"Metatheater" and the Criticism of the Comedia

Author(s): Stephen Lipmann

Source: MLN , Mar., 1976, Vol. 91, No. 2, Hispanic Issue (Mar., 1976), pp. 231-246
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2906921

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 INIETATHEATER" AND THE CRITI-
CISM OF THE COMEDIA STEPHEN LIP-
MANN q The term "metatheater," coined by Lionel Abel, has
figured in recent criticism of the comedia.1 Abel himself devotes
some attention to Calderon's La vida es sueio as an example of his
new genre; Bruce Wardropper uses some of Abel's ideas in discuss-
ing the role of the imagination in several plays of Calderon,2 and
the concept of metatheater comes into play in Robert A. Sloane's
article in this issue of Modern Language Notes, as well as in his disser-
tation and an earlier article on El principe constante.3 But the suita-
bility of the term for the Spanish comedia has recently been called
into question by Thomas A. O'Connor, whose views receive a
strong endorsement from Arnold G. Reichenberger.4 O'Connor
finds "metatheater" inappropriate to Classical Spanish drama be-
cause Abel's basic premises (as O'Connor understands them) are
incompatible with the theocentric world view of the Spanish Gol-
den Age. He reaffirms the uniqueness of the comedia and under-
takes a redefinition of Abel's term to make it a viable critical tool for
Hispanists, emphatically denying that a comparison of Golden Age
and Elizabethan drama is possible.
Because O'Connor's article raises several interrelated issues of
importance for the study of the comedia, I have undertaken to an-
swer it here in some detail, while also reviewing the work of the
above-mentioned critics. As Abel defines his term, I find it entirely
appropriate to the comedia, though he is somewhat less than
thorough in developing the implications of his generic formula-
tion. I attempt to move beyond his definition in a brief considera-

1 Metatheatre: A New View of Dramatic Form (New York: Hill and Wang, 1963).
2 "La imaginaci6n en el metateatro calderoniano" in Actas del tercer congreso interna-
cional de hispanistas (Mexico: El Colegio de Mexico, 1970), pp. 923-930.
3 Character and R6le: The Problem of Identity in Four Plays by Calderdn de la Barca,
doctoral dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University, 1972; "Action and R6le in El
principe constants," MLN, 85 (1970), 167-183. I have benefitted greatly from conver-
sations with Prof. Sloane and Prof. Elias L. Rivers in the course of preparing this
article.
I "Is the Spanish Comedia a Metatheater?", with "A Postscript to Professor Thomas
Austin O'Connor's Article on the Comedia", HR, 43 (1975), 275-291.

MLN 91 (1976) 231-246

Copyright ? 1976 by The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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232 STEPHEN LIPMANN

tion of La vida es sueho, El gran teatro del mundo and Shakespeare's

The Tempest, my aim being to show that comparative study of
Shakespeare and Calderon is possible. In the conclusion, I suggest
some further dimensions for such study.
O'Connor fails to mention Abel's general aim in Metatheatre,
which is to identify and examine works of modern drama that are
as serious or "philosophic" as tragedy (Abel, p. vii). Moreover,
when outlining Abel's ideas near the beginning of his article,
O'Connor all but ignores the section of Metatheatre in which Abel
presents the defining terms of his genre. Abel begins his section on
Shakespeare and Calderon (where "metatheater" and "metaplay"
first appear) by stating that the characters and action of these plays
"were found by the playwright's imagining rather than by his ob-
serving the world." They "have truth in them" not because they are
realistically convincing but "because they show the reality of the
dramatic imagination," instanced by the playwright's and his
characters'. Distinguishing among metatheater, comedy and tragi-
comedy, Abel finds that in comedy, events are reduced by humor
to examples for reflection and are not irrevocable; though many
metaplays do end happily, they are also capable of instilling a
"speculative sadness" at their close, and we do feel concern for their
characters. Abel sees tragicomedy as merely an amalgam of two
different kinds of plays, and believes that "play-within-a-play" indi-
cates a device rather than a dramatic form. What all metaplays have
in common is that they are "about life seen as already theat-
ricalized." By this he means that the persons who appear on them
"knew they were dramatic before the playwright took note of them.
...They represent to the playwright the effect of dramatic im-
agination before he has begun to exercise his own . . ." (Abel, pp.
59-60).
O'Connor touches lightly on Abel's distinctions among metathea-
ter and other genres, but overlooks Abel's point on the primacy of
the dramatic imagination in metatheater. And he misrepresents
Abel's point on "theatricalized life."

