern film genres such as film noir or Sirkian melodrama with a “tragic
resonance” (6-7). She also advocates including contemporary plays where the

160

Bulletin of the Comediantes •

2012

Vol. 64 No. 2

___________________________________________________________Barbara Simerka

suffering  protagonist  is  a  “shopkeeper”  rather  than  an  aristocrat  or  monarch
in  the  tragic  gradient  system,  as  well  as  recognition  of  tragic  narrative,  such
as Faulkner’s novels (9-10). Felski distinguishes between tragedy as a dramatic
form  and  “the  tragic”  (often  found  in  contemporary  philosophy),  which  she
characterizes as a “thought pattern[,] … a prism through which to grasp the
antimonies  of  the  human  condition”  (2-3).  Eagleton  likewise  dedicates  two
chapters  of  Sweet  Violence  to  explorations  of  the  tragic  dimensions  of  non-
Aristotelian contemporary literature: drama with lower born characters as well
as  nondramatic  narrative  forms.  Eagleton  and  Felski  and  the  contributors  to
the Rethinking volume thus participate in the ongoing process of expanding
and reconfiguring tragic cue qualities in order to link the “resonances” in early
modern and recent literature and media with the privileged attributes of classical
drama. Often, they do so in order to stake a claim for recognition or improved
gradient status among currently marginalized texts or forms of expression. In
this volume, Carmen Mattza’s analysis of the tragic dimensions of the Marcela
and  Grisóstomo  episode  in  Don  Quijote  is  the  most  similar  to  Eagleton  and
Felski’s approaches. Although neither the novel as a whole nor the individual
episode  suffer  from  critical  neglect  or  taxonomical  marginalization,  Mattza’s
essay succeeds in shedding new light on the generic dimension of the novella
and offers new possibilities for intertextual study of these characters and their
situation.

Citation of these bold claims concerning the tragic dimension of nondramatic

texts  serves  a  dual  purpose  within  this  review:  both  to  contextualize  the
reconsiderations of tragic cue qualities offered in the Tragedia áurea volume
and to show that the rethinking proposed there is very much in line with larger
trends in the field. Specifically, a number of the studies presented continue the
decades-long discussion among aureístas concerning the possibility of a tragic
designation for mixed genre plays, especially those with substantial humor or
a  partially  happy  ending.  As  the  chapters  and  essays  in  Sweet  Violence  and
Rethinking  Tragedy  demonstrate,  it  is  productive  and  illuminating  to  study
tragedy and tragic texts within a single framework.

Francisco Cascales and Francisco Martínez de la Rosa, writing in the

seventeenth  century  and  nineteenth  century,  respectively,  focus  on  the
comedia  as  a  highly  contaminated  and  hence  defective  form  of  dramatic
representation. They employ an aesthetic of generic purity and use the classical
form  of  container  taxonomy  to  exclude  from  the  tragedy  gradient  any  plays
that  contain  any  comic  elements.  Both  blame  Lope  de  Vega’s  popularization
of polygeneric drama for killing off tragedy just as Spain was entering its most
illustrious era of literary production (MacCurdy 19). For most of the twentieth
century,  scholarship  continued  these  lines  of  thought,  including  the  well-
received  dramatic  studies  of  Karl  Vossler  and  Esteban  Pujals  (MacCurdy  24-
25). James Parr’s After Its Kind sought to provide a more nuanced perspective

Bulletin of the Comediantes •

2012

Vol. 64 No. 2

161

Barbara Simerka __________________________________________________________

of mixed genre drama and proposed a four-part gradient system including
“serious drama” (75, 90). Although his model has been widely cited in studies
of individual works published over the past two decades, it has not caught on
as a replacement for the binary Aristotelian model. Prototype theory illuminates
the enduring influence of paragon texts, literary and theoretical alike, and thus
helps us to understand why attempts to reconfigure dramatic genre gradients
are so often Sisyphean endeavors. Refutation of these claims, and new
conceptualizations of tragedy that accord a more favorable gradient position to
hybrid works, is a central focus of the Tragedia áurea volume.

