"El Calderon comico". The meaning of pure theatre.

From 1620 to 1655, Caldern wrote about forty plays whose main objective seems to be entertainment: La banda y la flor/ The Ribbon and the Flower, Mejor est que estaba/ `Tis Better than It Was, No hay burlas con el amor/ Love is no Laughing Matter, Las manos blancas no ofenden/ White Hands do not Offend etc. Either set in Spanish cities or courts of European dukes and countesses, they deal with the follies of young gentlemen and ladies striving for love and marriage. With the exception of La dama duende/ The Phantom Lady, these plays are hardly remembered outside Spain. We would like to engage in a critical reappraisal, utilizing a four step approach: First, we will explore all levels of expression from sound and verse to dialogue, images and figures of speech. We will also look at the indications of staging which Caldern carefully included in the text. Second, we will ask what sets the play in motion and consequently examine the deeper meaning of masquerade, mistaken identities or the multiple perspectives created through mystification and misunderstanding. We will study the causal chains which are created on stage and ask whether the possible worlds thus emerging in theatre could be perceived as possible worlds in life by 17th century spectators. Third, this will lead to the question, whether comedy implicitly conveys Calderns vision of fate and the general status of human life in earthly time. We would finally ascertain the cultural relevance of what comedy states about its main topics: courtship and wedding, even though it seems to deal with these matters in a light-hearted way and in accordance with the conventions of genre. Analysis will include literary and non-literary sources of Calderns time and draw on models provided by cultural theory and critical writing on comedy. In a parallel endeavour, three plays will be studied for bilingual editions in Spanish and German. They account for the enormous popularity of Calderonian formulae outside Spain. In order to better understand these comedies we will study the history of their tradition, staging and translation in the German lands assessing their influence on Mozart, E.T.A. Hoffman and others. Critical studies have either insisted on the stock elements of Caldern`s comedic plays or on the extreme artificiality of their plots. They have even turned them into serious drama by a one-sided focus on the motif of honour. We will follow a new path of investigation that aims at a reassessment of comedys cultural importance without losing sight of its main function as a trigger of laughter, mirth and entertainment.

Final report - El Caldern cmico. Summary The realms of comedy are no suburbs of art. Caldern wrote a considerable number of comedias in a comical vein. These works bear as much interest for the investigator of social and cultural history as does his serious or theological work. Caldern's dramas and Spanish tragedies deal with manipulated kin, with problematic family ties that bring about serious political consequences; comedy by contrast with the struggle of generations and the right of the young to wed against the will of fathers. Drama explores the destructive powers of ambition and false illusions, comedy deals with chance and coincidence. It does not seek to trigger pity and fear but the pleasure of dramatic irony, of being involved in the asymmetric distribution of information among the players on one side and the public on the other. Much as in a chess game, comical confusions invite spectators to solve riddles and to quickly comprehend situations and their inherent twists and possible outcomes - a cognitive training for real life. The recurrent motif of doubled identity also allows for an exploration of the apparent and the secret sides of characters, of their social roles and their suppressed desires, of their daytime-faces and the masks of the night. Comedy works the public both into a state of suspense and of shared euphoria. It is in comedy that the englobing cultural concept of gracia is unfolded in a playful way and in its aesthetic dimension. But marriage is a serious matter, it sets the lover against the beloved's kin and conflict many a time only just stops short before things might take a tragic turn. Thus, underneath a repetitive plot structure, there always loom questions of cardinal importance for a community: uncertain paternity and confusion of family ties as long as affairs go wrong; wedding, pregnancy, procreation, the possibility of a future for a household or dynasty when they finally go right. When composing drama, poets reflect upon the frames, scripts and communicative strategies of the public and political sphere. Comedy, in turn, assesses the varieties of strategies of behaviour and speech acts in family lives, in marriage stories and dramas of succession with a happy ending. How is courtship to be done? How can jealousy be triggered or countered? How can a love secret be protected? The music of verse heightens language and provides spectators with a heightened sense of life. The music of verse is connected with the general rhythm of a time. It takes us to the profoundest levels of its shared symbology, to the very base of culturally channelled emotions, to the micro-beats of life, people's hearts and minds danced, wooed, struggled or loved to.