Abel's concept of metatheater is founded upon the view that life has
already been theatricalized, even before the dramatist's imagination
begins to act on the raw material of life. This theatricalization in-
exorably links illusion and unreality to life, a life in which characters
have full self-consciousness of their own dramatic posture. This at-
titude is principally revealed in six ways: 1) there is an essential
illusoriness in life; 2) there is a loss of reality for the world; 3) the

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 M L N 233

world cannot be proved to exist; 4) there is a lack of implacable

values; 5) life is a dream; 6) the world is a stage. The latter two are
the manifestations we are most accustomed to seeing, but the former
are the bases and premises upon which they are constructed.
(O'Connor, p. 275)

What O'Connor summarizes here is a later section in Abel's book,

where Abel develops some of the implications of his initial defini-
tion, for which he has provided several illustrative examples. A
glance at the original will reveal the extent of O'Connor's distor-
tion.

But to come back to the metaplay. It is the necessary form for

dramatizing characters who, having full self-consciousness, cannot
but participate in their own dramatization. Hence the famous lines
of Jaques, Shakespeare's philosopher of metatheatre, "All the
world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." The
same notion is expressed by Calder6n, who entitled one of his works
The Great-Stage of the World. For both the Spanish and the English
poet there could not but be an essential illusoriness in reality. We
cannot have it both ways: a gain for consciousness means a loss for
the reality of its objects, certainly for the reality of its main object,
namely the world. Obviously it takes a high degree of consciousness
to become aware that the world cannot be proved to exist. However,
I shall not insist on this point, for I think the objectivity of the world
is not maintained by logic, but, like some fabled treasure which drag-
ons guard, by those monsters to the sensitive and skeptical mind:
implacable values. Thus it is that if, in Greek tragedy, the hero is
defeated, on the other hand the reality of the world is underscored;
in the metaplay, the hero, however unfortunate, can never be decis-
ively defeated, perhaps he can never even be heroic (as Kleist's
wonderful Prince of Homburg suggests); but on the other hand, the
reality of the world is mortally affected, illusion becomes inseparable
from reality. Life is a Dream is the title of Calder6n's greatest play,
and Shakespeare's theatre terminates with the famous: "We are such
stuff as dreams are made on." The point I am making here is that
these are not chance expressions by Calderon and Shakespeare, but
fundamental concepts of the dramatic form which they initiated.
(Abel, pp. 78-79)

O'Connor's central aim in his article is to reaffirm the uniqueness

of the comedia and reject any comparison of Calderon with Shake-
speare and Elizabethan drama. To this end, O'Connor first con-
trives to represent metatheater as the dramatic expression of radical
idealism; he lifts a few phrases from Abel's digressive and unschol-
arly speculation and shapes them into a psuedo-syllogistic para-
phrase that reflects neither the letter nor the spirit of the original.

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234 STEPHEN LIPMANN

O'Connor's conceptual confusion is apparent in the first sentence

quoted above. The concept of metatheater is not "founded upon
the view that life has already been theatricalized." Abel proceeds
inductively, not deductively; he says that "the plays I am pointing to
do have a common character: all of them are theatre pieces about
life seen as already theatricalized" (Abel, p. 60; my italics).
The terms of Abel's formulation, as outlined above, are reasona-
bly clear and straightforward. As an attempt to get beyond period
generalizations and to discuss the modernity of Renaissance drama
in formal terms, his work has been provocative and influential. But
he does brush over a cluster of issues that demand more careful
consideration, and muddies the waters in the passage quoted
above. Abel affirms that "life is a dream" and "all the world's a
stage" are not "chance expressions" but "fundamental concepts of
the dramatic form [Shakespeare and Calderon] initiated." It is true
that these two related phrases, which had become commonplaces in
Renaissance literature, assumed new significance in the works of
these dramatists. But they are metaphors rather than concepts, and
become vessels that bear a variety of meanings in seventeenth cen-
tury drama; even as commonplaces, they had been employed for
diverse ends. The theatrum mundi metaphor can be found in the
writings of Calvin, the Neoplatonists, and the Pyrrhonists among
others, so it is misleading to speak of it as if it were a clearly defined
idea.5
Abel generates further confusion here by shifting his ground
from formal description of a genre to speculation about the think-
ing habits of dramatists and the psychological climate in which they
wrote. This is not the place to debate whether "a gain for con-
sciousness means a loss for the reality of its objects" and the world,
nor to rehearse discussions of the Baroque sensibility that might
lend Abel some support. There does seem to be implicit in this
passage an important insight about metatheater, that the represen-
tation of self-conscious characters in itself contributed to the
breakdown of traditional dramatic genres in the later Renaissance.
O'Connor also ignores Abel's final point about metatheater, that