From the perspective of genre study, La destrucción de Numancia may

very well be the most controversial play within the early modern Spanish
canon, in that its relation to tragedy has attracted sustained attention over many
decades. Cervantes’s dramatic work straddles the border between the center
and periphery of the comedia gradient for a variety of reasons. It is considered
the best serious drama by the paragon author of Iberian literature. Like Lope’s
paragon tragicomedies, it stages an iconic moment in Spanish history. It is also a
highly engaging tale of love, valor, and sacrifice. Nonetheless, the play’s generic
status has been seen as problematic for a variety of reasons. As the essays by
Edward Friedman and Margarita Peña note, those troubling aspects include a
mass suicide that is “monstrous” and unchristian; allegorical figures associated
with (inferior) medieval drama; and an optimistic closing prophecy that deviates
from the most prized form of tragic emplotment. The four essays on the volume
that investigate this play present a microcosm of possible approaches to hybrid
drama with prominent tragic components.

Peña’s essay addresses all of the above concerns in order to propose her

vision  of  “la  esencia  de  la  tragedia”  in  Cervantes.  Peña  focuses  on  refuting
the  criticism  that  the  play’s  tragic  status  is  endangered  because  Cervantes
dramatizes allegorical figures who predict a glorious future for the descendants
of  the  doomed  Numantians.  She  proposes  that,  despite  the  optimistic
prophecies, the staging of absolute “miserias, tristezas, y llantos” corresponds
to the prestigious and central (Aristotelian) model of “tragedia patética” rather
than to the less admired generic mixtures found in tragicomic works (63). Peña
further denigrates tragicomedy as peripheral by associating it with the dramatic
practices and theoretical treatises of sixteenth-century Italy rather than classical
Athens  (63).  In  addition,  she  aligns  Cervantes’s  use  of  allegory  with  that  of
Calderón,  the  paragon  of  Spanish  tragic  dramaturgy  (68).  She  also  makes
extensive use of taxonomic arguments that depend upon the prototype model
in order to defend the tragic gradient status of Numancia. Peña’s approach can
be characterized as an exemplary version of conventional defenses of the tragic
merit of hybrid dramas; she supports the traditional norms and definitions of
tragic cue validity and focuses attention on those moments of the drama that do
conform to these norms.

162

Bulletin of the Comediantes •

2012

Vol. 64 No. 2

___________________________________________________________Barbara Simerka

Martha García offers a potentially promising paradigm of order and chaos

within  Numancia.  She  relies,  however,  on  medieval  rather  than  classical
constructions  of  the  tragic  hero  and  his  social  milieu,  and  to  Aristotle’s
Rhetoric  rather  than  his  Poetics,  but  she  does  not  use  this  as  a  point  of
departure for proposing a new interpretation of early modern tragic poetics
based  on  medieval  critical  texts.  While  her  study  offers  interesting  insights
into  the  play’s  themes,  she  does  not  truly  engage  with  the  major  lines  of
inquiry  into  its  nature  as  tragedy.  For  example,  she  alludes  to  Scipio  as  an
antagonist  who  experiences  anagnorisis  but  does  not  address  Frederick  de
Armas’s classic essay, which posits the Roman general as the true tragic hero
(Peña 258, de Armas 35). Further, in her discussion of the aspects of Senecan
tragedy  present  in  this  work,  she  completely  disregards  the  depictions  of
horrific  violence  that  are  normally  at  the  forefront  of  any  discussion  of  the
Hispano-Roman author’s influence on sixteenth-century dramaturgy. García’s
view of Cervantes’s siege drama as an exploration of chaos and injustice could
be used as a point of departure to enter into a productive dialogue with the
current wave of ideological reconceptualizations of tragic cue qualities. The
essay does not reference this trend, however, and does not, in fact, appear to
assert that the play stages an oppositional stance. García’s highly idiosyncratic
reading suffers from a lack of direct engagement with either the main points
of contention surrounding this much-studied play or with any of the current
trends in tragedy theory.

