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Notes on the Grotesque: The Comedia De Figurón at Home and Abroad

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Edwin E. Place
Edwin E. Place*
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
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Extract

In the history of literatures, as in the history of the races that produce them, it is axiomatic that often there comes from without some invigorating influence which, on being assimilated, may assume a significance perhaps all out of proportion to its original importance. Such was the effect of the figurón, in the Spanish comedia de figurón, upon the development of a type of uncouth and cowardly lover rôle in seventeenth-century French comedy, such as that of Sganarelle in Molière's Le Manage forcé. Now that we are enabled to study in its proper perspective French dramatic literature of the grand siècle, thanks to Professor Lancaster's monumental work on the subject, it becomes increasingly possible as well as pertinent for those interested in comparative literature to supplement and to underline certain facts already clearly brought out in Mr. Lancaster's six-volume study. In this paper I wish to present some observations on the literary antecedents of the figurón in Spanish drama and an interpretation of the significance of the figurón, together with a few comments upon French treatment of this type as transplanted by Paul Scarron and Thomas Corneille.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , June 1939 , pp. 412 - 421
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1939

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References

1 Cf. H. C. Lancaster, A History of French Dramatic Literature (Baltimore, 1929–36), ii, 757; iii, 615.

2 Espasa, Cf., Enciclopedia universal ilustrada: “Llamáronse en el siglo XVII comedias de figurón aquellas en las cuales hacía el principal papel un personaje ridículo y exagerado, generalmente algún fatuo presuntuoso y sin educación.” So much for the actual generally accepted definition. The following citation from the eighteenth-century Diccionario de autoridades makes clear that in that century and in the seventeenth the affectation of nobility or wealth on the part of one who had neither (i.e., an upstart) was the focus of development of the modern definition: “figurón: Se llama también el que se hace reparable, por la afectación que usa de nobleza u riqueza, siendo en la realidad todo lo contrario... . Quev. Entremet. En esto empezó à alborotarse la caldéra, y hacer espúma: veíase un figurón danzando entre el caldo y chirriando. Esteb. cap. 11. Porque obligará un figurón de estos à que murmure de él el mas Capuchino.” Covarrubias, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española (Madrid, 1611), does not list figurón, but according to him (and also to the Diccionario de autoridades) all the principal characters of a play are figuras: “Por esta razón llamamos figuras los personages que representan los comediantes fingiendo la persona del rey, del pastor, de la dama, de la criada, del señor, del sieruo, y los demas.” He adds: “Quando encontramos con algun hombre de humor y estravagante, dezimos del, que es linda figura: y si es manual le llamamos figurilla.” An important point to be emphasized from the foregoing statements is that figura did not necessarily denote in the Spanish theater of the seventeenth century an unconventional or grotesque character.Google Scholar

3 See E. Cotarelo y Mori's edition of Castillo's Niña de los embustes, Colección Selecta de Antiguas Novelas Españolas, iii, (Madrid, 1906), Intro, pp. 51, 82. Cotarelo states that the great actor and producer Cristóbal de Avendaño first staged this play.

4 Op. cit., ii, 465.

“Un villano es bien nacido,
Que loco de una desgracia
Ha dado en decir por gracia
Que es ilustre y procedido
Del patriarca Noé
Más noble, y más excelente
Que todo humano viviente.“ El Marqués del Cigarral, B.A.E ., xlv, 309b.

6 Date of publication of Salas Barbadillo's Casa del placer honesto. Cf. my edition, La Casa del Placer honesto de Alonso Jerónimo de Salas Barbadillo Together with an Introduction in which his Life and Works are Studied, Univ. of Colorado Studies, xv, No. 4 (Boulder 1927) Introduction, passim; cf. also my Manual de novelística española (Madrid, 1926) and my María de Zayas... . Univ. of Colorado Studies, xiii; No. 1 (Boulder, 1923).

7 xvii (1926), 230–235. They are “Boca de todas verdades,” demented sage of Corrección de vicios; the dog knight-errant of Peregrinación sabia; Necio bien afortunado; El sagaz Estacio; Caballero Punctual; Cortesano descortes (dialogue); Don Diego de Noche; El curioso y sabio Alejandro.

8 Cf. Cotarelo, op. cit., Intro.,“p. 7.

9 This sort of play has nothing to do with Lope's Los locos de Valencia, in which the chief characters are not crazy, although the action takes place mainly in a manicomio.

10 Don Japhet d'Arménie, Act iii, Scene 3; my translation. Miss Esther Crooks in her Influence of Cervantes in France (Baltimore, 1931), p. 38, cites this in another connection.

11 La Comedia espagnole en France de Hardy à Racine (Paris, 1900), pp. 133, 134, 186. and passim.

12 El Marqués del Cigarral, Jornada Ia, BAE xlv, 313 a, b.

13 Cf. Caballero Puntual, in Obras de Salas Barbadillo, ii (Madrid, 1909), passim.

14 Loc. cit., p. 315 b.

15 Cf. Lancaster, op. cit., ii, 781.

16 Cf. Martinenche, op. cit., p. 383.

17 A systematic demonstration of this would be dreary reading. Let the reader compare texts for himself. For example, after examining Castillo's plays (BAE, Vol. xxv), cf. Don Japhet Act iii, Scenes 16 and 17, in which Don Japhet is made to believe he is stone deaf; all of the characters, including Leonor, yell at the top of their lungs, merely to deafen the victim of their hoax. Again, ibid., Act iv, Scene 16 portrays the sudden entry of a gallant (D. Alphonse) into his lady's room with the intent to seduce her, which is leeringly indecent parody of the occasional unconventional relationships between galán and dama in the comedia.

18 Cf. the edition of this play by Agustín del Saz (Madrid, 1919, Las Cien Mejores Obras de la Literatura Española, Vol. lx), Prólogo, p. viii., and also the famous “receipt” of Act i.

19 Cf. Entre bobos anda el juego, ed. cit., Prólogo, p. 22.

20 Op. cit., ii, 754.

21 For the popularity of this play and its relationship to Molière's Sganarelle type see Lancaster, op. cit., ii, 756–757.

22 The Dramatic Art of Moreto, Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, xiii, Nos. 1–4 (Northampton 1931–32), pp. 176–178 and passim.

23 Ed. cit., p. 328 b.