A STUDY OF THE MAIN COMIC ELEMENTS IN THE SAINETES OF GONZALEZ DEL CASTILLO A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Department of Spanish The University of Southern California In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts by William Donald Mills June 1950 UMI Number: EP65441 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMT Oissmtmion Bubiishmg UMI EP65441 Published by ProQuest LLC (2014). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest’ ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 v$ 'S'I ^ ^ This thesis, written by ....... Willi^„Dpnald_Milla....... under the guidance of h%M... Faculty Committee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by the Council on Graduate Study and Research in partial fulfill­ ment of the requirements for the degree of Master _af ...Arts Date June.,195,0 Faculty Committee / Chairman TABIE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION............................ 1 II. CLASSIFICATION OF SAINETES . . .................. 17 III. COMIC ELEMENTS IN THE CHARACTERS ............. 23 Social types and costumes................... 23 Other costume effects....................... 45 Names of characters......................... 51 IV. LANGUAGE......................................... 54 V. OTHER COMIC ELEMENTS............................ 67 Avarice and g r e e d ........................... 68 Borrowing....................... 70 Buffoonery................... 71 Drinking...................................... 76 Fanfaronade.................................. 80 False erudition.............................. 84 Fear and cowardice............ 86 Fighting and slapping....................... 88 Hunger.................................. 91 Ingenuousness and ignorance . . . ........ 93 False illness and fainting................... 96 Personal insults and name calling ........... 98 Licentiousness.......... 101 Pride and vanity.............................. 104 iii CHAPTER PAGE VI. CONCLUSIONS...................................... 108 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................ 110 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The purpose of this study is to bring to light the main comic elements and the manner in which Gonzalez del Castillo makes use of them in his forty-four sainetes* To our knowledge, there exists no study similar to this which treats the technique, characters, situations, language, and attendant elements which blended, go to complete a sainete. Because Gonzalez del Castillo ranked second only to Don Ramon de la Cruz as a saineteroof the eighteenth century, and because his sainetes have been neglected in comparison with those of Cruz, this study also proposes to accord him a share of the credit which those men who preached against the frenchi- fied Spaniard deserve* In order to discover the origin of the sainete we must first look to the juglar of the Middle Age whose chief purpose it was to amuse people. Menendez Pidal gives an accurate description of what a juglar was: . . . los juglares eran todos los que se ganaba la vida actuando ante un publico, para recrearle con la rnusica, o con la literature, o con charlataneria, o con juegos de manos, de acrobatismo, de mimics., etc.^- The main concern of the juglar was to furnish his audience with solace. This is an aim which the sainetero also has in 1 Menendez Pidal, Poesia juglaresca y juglares (Madrid: Revista de Archivos, 1924), p. 5. 2 mind* The principal means employed by the juglar were song and music; however, the buffoon also played a role among those who called themselves juglares* The juglares wore costumes p of bright colored materials and were, as a whole rather showy.* The common conception of a juglar is that of a traveling poet-singer who played before royal and noble audiences. There was also the popular juglar who exercised his vile art in the streets and squares in an attempt to earn a few glasses of wine and a few copper coins.^ This is the forerunner of the bobo or simple who performed practical jokes, made puns, and who was destined to appear in the popular theater of Spain in the thirteenth century. In the thirteenth century there existed side by side with the autos or religious theater sponsored by the church a profane theater which as Valbuena y Prat says? Segun los testimonies cbetaneos (era) burdo y grosero, al que perteneceria el genero de los juegos de escarnio , satirico seguramente: Los clerigos, dice el mismo Rey Sabio, no de.uen ser fazedores de juegos descarnios, porque los vengan a ver gentes, como se fazen. E si otros omes los fizieren non deuen los clerigos y uenir, porque fazen y muchas villanias e desaposturas. ^ None of these'juegos de escarnio have reached us in documents, but it cannot be doubted that this vulgar theater would offer us the first proof and sign of the Spanish theater which was 2 Ibid. , p. 5. 