Friedman notes many of same irregularities in the plot and tone of

Cervantes’s dramatization of Spanish history as specified above. He does not
support Peña’s vision of a predominantly pathetic and hence tragic modality,
however; rather, he emphasizes the ways in which Numancia evokes both
pagan and Christian models of tragedy and redemption in order to deconstruct
them. Friedman links this experimental poetics of drama to the innovations in
Lope’s El castigo sin venganza and El caballero de Olmedo, and to Cervantes’s
subsequent deconstruction of narrative form in Don Quijote. By highlighting the
play’s meta-artistic qualities rather than its Aristotelian or Senecan components,
Friedman offers an alternate set of cue validities that do confirm Numancia’s

central position within the world drama prototype system. He bases this claim
for prototype status on the aesthetics of self-referential literature as an alternate
but equally prestigious form of literary cue validity rather than aligning the play
with conventional tragedies. Studying this work as a metadrama allows new
comparisons to a variety of prestigious authors, from Euripides to Shakespeare
to Pirandello. Friedman’s essay demonstrates the benefits to be derived from
shifting consideration of a text from one gradient system to another, in order to
illuminate overlooked textual elements and to create connections to alternate
paragon texts or forms. Esther Fernández also emphasizes the importance of
metatheatrical aspects in her consideration of La venganza de Tamar. Further

Bulletin of the Comediantes •

2012

Vol. 64 No. 2

163

Barbara Simerka __________________________________________________________

study of the symbiotic relations between tragic resonances and self-reflexive
drama is likely to be a productive endeavor.

Benjamín Torrico combines several of these approaches in his study of the

siege dramas of Cervantes and Lope de Vega. He follows traditional Aristotelian
paradigms in declaring these plays to be “comedias bélicas” rather than true
tragedies,  because  the  tragic  protagonist  is  a  collective  force  rather  than  an
individual and because audience empathy cannot be sufficiently engaged toward
characters  whose  descendants  will  enjoy  spectacular  triumphs.  In  addition,
moments of recognition should occur during tragic rather than comic scenes.
He also notes the metadramatic aspects of these plays, which stage deliberate
subversions of classical norms, “nada puede mostrar mayor conocimiento de
tales  preceptos  que  la  capacidad  de  subvertirlos”  (283).  Torrico  views  the
siege dramas as examples of a new post-tragic aesthetic, in which conventional
elements “son más bien utilizados como herramientas para la formación de un
drama nuevo” (282).

Torrico’s conclusion is in accord with many of the other essays in this volume,

which depict Golden Age theater as a forum in which dramatists continually
sought to innovate by modifying and recombining tragic and non-tragic forms in
countless ways. Javier Lorenzo links the double-voiced representation of Raquel
in Judía de Toledo to Girard’s model of the scapegoat whose death restores
communal  harmony  (318).  Daniel  Lorca  evaluates  the  mixture  of  comic  and
tragic forces, of death and marriage, in El  dueño  de  las  estrellas in order to
designate the work as “casi trágico” (348). Although, as noted above, Hildner
affirms the prominent tragic resonances in En la vida todo es verdad, the subtitle
“tragedia  o  farsa?”  points  to  generic  hybridity  as  an  additional  complication.
As  Kerry  Wilks  notes,  although  generic  experimentation  was  highly  popular
with corral audiences, contemporary theater attendees encounter difficulties
when  viewing  plays  that  stage  jarring  juxtapositions  of  comic  and  tragic
modes. In particular, her research indicates that the comic and amorous scenes
that  dominate  the  first  two  acts  of  El  caballero  de  Olmedo  create  audience
expectations  of  a  happy  ending.  Feedback  from  students  reveals  that  typical
modern-day  audiences  (as  opposed  to  theater  specialists)  cannot  appreciate
the logic of the tragic dénouement. Clearly, the cue qualities that Aristotle laid
out in his Poetics concerning generic purity still cast a long shadow over the
literary education landscape. Thus, certain types of hybrid drama can evoke a
tepid reception, despite postmodernism’s attempted resuscitation of hybridity
as a new paragon cue quality, complete with the catchy new label of pastiche.