5 Cf. Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans.
Willard R. Trask (New York: Pantheon, 1953), pp. 138-144; Roy W. Battenhouse,
"The Doctrine of Man in Calvin and Renaissance Platonism", JHI, 9 (1948), 447-
471; and J. Jacquot, "Le Thititre du Monde de Shakespeare a Calder6n", RLC, 31
(1957), 341-372.

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 M L N 235

fantasy is essential to it. This amplifies his earlier remark that

metaplays show the reality of the dramatic imagination; perhaps
there is more of the comic in these plays than Abel has chosen to
identify.
After giving us his distorted version of Abel's views, O'Connor
presents some of the arguments for and against the uniqueness of
the comedia. Then he cites Bruce Wardropper's remarks in the
introduction to Teatro espaol del Siglo de Oro; he agrees with War-
dropper that the term metatheater might be used to characterize
Spanish Golden Age Drama, but hesitates "to accept the premises
on which Abel based his definition of the word" (O'Connor, p.
277). In trying to establish what he calls a "terminological distinc-
tion," O'Connor creates difficulties: " 'Role-playing' will often be
used as a synonymous expression for a manifestation of metathea-
ter." "Role-playing" is meant to describe a psychological posture (a
falsity or betrayal of one's character or personality) as well as a
philosophical, theological and dramatic view of that posture
adopted by the dramatist; "role-playing" is thus "a dramatic man-
ner of interpreting a character's action in relation to transcendent
considerations." It would be simpler to say that "role-playing" has
serious moral consequences in Spanish Golden Age drama.
O'Connor's objection to Abel's "conception" is essentially ground-
less; Abel's central concern is not with the ethical problems posed
by metatheater, but with its characteristics as a form. Abel can be
faulted for failing to mention Calderon's orthodox Catholicism, and
I will return to this issue in my conclusion. But Abel certainly does
not postulate, as O'Connor would have us believe, that "Calderon
believed in 'an essential illusoriness in reality' and that 'the world
cannot be proved to exist' "; here Abel is simply being quoted out of
context (O'Connor, p. 278).
O'Connor argues that Abel's conception of metatheater is not
valid for the comedia on the grounds that the theatrum mundi
metaphor had its roots in Plato's idealist philosophy, which held
that "nothing could be real since all is a mere reflection of some
eternal essence" (p. 278). The medieval Christian world view, based
on Aristotelian epistemology which "elevated reality to a level of
respectability," prevailed in seventeenth century Spain; Neo-
platonism there was grafted onto an Aristotelian-Thomistic stem.
O'Connor cites Curtius, who emphasizes the difference between
the theocentric concept of life in Spain and the anthropocentric

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236 STEPHEN LIPMANN

concept of life inherent in French and English drama.6 Because

Abel is hazy about the philosophical implications of the metaphor
and makes some gestures in the direction of idealism, O'Connor
can in turn shape an apparently logical refutation, ignoring
another statement of Curtius that the metaphor is multivalent in
seventeenth century drama. Moreover, O'Connor suggests that be-
cause of the primacy of Aristotelian thought in the medieval world
view, Platonic thought was essentially alien to Calderon. Sciacca,
however, gives a persuasive account of Platonic elements in La vida
es sueio, and more recently, Jackson Cope has observed in detail the
parallels between this play and the myth of the cave. Though
Calderon may have been the dramatic poet of Scholasticism, his
debt to Plato has been established.
According to O'Connor, for the Spanish dramatists the world is a
"real stage." The man who is true to his Christian faith is not an
actor; "armed with faith, that implacable Spanish value, he has
absolute certainty that his world view is true" (p. 279). The concept
of metatheater must thus be adapted to a theocentric and moral
view of the world. O'Connor therefore insists that "it is always
imperative to examine the theme, action and role of poetic justice
in relation to the world-view of the author, and then consider how the
world-stage image carries out that view" (p. 284). In examining
several plays by Calderon and other dramatists, O'Connor finds
that role-playing generally involves deception or self-deception and
is morally reprehensible; the only exception he admits is Lope's Lo
fingido verdadero, where the author's "playful attitude turns role-
playing into a means of discovery of truth" (p. 282, footnote). In
Calderon, this self-deception often "lies ultimately in his misin-
terpretation of reality because of some moral flaw" (p. 285). In his
conclusion, O'Connor reaffirms the incompatibility of Abel's con-
ception with the dogmatic Christianity that informs Spanish drama,
and denies the possibility of any comparison of Calderon with
Shakespeare, "a cynic, or perhaps more drastically stated, an
amoral dramatist" (p. 288).