3 Ibid., p. 441. 4 Angel Valbuena y Prat, Llteratura dramatics espafiola (Bareelona-Buenos Aires! Editorial Labor, 1930), p. 15. later to be the ancestor of the paso, the entremes, and the sainete. Juan del Encina, (1469-1529), is traditionally called the patriarch of the Spanish theater. Though he wrote a number of autos de Navidad and Representationes de la Pasion y Resurreccion, his profane eclogues are of more concern to this study. Encina1s Antruejo and other dialogues and com­ positions which were destined to be represented during carnival, put on the stage shepherds who simply converse in the same way as those in his pieces written for the Natividad. The difference is that the subject of their conversations is not sacred. He uses the picturesque proverbs and sayings of the Sayago dialect, and the shepherds frequently allude to happenings contemporary to the time the piece was being staged.^ Thus we find two elements appearing -here which are also to be found later in the sainete. The first is the use of popular and picturesque speech. The second is allusions to contemporary events. Encinafs Aucto de Repelon refers to the jests and prac­ tical jokes which some students play on some villagers who were going to market in the city. Menendez y Pelayo says of this playlet ? . . . por lo rudo y plebeyo del estilo, por la energies groseria de las burlas, anuncia, aunque toscamente, los 5 Valbuena y Prat, op. cit., pp. 27-28. futures entremeses, a los euales hasta se parece en acabar a palos.6 Castillofs sainetes, as we shall see, are full of fighting and practical jokes which are not a great deal different from those found in the Aucto de Repelon. Bartolome de Torres Haharro (died after 1530) was probably the first to bring a sort of realism to the Spanish stage. While describing his dramatic theories, he states: Cuanto a los generos de comedias, a mi paresee que bastarian dos para en nuestra lengua castellanas Comedia a noticia y comedia a fantasia. A noticia se entiende de cosa nota y vista en realidad de verdad, como son Soldadesca y Tinellaria. A fantasia, de cosa que tenga color de verdad aunque no lo sea, como son Serafina^ y Ymenea. *7 In Comedia Soldadesca we find a variety of languages used to reproduce perfectly reality as seen by the author. In the sainetes of Castillo, we frequently find foreign words or phrases intercalated to attain the same end. Gil Vicente, (1465-1539?) a Portuguese poet, brings into full flower the Renaissance theme of love and wordly life which triumphs- over the asceticism of the Middle Ages. In his Farea clamada Auto das fadas, a singing and dancing friar sings forth with this Invititorio de Maitines: A1 temple Santo de Amor donde las almas perdemos, Venid todos, y adoremos® 6~Ibld. , p. 30. 7 > P* 46- 8 > P- 61* 5 The farces of Gil Vicente bring together in an ironic light almost all of the social types of the society in whieh Vicente lived. They are a perfect genre of short comedy and are incomparably superior to the pasos of Rueda or the sainetes of Cruz because they combine social satire with the most"fluent poetry. The number of social types in his plays is astounding.9 And so, as Encina brings into the Spanish theater the use of popular speech, crude jokes and allusions to contemporary events, as Torres Waharro carries a touch of realism to the boards, Gil Vicente emphasizes two more elements which are to become a part of the sainete. He stresses worldly life tri­ umphing over the ascetic, and he presents a many-sided view of society as reflected by the characters who 'roam through his farces. Sebastian de Horozeo (1510?-1580) was apparently the first Spanish dramatist to create an entremes of outstanding form and grace. The Entremes que hizo el autor a ruego de una monja parienta suya evangelista, para representarse, como se represento, en un monasterio de esta cibdad, dla de Sant Juan Evangelista Valbuena says of this entremesi La riqueza de figuras de esta obra (el pregonero, el aldeano, el bufiolero, ademas del fraile) la const!tuyen 5 Ibid.~ p. 66. 10 Ibid.. pp. 76-77.