Several essays in this volume offer new paradigms for exploring the tragic

dimensions  in  marginalized,  hybrid  dramatic  subgenres.  De  Armas  analyzes
Lope’s  mythological  play,  Adonis  y  Venus,  which  Lope  himself  labeled  as
a  tragedy,  but  which  has  not  been  considered  primarily  tragic  by  modern
scholars  due  to  the  profusion  of  lighthearted  erotic  and  pastoral  scenes  (99-

164

Bulletin of the Comediantes •

2012

Vol. 64 No. 2

___________________________________________________________Barbara Simerka

100).  In  order  to  reconceptualize  this  play  as  tragic,  de  Armas  emphasizes
ekphrastic analysis, in particular the references to Titian’s rendition of classical
myth. He cites art historian Thomas Purrfarken, who writes that most of Titian’s
mythological  paintings,  which  are  generally  viewed  as  erotic  in  tone,  are,  in
fact, tragic representations of the Metamorphoses (100). Purrfarken asserts that
Titian concealed tragic messages beneath a veneer of sexuality, and de Armas
finds  the  same  intent  in  Lope’s  drama.  He  asserts  that  “el  eros  juguetón  y  el
hado fatídico se entremezclan para crear un nuevo género, una nueva manera
de concebir la tragedia” and aligns the juxtaposition of pastoral interludes and
doomed  love  with  Titian’s  chiaroscuro  tactics  (101-02).  De  Armas  associates
the  metamorphoses  imposed  upon  each  pair  of  lovers  with  the  Aristotelian
tragic elements of predestination and peripeteia (107). His essay demonstrates
the value of ekphrastic approaches for the discovery of tragic elements within
mythological drama and can also be analyzed as a continuation of de Armas’s
endeavors to obtain for ekphrastic study a more central position on the literary
theory gradient.

Santiago Fernández Mosquera also affirms the tragic potentialities within

mythological plays. His study of Los tres mayores prodigios rejects the traditional
dictum that a tragic play must close on an unhappy note. Instead, Fernández
Mosquera emphasizes the social function of dramas written for court festivals,
where protocols of ambience dictated jubilant concluding scenes. This study
underlines the significance of the earlier scenes of jealousy and suspicion that
point to honor tragedy and follows Parr’s model in characterizing the play as an
ultimately “serious” work that combines tragic and ludic elements. He repeats
the  adjective  serious  on  several  occasions  in  order  to  establish  the  modality
that  Calderón  achieves  as  distinct  from  “aquellos  malos  poetas  cortesanos
que  componían  frívolamente  comedias  de  severo  trasfondo  trágico”  (176).
Fernández Mosquera does not seek an all-encompassing reconsideration for the
gradient status of court festival dramas as a subgenre that incorporates tragic
classical  themes.  Rather,  he  proposes  a  criterion  for  evaluating  the  gradient
status of more and less successful uses of the tragic mode within this hybrid
form.

Melchora Romanos studies three plays of the 1630s, in which Rojas Zorrilla

reconceives the Senecan heroines Cleopatra, Lucretia, Procne, and Philomela.
Romanos  characterizes  these  plays  as  “reconversiones”  because  the  addition
of comic characters and amorous subplots leads to an entirely new model of
generic  plurality,  which  she  deems  “comedia  heroica”  (146).  She  views  this
new mode of serious drama as a specific response to the quandary dramatists
faced  in  this  decade:  audience  interest  in  classical  tragedy  had  reawakened,
but with scant tolerance for the monogeneric plots and horrific violence that
had sunk the tragedies of Virués and his colleagues a half-century earlier (149).
Romanos affirms heroic comedy as an effective way for Rojas Zorrilla to update

Bulletin of the Comediantes •

2012

Vol. 64 No. 2

165

Barbara Simerka __________________________________________________________

classical tragedy in response to the tastes of a specific historical moment. Like
many  other  articles  in  this  volume,  Romanos’s  contribution  clears  the  path
for  reconsidering  the  status  of  currently  marginal  or  hybrid  subgenres  by
positioning them on the tragic gradient scale. All of these essays highlight the
importance  of  continued  study  of  generic  innovation  in  both  canonical  and
marginal texts, and confirm the potential of prototype theories to enrich genre
study.