6 "The theatrical metaphor, nourished on the antique and the medieval tradition,
reappears in a living art of the theater and becomes the form of expression of a
theocentric concept of human life which neither the English nor the French drama
knows." European Literature, p. 142.
7 Michele F. Sciacca, "Verdad y suefio in 'La vida es suefio' de Calder6n de la
Barca", Clav., 1 (1950), 1-9; Jackson I. Cope, The Theater and the Dream: From
Metaphor to Form in Renaissance Drama (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins,
1973), pp. 245-60.

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 M L N 237

Because no grounds are offered for it, this last is a difficult

statement to evaluate, but at best it is naive. As for Abel's concep-
tion of metatheater-or at least that portion of it which so disturbs
O'Connor-we may begin by reiterating that in Abel's terms it rep-
resents life seen as already theatricalized. Abel does not specify
clearly the point of view from which it is seen as such by character,
dramatist or audience. The response to the plays that Abel iden-
tifies as metatheater must contain a strong element of detachment.
While self-consciousness is an attribute that enables us to identify
with characters like Hamlet and Segismundo, it is also alienating
because it mirrors us in ways that are not always flattering. And
when our conception of ourselves and our destiny is Christian, our
detachment will of necessity be conditioned by our beliefs. This
does not mean that when we identify moral error in a character, we
condemn him absolutely; in his article on Calderonian tragedy,
A. A. Parker speaks eloquently of the solidarity we feel with the
wrongdoer in Calderon's theater, presumably as Christians.8
Furthermore, Abel's point that metatheater sometimes instills a
speculative sadness at its close is quite compatible with Parker's
remarks about the Calderonian tragic hero:

... Caught in the tangled net of interrelated human actions and

imprisoned in his own limited vision, [he] is not at odds with fate in
the ordinary sense of the term-he is the victim of something more
profound and more tragic, the victim of the sad irony of human life
itself, in which each man is compelled to construct, and act upon, his
own individuality in a world where the human individual, qua indi-
vidual, cannot exist.
(Parker, p. 237)

Much of what O'Connor has to say about role-playing in Calde-

ron is anticipated in the article by Wardropper cited above (my
note 2), with which O'Connor is apparently unfamiliar. Wardrop-
per summarizes views of the imagination in the Renaissance and
the seventeenth century, discussing their implications for poetic
creation; he concludes that "la imaginacion es al mismo tiempo la
facultad creadora de las poetas y la facultad traidora de los per-
sonajes imaginados por ellos" (Wardropper, p. 925). Then he
draws on Abel's initial remarks on metatheater, emphasizing the
primacy of the dramatic imagination in the genre. He wisely skirts
the ambiguities in Abel's further speculations by saying that

8 "Towards a Definition of Calderonian Tragedy", BHS, 39 (1962), p. 236.

