RESEÑAS

https://doi.org/10.7203/Celestinesca.14.19731

James R. Stamm. La estructura de la 'Celestina': Una lectura analítica.

Salamanca: Ediciones de la Universidad de Salamanca, 1988. 214
pp.
This is a book for the self-motivated, dogged specialist. Anyone
else is apt to lose patience before reaping its benefits. Evidently not
wishing to tip his hand, the author offers the reader no initial help in
understanding either his design or his purpose: the "Introducción"
heralded in the "Indice" is inexplicably absent. Instead, he proceeds
methodically to offer his disquisition on Celestina, devoting a chapter
apiece to "el marco textual," the Auto (Act 1), the Comedia (Acts 11-XVI
of the sixteen-act version), and the Tragicomedia (the long interpolation,
containing the Tratado de Centurio, that produces the twenty-one act
form). Although he sprinkles this close reading with occasional
hypotheses regarding authorship, it is only in the "Conclusiones" that the
reader comes to appreciate the appropriateness of Stamm's approach,
since, for once, the end justifies the meaos. Thanks to the meticulous
exposition, his principal findings turn out to be more cómpelling than
startling.
My reportage can be holder and begin at the end. (In fact, the
opposite tack would seem to call for a close reading of Stamm's close
reading, with Ce/estina's getting lost in the shuffle.) Upon subjecting
the parts of the text to separa.te scrutiny, Stamm discerns evidence for at
least three different authors, with Rojas' responsibility limited to the
brilliant continuation of the anonymous Auto in the Comedia and,
possibly, to the Tragicomedia's new Act XVI (where Melibea heeds
Lucrecia's suggestion that she eavesdrop on her parents' discussion of her
marriageability). The vengeance sub-plot known as the Tratado de
Centuria cannot be ascribed to Rojas, Stamm believes, because it is so
clumsily joined to the main story as to be full of holes, not to mention
the fact that its jocular humor (not unlike that in the Auto) differs
radically from the sardonic wit found in the body of the Comedia.
Whereas either Rojas or the unknown author of the Tratado might have
written Act XIX's lyrical opening, neither is likely to have composed any
of the preliminary materials or closing verses, since "los elementos del
marco textual no tienen claras e innegables relaciones con el cµerpo
dramatic0 de La Celestina" (187). Finally, the interpolations in the
Comedia have no bearing on this discussion, since they do not lend
themselves to analysis as a discrete structural unit.

Are there reasons other than virtuous devotion to duty for

accompanying the author as he leads us earnestly toward these
conclusions? Yes, of course. As always, it is useful to test one's own
assumptions against those of a well-read expert. In addition, it is a
pleasure still to encounter fertile ideas regarding a work that has
occasioned so much critical commentary, especially when they are
advanced without vitriol. Granted, temperate rhetoric risks evoking
yawns, but Stamm's surface objectivity avoids this pitfall because one
senses behind it a steely resolve, an absolute self-assurance that fairly
invites one to conjecture which amongst us fall into the wrong-headed
camp, in the author's view (he is plain, however, about his
disappointment with Gilman's Celestina criticism). Fortunately, other
matters also hold one's attention. No doubt these will vary from reader
to reader. I shall mention only a few.

It is remarkable that even a severely analytical inquiry proves

susceptible to the sheer vitality of the celestinesque world. To my taste,
it is precisely when Stamm examines the characters that he is most
irresistible, whether one finds his views engaging or maddening. Let me
illustrate, confining the demonstration to the female figures. He tends to
admire Melibea and Areusa in their quests for personal freedom and to
despise the servile Lucrecia as "sosa" (95). Elicia he finds uninteresting
(she never changes, despite M.R. Lida de Malkiel's theory, he posits),
while the naive Alisa "sirve s610 para situar a Melibea en una familia de
cierta categoria social, a la vez que revelarnos un poco m8s de la persona
e historia de la alcahueta; y quiz& para demostrar en terminos mas
amplios la eficacia del conjuro" (143). Celestina, whose prior friendship
with Claudina is accentuated by Rojas, becomes "repugnante" for Stamm
when, in her visit to Areusa's bedroom, "sale a presentarse en terminos
clarisimos de lesbiana y voyeuse" (105).

