#homeworkblogging

Calderón was probably my favorite, actually! So he was writing in the style of the Comedia Nacional, which is what Lope basically founded: very conservative, good always triumphs over evil, order is restored, etc. But he was ALSO writing in the baroque tradition, in which things are more complicated. There are some dark gothic-y landscapes, and very rich language. Show-off-y language, actually, because while Lope was writing for a more general audience, Calderón was writing for a wealthy and educated audience. The language is beautiful, but intentionally hard to read. Most importantly, the characters are more complicated. The Baroque writers had an obsession with the hybrid: part good/part evil; part man/part beast; part man/part woman. (But not like, in a progressive way. The woman disguises herself as a man and it symbolizes that she’s not a “full woman” because she’s doesn’t have her “honor”. So yeah, pretty gross.)

Anyway, this means that his characters are more complex! Lope’s characters were flat and static; Calderón’s hero, Segismundo, starts out as a violent angry guy with a lot of (VERY UNDERSTANDABLE) issues, and over the course of the play, proves himself to be just man and a worthy king. (Góngora, another Baroque writer, has a poem about Polyphemus, basically to say that nature can be dark and man can be monstrous.)

The play deals with existentialism, dreams and reality and what counts as “real” (Segismundo lives in a very Platonic cave), and fate and free will. Calderón was writing at a time when there was a lot of debate about free will and predestination, and he addresses it in the play.

The basic plot is: Basilio gets a vision that his son, Segismundo, will grow up to be a tyrant, and he will have Basilio kneeling before him. So he locks him up in a cave, and then 20 years later lets him out just to see what happens. Well, Segismundo proves to be a terrible king because he is UNDERSTANDABLY ANGRY AT THE WORLD. But he learns to control his anger, and to let the nobler, more “human” part of himself triumph. He raids the castle and tries to claim the throne. At the end of the play, he has his father kneeling before him. So the prophecy comes true!

I don’t remember there being a song about hands? Granted, we read an abridged version in this class but the only song I remember is when everybody’s celebrating that they killed the Comendador (the evil tyrant lord). 

As for the King and Queen, basically the whole play is an affirmation of the monarchy, particularly the reign of Fernando and Isabel. The Comendador was a terrible guy on pretty much every level, from his individual relationship with Frondoso (the Hero) to his international politics (he was somehow involved in a conflict with Portugal; I’m not super clear on that and should look it up.) On the national level, he was at war with Fernando and Isabel, and fighting for Juana la Beltraneja to claim the Castillian throne.

Fernando and Isabel had been deified in seventeenth-century Spanish society. They were like George Washington in the U.S. To support them was to support the monarchy, Catholicism, Traditional Values, all of that. Lope was writing for a very conservative audience, and he wrote a whole essay on how the primary goal of the playwright is to make the audience happy so they give you money. so.

Within the narrative, the King and Queen show up to resolve the question of who killed the Comendador. Whenever they’re asked, the townspeople respond that Fuenteovejuna killed the Comendador. And the judge is like, “Well, I can’t execute the entire town, better take it up with the King and Queen.” (Apparently they had a very simple legal system idk. Or this was a very important case.) So that’s the purpose they serve within the narrative: to pardon the town, and to take over as the Just Rulers of Fuenteovejuna.

From a meta standpoint, the King and Queen are there to restore Order and show that Justice always triumphs in the end.

So what happens is that the king, Basilio, has a vision that his son Segismundo will 1) be a terrible tyrant and 2) have Basilio kneeling before him. So he locks him in a tower. 20-ish years later, he decides to let him out of the tower to see if he would prove to be a good king. But Segismundo understandably has a lot of emotional issues, and because of those issues he makes a really terrible king. For a day. And then they lock him up in the tower again. Part 1 fulfilled.

Segismundo escapes and leads a raid on the castle to claim his rightful place on the throne. Over the course of this he learns to get a handle on his understandable emotional issues, and does a pretty good job redeeming himself. In the last scene, Basilio ends up on his knees before him. Part 2 fulfilled.

BUT THEN Segismundo decides to spare Basilio’s life. Basilio, in turn, decides to make him king. Segismundo immediately proves himself to be a just king by forcing a guy to marry the girl he had sex with. (Which, you know, 1600s, it sucked to be a girl, she would have had no other prospects.)