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238 STEPHEN LIPMANN

metatheater "se funda en metaforas poeticas transladadas a la ac-

cion y estructuradas con dimensiones plasticas" (p. 926).
Wardropper looks briefly at La vida es sueio and El alcalde de
Zalamea, but devotes most of his attention to plays treating "los
casos de la honra," where the workings of the imagination are seen
most clearly. He observes that in many of Calderon's plays, the im-
agination is the origin of a fiction conceived by the characters. This
fiction "o es mentira o es la realidad pervertida por la mentira.
Vivir por la imaginacion es vivir en la ficcion .... El metateatro
consiste precisamente en esta 'imaginacion interior' de los per-
sonajes deshonrados. Al crearse un papel dramatico que es otro del
que les dio el dramaturgo, los personajes casi autonomos del
metateatro nos presentan el efecto visible-dentro de la imagina-
cion calderonianac-de su propia imaginacion dramatica de entes de
ficcion" (pp. 929-30).
Both Wardropper and O'Connor see that Abel's ideas offer the
student of the comedia an alternative to the older modes of stylistic
and thematic interpretation, especially by providing new insights
into the delineation of character. Moreover, for Wardropper at
least, Abel's new "serious" genre may partly remove the stigma
Spanish theater has borne abroad because it lacks works universally
recognized as tragic. But their application of Abel's ideas to the
comedia to illuminate the nature of self-deception grounded in
moral error results in a one-sided picture; Spanish metatheater can
be seen in a less negative light. Lope's Lo fingido verdadero, men-
tioned above, is an important counter-example, and Calderon El
principe constante another. In his reading of Calderon's play, Robert
A. Sloane argues that by assuming a succession of roles, Fernando
is trying to discover the play into which God has written him. The
assumption of these roles can thus be seen as a means of achieving
self-fulfillment in Christian terms, and not a function of "una im-
aginacion traidora."9 Sloane is hesitant to call this play true
metatheater by Abel's definition because the prevailing theatrical
imagination in El principe, as in La devocion de la cruz and El gran
teatro del mundo, belongs to God. I am not convinced that this hesi-
tancy is necessary. It seems to me that a play which embodies an
explicitly religious perspective on the characters' perceptual and

9 Sloane, "Action and R6le in El prfncipe constante", p. 183. In his dissertation (p.
147), he observes the difference between Fernando and the characters in the plays
examined by Wardropper.

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 M L N 239

ethical difficulties need not for that reason be excluded from Abel's
genre. Our awareness of moral imperatives may result in greater
detachment than we might have in watching a more secular meta-
play, but detachment, as I stress above, seems to me an integral part
of the response that metatheater elicits.
La vida es sueio further illustrates that the assumption of a role
can be morally beneficial. Wardropper notes that as a result of his
"desengafio iluminador," Segismundo understands that "las glorias
humanas son 'fingidas,' adema's de 'fanta'sticas'; es decir que la vida
es, no solo un sueflo, sino tambien un metadrama" (Wardropper, p.
926). This aesthetic detachment, achieved in the moment of confu-
sion and powerlessness at the end of the second jornada, allows
Segismundo to transcend his disorientation and to choose an ethi-
cal course of action soon afterwards: "Mas sea verdad o suefio, /
obrar bien es lo que importa."10 His perception of life's illusoriness
is the result of abstraction, but when he reimmerses himself in the
flux of events, it is implicit that he is adopting a role in consciously
choosing a certain form of action.
El gran teatro del mundo can be formally identified as a metaplay,
but it also embodies Calderon's understanding of the genre's fun-
damental principles-or more precisely, of his own dramatic art
and its relation to life. The human characters and personified
abstractions are all in effect dramatists, since they are provided
with no script and are given the freedom to shape their roles as
they will.1I They are only told the name of the comedia they are to
perform: "Obrar bien, que Dios es Dios."'12 Living and role-playing are
equated in the recurring phrase, "Toda la vida representaciones
es." To "obrar bien" is thus to play a part well, with the kind of
perspective achieved by Segismundo. The successful actor distin-

10 Pedro Calder6n de la Barca, Obras completas, I (dramas), ed. A. Valbuena

Briones (Madrid: Aguilar, 1966), p. 525a. After completing this article, I was able to
read Susan L. Fischer's unpublished doctoral dissertation, Psychological and Esthetic
Implications of Role-Change in Selected Plays of Calder6n (Duke University, 1973). My
discussion of La vida es suefto roughly parallels hers; she also makes use of Abel's
ideas, and in her conclusion argues against the uniqueness of the comedia, suggesting
that further study of role-change may shed light on the depiction of reality by means
of art-within-art techniques (p. 239).
11 Cf. Eugenio Suarez-Galban, "Calder6n y Pirandello", Boletin de la Academia de
Artes y Sciencias de Puerto Rico, 2 (1966), 907-918. Su.Arez-GalbAn draws interesting
parallels between the auto and Pirandello's Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore.
12 Calder6n, Obras completas, III (autos sacramentales), ed. A. Valbuena Prat
(Madrid: Aguilar, 1967), p. 208b. All citations in my text are to this edition.