If I am unable to subscribe fully to Stamm's ideas about these

characters, it is partly because he seems not to have taken into account
the relationship between them and the work's structure, forerunners, and
meanings. Lucrecia, for example, in her capacity as foil to Areusa,
heightens the latter's portrait as a captivating fille de joie. Alisa's
mistaken appraisal of her daughter's innocence increases the ironic
tension of Act XVI, and her foolish decision to leave Melibea to
Celestina's devices may owe as much to tradition (the go-between was
wont to interview her female client out of earshot of the mother; cf.
Pamphilus) as to her ignorance or to the effects of the spell Celestina
had cast on the thread. In any case, it seems to me less than certain that
contemporary readers of the work would have been as inclined as Stamm
to absolve Alisa of all guilt in the tragic suicide of her daughter.
Furthermore, had the old bawd herself impressed these same readers as
negatively as she has Stamm, Bataillon might well have had the last word
(in his La Celestine selorl Fernartdo de Rojas, not cited here) about the
work's moral message.

That Stamm would not concur with such a view of things is obvious
not only from the material fact of this monograph, but also from his
assessment of Celestina's death (a complete surprise, for him) and from
his understanding of Pleberio's lament. Neither vehicle for rhetorical
platitudes nor shrine of hidden meanings, the value of this speech is
universal. Like Melibea, this father is a new figure in Castilian
literature. He functions to ask the hard human questions, and even
though he can supply no answers, his monologue "debia haber abierto 10s
ojos de muchos lectores a la posibilidad de ternura y hasta agonia
existential de parte del padre destrozado por la perdida de su hija,"
giving the last act "un valor sobresaliente y sumamente original" (141).

Sentiments such as these, especially when uttered in the context of

an ostensibly "scientific" analysis, serve to remind us of the reason for
the enduring appeal of Celestina: its timeless humanity. They also
encourage us to accept wildly disparate items as elements of structure
(Stamm includes space, time, fate, love, death, melibeismo, medicine,
humor, verse, images, freedom, the closed circle of acquaintances who
make up the cast, and what he calls "perspectivismo literario"), since
these are capable of leading to new insights about one of the world's
literary jewels. Our sense of reassurance is augmented by the relatively
error-free text, although we may be taken aback by those that follow:

In quotations from the Severin (Alianza) edition:

"Y le traere manso" (52) > "Yo le traere manso"

"No oigo yo" (93) > "No oiga-yo"
"simple rascaballos" (157) > "simple rascacaballos"
 100 KATHLEEN V. KISH

In French expressions:

"deja vu" (97, 141) > "dejh vu"

"denoOementN(98) > "denoOment" (as on 162)

Other.

"Buen Amos" (98) > "Buen Amor"

"Russell Thompsonn (196, n11; 21 1) > "Bussell
Thompsonn

It is also distracting to encounter the abbreviation LC (even though

restricted to the notes and bibliography) for "La Celestina; la obra en su
totalidad (1 l), since it is used even in recording titles without the article
or in languages other than Spanish (e.g., Clara Louisa Penney's The Book
Called 'Celestina', cf. 193, n12 and 210; Marcel Bataillon's "Gaspar von
Barth, interprete de La Celestine," cf. 208; J. Homer Herriott's Towards a
Critical Edition of the 'Celestina', cf. 209; F. J. Norton's Printing in
Spain 1501-1520 with a note on the early editions of the 'Celestina', cf.
210), not to mention when referring to the recent, two-volume edition of
Miguel Marciales, entitled Celestina: Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea
(cf. 208).

It is a pleasure to note that (La) Celestina, on the eve of its five-

hundredth birthday, continues to incite the curiosity of well informed
readers willing to share their knowledge and speculations with each
other. In this light, Stamm's analysis appears as a welcome repast.
iA corner!

Kathleen V. Kish

Department of Romance Languages

University of North Carolina - Greensboro
Greensboro NC 27412 (USA)