Harry Sieber

Critical Cluster: Early Modern Theater and Theatricality

With this Hispanic Issue of MLN, the editors introduce a new section— a “critical cluster”—on the general topic of Early Modern Spanish literature. (Future issues will include clusters about other periods of the literatures of Spain and Latin America). The common thread among the following articles is theater and theatricality in Golden Age Spanish drama and fiction. Enrique García Santo-Tomás, in his review article of Jesús Pérez-Magallón’s recent book on Calderón, provides us with a brief history and an assessment of critical trends and reactions to Calderonian drama from the late seventeenth century to the present. His primary interest is to determine what constitutes a “classic” in the formation of literary canons, the focus and tastes of readers and critics, and the political implications and contexts over an extended time period. Esther Fernández concentrates on the importance of the use of puppets in the theatrical productions of comedias de santos, a genre embraced by the Church, often to celebrate Cuaresma and its religious and theological interests. Mira de Amescua’s El esclavo del demonio is her play of choice, first presented as a puppet show as early as 1692 and received enthusiastically by its original audience. Its recent puppet performance in 2010 inspires her to conclude that the medium is as crucial as the message and that the recuperation of the mechanics of performance are integral to an understanding of Golden Age theater. The remaining two articles in this cluster are devoted not to theater but to prose, even though both deal with performance and plot, and both follow an invented script in which characters assume acting roles

Bruce W. Wardropper 1919-2004

BRUCE WEAR WARDROPPER, eminent Hispanist and Professor of Romance Languages at The Johns Hopkins University early in his career, died on January 6, 2004, in Durham, North Carolina. He is survived by his wife, Nancy Palmer Wardropper, who received her Ph.D. fromJohns Hopkins in 1985; by his son, Ian Bruce Wardropper, Chairman of the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and by his daughter-in-law, Sarah McNear, and granddaughter, Chloe. At the time of his death he was the William Hane Wannamaker Professor Emeritus of Romance