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240 STEPHEN LIPMANN

guishes between the vestidura given him by the World (his economic
position) and the papel given him by God (his social purpose) as he
acts in the "comedia aparente / que hace el humano sentido" (p.
209a).13 And by making this distinction, he comes to understand
the meaning of the human comedy he helps to create through his
role-playing. It is significant that this meaning remains inaccessible
to the Nifio at the auto's conclusion; though he did not play his part
incorrectly, the Autor tells him:

muy poco
le acertaste; y asi, ahora,
ni te premio ni castigo.
Ciego, ni uno ni otro goza,
que en fin naces del pecado.
(p. 221b)

Only by playing an active part can the individual expect to share in

the concluding cena.
In Calderon's adaptation of the theatrum mundi metaphor, the
identification of the artist and God is explicit, though the Autor is
not playwright so much as producer and impresario. Early in the
auto, the Autor declares to El Mundo:

Una fiesta hacer quiero

a mi mismo poder, si considero
que solo a ostentacion de mi grandeza
fiestas hara la gran naturaleza;
y como siempre ha sido
lo que mas ha alegrado y divertido
la representacion bien aplaudida,
y es representacion la humana vida,
una comedia sea
la que hoy el cielo en tu teatro vea.
(p. 204a)

This is indeed reminiscent of Plato's famous statement in the Laws,

one of the loci classici of the world/theatre metaphor.

I say that about serious matters a man should be serious, and about a
matter which is not serious he should not be serious; and that God is
the natural and worthy object of our most serious and blessed en-
deavors, for man ... is made to be the plaything of God, and this,
truly considered, is the best of him.. ... We ought to live sacrificing,
and singing, and dancing, and then a man will be able to propitiate

13 A. A. Parker, The Allegorical Drama of Calder6n (Oxford and London: Dolphin,

1943), p. 129.

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 M L N 241

the Gods, and to defend himself against his enemies and conquer
them in battle.'4

The metaphor's popularity in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-

turies has been seen as a reflection of the theatricalization of life15
and as a symptom of sophisticated disillusionment.1 But in
dramatizing the commonplace analogy of world and theater in the
form of an auto sacramental, Calderon invests it with new meaning,
while reminding us of the significance it had for one of its
originators. In Calderon's work, the perception of life as a theatri-
cal work of art is shown to be potentially liberating, a means of
transcending the confusion of appearance and reality in the world.
Calderon establishes the divine perspective first; the human actors
are allowed to share this perspective, and their performances are
successful or unsuccessful to the extent that they are able to retain
it while acting-to remember that they are part of an entertain-
ment for God. It is such a perspective that Plato urges men to adopt
in the conduct of their lives, emphasizing that their status as play-
things of the gods is their best aspect.
God's supreme detachment is identified metaphorically with the
detachment from life essential to artistic creation. For the actors in
the human comedia, aesthetic detachment-encouraged by the re-
minder that "toda la vida representaciones es"-is linked with the
ethical imperative, "obrar bien, que Dios es Dios." But the repeti-
tion of the former phrase at the auto's conclusion suggests that
Calder6p has not simply used a commonplace as a vehicle to ex-
pound doctrine; rather, he offers the aesthetic perspective on life,
informed by faith, as the basis for a modus vivendi in a theatricalized
world. As a dramatization of the theatrical metaphor, El gran teatro
is self-referring, and this reading effectively views it as a meditation
on dramatic art and its relation to life. In his study of La vida es
suero, Sciacca does something similar, extrapolating a Calderonian
aesthetic which complements the idea that El gran teatro advocates
aesthetic detachment as a concomitant of self-knowledge and "ob-
rar bien."

14Laws (VII:803, in The Dialogues of Plato, IV, trans. B. Jowett, 4th edition (Ox-
ford: Oxford University, 1967), pp. 370-371.
15 Jean Rousset, La Littirature de l'dge baroque en France (Paris: J. Corti, 1953), Ch. 1
and passim.
16 Herbert Weisinger, "Theatrum Mundi: Illusion as Reality" in The Agony and the
Triumph: Papers on the Use and Abuse of Myth (East Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State,
1964), p. 63.