Romanos’s essay also points to the other major trend within this volume,

which  entails  associating  tragedy  with  the  politics  of  court  and  empire
during the Hapsburg era. Over the course of the past three decades, we have
witnessed  a  major  recalibration  within  the  gradient  systems  of  all  forms  and
periods of literature, including early modern dramatic texts across the European
continent.  The  emergence  of  ideologically  oriented  approaches  to  textuality,
such as feminism, postcolonialism, and various forms of materialism, has altered
the gradient structure, such that cue validity is now granted to plot elements
or characters that appear to offer “oppositional” perspectives on social power
relations and the construction of subjectivity. In the early years of this movement,
new theories of tragedy emerged; Raymond Williams’s Modern Tragedy (1966)
was  followed  by  studies  of  early  modern  English  drama  such  as  Dollimore’s
Radical Tragedy (1984) and Catherine Belsey’s The Subject of Tragedy (1991).
Then after a decadelong fallow period, Eagleton’s Sweet Violence appeared in
2003. In addition to the reconsiderations of Aristotelian criteria discussed above,
Eagleton also advances the notion of tragedy as an articulation of ideological
paradigm shifts. In Sweet Tragedy, he describes tragedy as

an  essentially  transitional  form,  the  fruit  neither  of
cosmos  nor  chaos.  It  is  the  product  neither  of  faith
nor doubt, but of what one might call sceptical faith.
It may spring, for example, from the clash between
a  remembered  sense  of  value  and  what  seems  a
predatory, degenerate present. Tragic disenchantment
is possible because idealism still is. Or it may dramatize
the deadlock between the asphyxiating burden of the
past  and  a  wistful  striving  for  the  future,  between
which the present is squeezed to death. (45)

Eagleton  also  asserts  that  “tragedy  springs  not  from  violating  a  stable  order,
but  from  that  order  being  itself  caught  up  in  a  complex  transitional  crisis”
(143).  Here,  Eagleton  develops  a  line  of  thought  about  tragedy’s  potentially
oppositional ideological dimensions, previously offered in Jean-Pierre Vernant
and Pierre Vidal-Naquet’s studies of Athenian tragedy and the British-focused
studies of Williams (which he cites in the text) and Dollimore (relegated to a
footnote).

166

Bulletin of the Comediantes •

2012

Vol. 64 No. 2

___________________________________________________________Barbara Simerka

Over the past two decades, ideological readings of canonical Spanish

authors  have  earned  paragon  status  within  Hispanism;  the  MLA  book  prizes
awarded to George Mariscal and William Childers are one small example of this
trend. Thus, scholars who seek to improve the gradient status of early modern
tragic  works  now  have  a  new  set  of  ideologically  oriented  cues  to  address.
This  new  approach  has  been  particularly  important  for  reconsiderations  of
sixteenth-century works that have historically occupied a gradient position that
is the polar opposite of mixed genre comedias: no one has ever doubted that
they are tragedies. They have been marginalized, however, as too Senecan, too
derivative, and dramatically unrewarding. The shift in emphasis allows several
scholars in the volume to stake new claims concerning the status of neglected
and peripheral authors.

Alfredo Hermenegildo has dedicated his entire career to the revalorization

of sixteenth-century tragedy, publishing half a dozen books on this topic. While
his earliest work devoted scant attention to ideological concerns, the essay in
the Tragedia áurea volume provides an extended consideration. Hermenegildo
explores the critical depiction of Spanish imperialism and absolutism within
the plays of Cristóbal de Virués, Lupercio Leonardo de

Argensola, and Gabriel

Lobo  Lasso  de  la  Vega,  emphasizing  the  marginalized  subjectivities  of  these
writers who hailed from peripheral locales rather than the court metropolis. He
asserts that these provincial authors “denuncian la presencia de una autoridad
política  mal  ejercida,  de  un  monarca  convertido  en  sangriente  tirano”  and
links  their  critique  to  the  factionalism  that  produced  revolts  in  Aragón  and
the  Alpujarras  (30).  Hermenegildo  argues  that  these  oppositional  viewpoints
were a significant factor in the unfavorable reception that the plays received at
the moment of their initial production, in addition to the aesthetics of excess
(29). This essay offers a convincing case for enhancing the gradient position
of an entire group of plays and authors, by linking the oft-maligned Senecan
modality of violent, moralizing drama with esteemed contemporary discourses
of “radical tragedy.” Enrique García Santo-Tomás uses similar tactics to make
his case for reconsidering one specific Renaissance author’s gradient position,
beginning  with  his  suggestive  title,  “Virués,  nuestro  contemporáneo.”  Santo-
Tomás links biographical details of Virués’s achievement as a real-life military
hero  with  his  authorial  condemnations  of  the  brutal  military  practices  of  his
day. This essay, like Hermenegildo’s, associates the Senecan aesthetic of horror
tragedy with the politics of the era. Santo-Tomás affirms that Virués dramatizes
the excesses of warfare as practiced at this moment in hopes of identifying “un
nuevo paradigma