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242 STEPHEN LIPMANN

Sciacca comments in detail on the Platonic character of Segis-

mundo's trajectory, focusing on his apprehension of beauty as the
key to his discovery of the eternal. This reading of the play leads
him to define Calderon's conception of his art "como expresion de
la forma objectiva de lo 'Bello', y por tanto, como revelador del
'Ser', e impulsor del espiritu hasta la contemplacion de lo 'Eterno' "
(Sciacca, pp. 5-6). This is a provocative formulation, but it may help
us see into the nature of Calderonian metatheater. In some of his
plays, self-conscious characters behave like dramatists and the dis-
tinctions between art and life are deliberately blurred. To a greater
or lesser degree, we view the actions of these plays sub specie aeter-
nitatis because the situations they represent and the subjects they
treat provoke reflection on supramundane questions, even as the
action is unfolding. The precise nature of "lo 'Eterno'" is not the
central issue; it may indeed be the Catholic doctrine of reward and
punishment in an afterlife, but it seems risky to predict a unanimity
of response in even a devoutly Christian audience.
In these terms, which admittedly go beyond Abel's definition of
his genre, comparison with Shakespeare may make more sense. It
will be simplest to answer O'Connor's statements about
Shakespeare-and by extension to qualify Curtius' generalization
about English drama-with a consideration of Shakespeare's last
major work, The Tempest. In the opening scene, a storm is in prog-
ress, and a ship bearing the rulers of Naples and Milan, accom-
panied by members of their courts, is about to go down. We learn
in the second scene that the tempest is a contrivance of Prospero, a
mage and formerly the Duke of Milan, put to sea in a small boat by
his brother who usurped his rule twelve years before. The
metaphor of the world as a theater is in effect dramatized at the
outset, and informs the succeeding action. Of all Shakespeare's
characters, Prospero is most clearly a figure of the artist, and has
beeen identified with Shakespeare himself. He wields god-like
power and manipulates the members of the shipwrecked party with
the ease of a puppet-master, aided by his spirit Ariel. It is difficult
not to associate him with the dramatist, but his perspective is not
entirely one of aesthetic detachment, for in the course of the play
he brings about the happy conclusion to the drama of his own life.
It may also be said that he offers an interpretation of that drama.
When his daughter Miranda asks how they originally came ashore

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 M L N 243

on the island, he tells her, "By Providence divine" (I.ii.159),17 and

he explains that "By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune,/
(Now my dear lady) hath mine enemies / Brought to this shore. . ."
(I.ii. 178-80).
After Prospero subdues his most powerful enemies, he allows
himself to indulge in "a vanity of my art," the wedding-masque for
Ferdinand and Miranda. But remembering suddenly that Caliban
and his friends are approaching with bloody intentions, he breaks
off the entertainment and delivers the famous speech in which the
metaphors of the world as theater and life as dream coalesce.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vexed;
Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled:
Be not disturbed with my infirmity:
If you be pleas'd, retire into my cell,
And there repose: a turn or two I'll walk,
To still my beating mind.
(IV.i. 148-163)

Prospero's meditation is occasioned by his sense of his own limita-

tion, and this may be seen as a classic moment of desengaio. Pros-
pero, who through most of the play has seemed a god-like figure, is
now patently mortal and fallible; at the moment we apprehend this,
Shakespeare continues to remind us of our own mortality and of
the fact that while we are watching a play, we may also see ourselves
as acting in a larger drama.
Prospero's disillusioned detachment from life-as the last lines
above indicate-is the result of a temporary agitation. Before he
abjures his magic in the following scene, he reveals his intention to
be merciful towards those who had afflicted him in the past.

17 William Shakespeare, The Tempest, New Arden Edition, ed. Frank Kermode
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 1954). All citations in my text are to this edition.

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 244 STEPHEN LIPMANN

Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th' quick,

Yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury
Do I take part: the rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,
The sole drift of my purpose doth extend
Not a frown further.
(V.i.25-30)

As he prepares to return to society and reassume his dukedom,

Prospero espouses a virtue that is unmistakably Christian. By
acknowledging the ethical imperatives that accompany power, Pros-
pero rounds out the "interpretation" of his personal drama and
assumes full heroic stature; he leaves his magic behind but retains
the self-knowledge and self-mastery that allowed him to wield it. If
Prospero's disillusioned sense of life as theater were not qualified
by his subsequent statements and actions, there might be some
justification in saying that "Shakespearean drama ... views life as
something insubstantial and illusory" (O'Connor, p. 279). The
Epilogue, spoken by Prospero, lays this idea to rest.

Now my charms are all o'erthrown,

And what strength I have's my own,
Which is most faint: now, 'tis true,
I must be here confin'd by you,
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got,
And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell;
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands:
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, Art to enchant;
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be reliev'd by prayer,
Which pierces so, that it assaults
Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
As you from your crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free.

The epilogue deliberately blurs the distinction between art and

life; more than a conventional actor's appeal for applause, it is the
crowning touch to Shakespeare's dramatization of the theatrum
mundi metaphor. At first wittily, then in a more serious vein,
Shakespeare establishes continuity between the world of his drama

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 M L N 245

and the real world of the audience. What is ostensibly at issue is the
quality of the performance and the play, but the audience cannot
fail to see that the request for mercy harks back to Prospero's own
merciful action; the character Prospero is asking the audience to
imitate him in their judgment of his life while they participate in
bringing the drama to a close. Prospero reminds us that there can
be no drama without spectators. Shakespeare may indeed be resolv-
ing the ambiguity at the end of the "revels" speech and implying
the existence of a divine audience for the theater of the world. In
any case, he is deliberately conflating illusion and reality, and
through Prospero's final appeal, pointing to a transcendent
perspective that is explicitly Christian.
The vision of The Tempest and of Shakespeare's other
romances-Pericles, Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale-is less "an-
thropocentric" than that of the tragedies. Furthermore, there is a
substantial- body of Shakespeare criticism that proceeds from the
assumption that he is a Christian writing for a Christian audience,
however great his appeal to the modern sensibility. To rule com-
parison of Shakespeare and Calderon out of court on the grounds
of ideological differences seems oversimple. It has partly been my
aim here to rephrase and expand the terms of Abel's comparison of
Shakespeare and Calderon. We may see the self-conscious charac-
ters in many of their plays as partial projections of the dramatists
themselves into their world. In La vida es suefio, El gran teatro del
mundo and The Tempest, aesthetic detachment from the flux of illu-
sion and reality can be liberating if it is combined with the ap-
prehension and acceptance of ethical imperatives. But both
dramatists show clearly that the imaginative freedom which such
detachment affords is contingent upon a recognition of human
limitations. In these plays, they dramatize the theatrum mundi
metaphor to offer the artist's view of life as a means of resolving
perceptual dilemmas in the world. In other plays of theirs (e.g.
Calderon's honor plays; Hamlet and Macbeth) we are shown the
pitfalls of such detachment if it leans too far toward solipsism. And
in the end, much of what Abel calls "metatheater" is metaphysical or
philosophical drama, thematically and formally posing questions
about knowledge and the nature of being; in Calderon's metathea-
ter, theological questions are sometimes considered as well.
Though Abel may be faulted for ignoring the issue of religious
belief, it is not really germane to his discussion, the subject of which

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246 STEPHEN LIPMANN

is dramatic form. Nevertheless, religion must be considered in the

comparative study of Golden Age and Elizabethan and Jacobean
drama. In conclusion, I would like to sketch out some possible
dimensions and perspectives for such study. One central problem is
defining the role of belief in the response to secular drama as it
develops out of religious ritual. 0. B. Hardison, Jr. has challenged
the idea that drama "evolved" out of the mass, showing the extent
to which the mass in the Middle Ages can be regarded as
drama.18 His work offers points of departure for a comparative
history of popular drama in Spain and England that would
examine carefully the progressive dissociation of aesthetic and re-
ligious experience. But looking back to drama's origins in ritual
provides only a partial view; though the drama of the seventeenth
century can be seen in some respects as ritualistic (as Cope has tried
to show) it was also a theater of ideas, treating problems that were
also of concern of philosophers and theologians, and eventually, to
aestheticians. The intense appreciation of Romantic critics for the
dramatic literature of the Renaissance seems especially significant;
in particular, the kind of transcendence through "play" that Schil-
ler proposes in his Letter on the Aesthetic Education of Man has af-
finities with the aesthetic detachment I have examined in Shake-
speare and Calderon. Finally, it is not my intention to belittle
issues of belief or sweep them under the rug. I would hope that
such comparative approaches, rather than denying the uniqueness
of the comedia, will in the end help to define it in clearer if less
narrow terms.

Kirkland College

18 Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins,
1965).

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