de lo nacional y lo masculino que suponga un punto medio

entre estas conductas extremas, a un nuevo tipo de soldado portador de un
mínimo de ejemplaridad, profesional pero humano en el trato al enemigo” (50).
Awareness of the politics that underlie Virués’s chosen poetic tactics enable us
to reconceptualize “estas tragedias aparentemente desconectadas del presente

Bulletin of the Comediantes •

2012

Vol. 64 No. 2

167

Barbara Simerka __________________________________________________________

en documentos de gran actualidad” (52). In the twentieth century, Francisco

Ruiz Ramón and others brought forth a revalorization of Calderonian tragedy
by demonstrating his relevance within the gradient status of that moment. This
new vision of Virués offers an equally compelling argument for perceiving
the sixteenth-century tragedian as an ideological voice in harmony with the
socioaesthetic concerns of our twenty-first century moment.

Ignacio López-Alemany continues the exploration of ideology in sixteenth-

century tragedy. He focuses his critical lens on a single play, Virués’s La gran
Semíramis.  One  common  tactic  among  scholars  that  put  forth  a  new  vision
of  tragedy  or  of  a  specific  play  is  to  offer  a  new  and  unexpected  candidate
for  the  role  of  tragic  protagonist;  this  essay  proposes  assigning  such  a  label
to  the  privado  Celabo  in  place  of  the  eponoymous  queen.  Once  the  focus
shifts  to  this  courtier,  it  is  possible  to  read  the  play  according  to  Eagleton’s
paradigm of tragedy as the dramatization of cultural crisis. The moral dilemmas
that  Celabo  faces  incarnate  Eagleton’s  model  of  tragic  disjunction,  “entre  el
cálculo prudente y la sinceridad” (243). This vantage point emphasizes Celabo’s
role as the ethical catalyst that leads spectators to anagnorisis concerning court
cultures that nurture corruption and injustice, both in ancient Assyria and in
Virués’s  own  moment  (248).  López-Alemany  emphasizes  that  this  play  is  no
mechanical  reiteration  of  classical  tropes.  The  conflict  Virués’s  stages  is  not
depicted  as  the  agent  for  a  predestined  fall,  but  rather  as  the  workings  of  a
specific political configuration in need of reform.

In her essay in the collection, Margaret Greer also employs Eagleton’s

paradigm in her study of the tragic dimensions of Biblical drama. She refutes
the traditional notion that a Christian nation could not produce genuine tragedy
and asserts that, between 1588 and 1659, “la tragedia en España adquirió fuerza
en proporción inversa a la pérdida del dominio [global]” (118). Greer pointedly
rejects formalist approaches to Aristotelian tragedy. Rather than study iconic
tragic reactions such as pity and empathy, she highlights instead the tragic
aspects of the social forces that produce human suffering. Greer proposes that
in Tirso’s and Calderón’s renditions of the House of David motif,

audiences are

invited to draw parallels to the way in which their own social world is marked
by sexual transgression and political violence, a tragic cycle with no end in
sight for Jerusalem or Madrid (128). This analysis draws upon insights Greer
developed in two previous essays on imperialism and historical tragedy, both
published in 2005.

The three essays on Virués and his contemporaries in the volume offer

a compelling new vision of sixteenth-century tragedy as a politically engaged
dramatic medium, and thus as worthy not only of grudging inclusion within
the tragic canon but also of moving from the margins to the center of the
Spanish tragic gradient. These essays, and that of Greer, also validate the utility
of Eagleton’s recent study and of the earlier ideological visions of tragedy upon

168

Bulletin of the Comediantes •

2012

Vol. 64 No. 2

___________________________________________________________Barbara Simerka

which  he  builds.  The  representation  of  extreme  horror  and  violence,  linked
to  denunciations  of  political  injustice,  can  be  seen  as  a  proto-Brechtian  call
to  awareness  on  the  part  of  aureísta  dramatists  who  sought  to  intervene
in  chaotic  political  worlds.  George  Peale’s  recent  study  of  tragic  form  in  El
caballero  de  Olmedo  (2011)  and  Melveena  McKendrick’s  article  on  honor
drama (2000) also offer analyses of Brechtian elements in early modern tragedy;
a combination of the Brechtian and materialist approaches traced here could be
very enlightening.

The final essay in the volume is María Mercedes Carrión’s study of the

unique nature of (domestic) violence staged in honor tragedy. I use the word
“staged” ironically, for as this study reveals, Mencía’s death has been presented
infrequently, both in the early modern corral and the contemporary playhouse.
As  the  essay’s  title  indicates,  Mencia’s  invisibility  is  particularly  noteworthy
because El médico de su honra is among the most-studied central plays within
the comedia canon, a veritable “piedra de toque” (432). Why this discrepancy
between the gradient systems of the classroom and the theater? In her response
to this quandary, Carrión brings to bear studies of gender and scopophilia, as
well as the materialist approaches to tragedy cited above, in order to render
visible  Mencia’s  agency  as  a  tragic  protagonist.  The  essay  also  insists  on  the
tragic  nature  of  domestic  violence.  Citing  Eagleton’s  model,  Carrión  makes
deliberate  links  between  literary  and  embodied  forms  of  spousal  abuse  and
suffering, highlighting the cultural norms that erase or silence them (443-45). In
any era, to name specific authors or characters as our contemporaries signifies
that  we  grant  them  paragon  status.  Where  earlier  generations  of  scholars
employed  a  gradient  system  in  which  the  most  prized  Siglo  de  Oro  authors
were depicted as contemporaries because of a shared vision of human nature,
Carrión  and  several  other  authors  included  in  this  volume  offer  an  alternate
gradient system. Here, this privileged status is claimed for those tragedians who
purportedly  share  a  vision  concerning  the  need  to  highlight  social  injustice.
This  modification  of  the  tragic  prototype  scale  contributes  to  the  large-scale
and ongoing reconsideration of the status of ideological studies of gender, race,
class,

and power as represented in all forms of cultural texts and media.

This highly comprehensive volume tackles nearly all of the important

dramatic texts and theoretical issues that are deemed worthy of interest for the
study of the tragic at this current moment. The one notable absence concerns
the tragic corpus of Luis Vélez de Guevara; an essay by George Peale concerning
the insights gained over his long years of editing these works (such as that
published in Bulletin of the Comediantes in 2009) or a study that takes into
account Peale’s work on this author would have been a welcome addition.

Across the Tragedia áurea anthology, as well as in the other recent studies

of tragedy that this essay has considered, an international group of scholars
employ a variety of criteria in order to reconsider the generic status of hybrid

Bulletin of the Comediantes •

2012

Vol. 64 No. 2

169

Barbara Simerka __________________________________________________________

dramatic works or proclaim the merit of currently marginal tragedies so that
they might be admitted into the inner sanctum of the tragic canon. Many essays
emphasize the power of tragic resonances in hybrid plays, while others assert
the  relevance  of  neglected  tragedies.  These  reconsiderations  often  entail  a
recalibration of the relative merits of Athenian and Roman tragic cue qualities,
in light of the ideological and aesthetic possibilities inherent in Senecan tragic
practices.  The  center  of  any  gradient  scale  is,  perforce,  limited  in  size;  even
if  the  center  were  currently  vacant,  not  all  of  the  plays  affirmed  here  could
be accommodated. Understanding of the prototype effect upon classification
systems  provides  a  new  and  important  perspective,  one  that  helps  us  to
understand both the innovations and continuities concerning tragedy theory,
and allows us to anticipate future directions. Current trends in the modification
of literary prototypes, both within Hispanism and the broader scope of literary
studies,  lead  me  to  suggest  that  studies  aligned  with  postmodern  aesthetics,
such as explorations of metatragedy and experimental generic combinations,
will garner attention. In addition, approaches that bring together genre theory
and explorations of identity and ideology are likely to have an impact on the
future of Hispanism, recalibrating the gradient status of tragedies and hybrid
dramas alike.

Note

1. See Mancing, “Prototypes of Genre in Cervantes’ Novelas ejemplares,” for an analysis of how the

prototype effect impacts the classification and reputation of the various novelas.

Works Cited

Bolt, Julie. “Towards an Active Utopia: Truth-making in Menchu, Stoll, and the Classroom.”

JULIETHEBOLT.NET <www.juliethebolt.net/page/page/1952169.htm>.

Childers, William. Transnational Cervantes. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2006.
De Armas, Frederick. “Classical Tragedy and Cervantes’ Numancia.” Neophilologus 58 (1979):

34-40.

De Armas, Frederick, Luciano García-Lorenzo, and Enrique García Santo-Tomás, eds. Hacia la

tragedia áurea: Lecturas para un nuevo milenio. Madrid: Iberoamericana; Frankfurt: Vervuert,
2008.

Dollimore, Jonathan. Radical Tragedy: Religion, Ideology and Power in the Drama of Shakespeare

and His Contemporaries. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1984; Durham, NC: Duke UP 2004.

Eagleton, Terry. Sweet Violence: The Idea of the Tragic. London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2003.
Felski, Rita, ed. and intro. Rethinking Tragedy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins P, 2008.
Greer, Margaret Rich. “Imperialism and Anthropophagy in Early Modern Spanish Tragedy.” Reason

and Its Others in Early Modern Spain and Italy. Ed. David Castillo. Minneapolis: U. of Minnesota
P, 2005. 279-95.



. “Spanish Golden Age Tragedy: From Cervantes to Calderón.” A Blackwell Companion to

Tragedy. Ed. Rebecca Bushnell. London: Blackwell, 2005. 351-69.

Lakoff, George. Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind.

Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1987.

Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. 2nd ed. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2003.

170

Bulletin of the Comediantes •

2012

Vol. 64 No. 2

___________________________________________________________Barbara Simerka

MacCurdy, Raymond. The Tragic Fall: Don Álvaro de Luna and Other Favorites in Spanish Golden

Age Drama. Chapel Hill: North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures,
1978.

Mancing, Howard. “Prototypes of Genre in Cervantes’ Novelas ejemplares.” Cervantes 20.2 (2000):

127-50.

Mariscal, George. Contradictory Subjects: Quevedo, Cervantes, and Seventeenth-Century Spanish

Culture. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1991.

McKendrick, Melveena. “Anticipating Brecht: Alienation and Agency in Calderón’s Wife-murder

Plays.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 77

(2000): 217-36.

Parr, James A. After Its Kind: Approaches to the Comedia. Ed. Matthew D. Stroud et al. Kassel:

Edition Reichenberger, 1991 (2nd ed., 1993).

Peale, C. George. “Dos calas en las estructuras profundas de la tragedia moderna: El caballero de

Olmedo, Lope y Lorca.” Bulletin of the Comediantes 63.1 (2011): 37-58.



. “Vélez de Guevara contextualizado: una vida singular y su ámbito ético.” Bulletin of the

Comediantes 61.1 (2009): 51-96.

Rosch, Eleanor. “Principles of Categorization.” Cognition and Categorization. Ed. Eleanor

Rosch and Barbara B. Lloyd. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1978. 27–48.
<http://commonweb.unifr.ch/artsdean/pub/gestens/f/as/files/ 4610/9778_083247.pdf>.



. “Reclaiming Concepts.” The Journal of Consciousness Studies 6.11-12 (1999): 61-77.

<http://psychology.berkeley.edu/faculty/profiles/erosch1999.pdf>.

Ruiz Ramón, Francisco. Calderón y la tragedia. Madrid: Alhambra, 1984.
Vernant, Jean-Pierre, and Pierre Vidal-Naquet. Mythe et tragédie en Grèce ancienne. Paris: La

Découverte, 2000.

Williams, Raymond. Modern Tragedy. London: Chatto and Windus, 1966.