LIONEL ABEL
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nante, named Justice, only to come back with their eyes blackened."
It
is indeed odd that she should have launched this
boutade
against
Don Quixote, being herself in worldy terms much the greater
failure.
Here I must enter into conflict with Miguel de Unamuno, the
remarkable Spanish thinker for whom I have the greatest admira–
tion: he has claimed Don Quixote as a hero of tragedy, while I have
to claim him for another dramatic form . That Don Quixote suffers is
true , but he does not suffer tragically; he dies of old age, even deny–
ing the value of his deeds. What we have here is not the death of a
tragic hero. He has admitted that he was his own playwright, and
that the plots in which he was embedded were of his own devising.
His adventures did not always turn out well- but he could no more
be in control of everything he contrived to happen than a good writer
of narrative can be,... there are hazards in dramatic writing where
chance , too, has a role. Now, Unamuno claiming his hero for trag–
edy also says that he made himself ridiculous (which no hero of trag–
edy does). He notes that Don Quixote is very like a "brother" to
Sigismund, the hero of Calderon's "Life Is a Dream," the greatest of
metatheatrical plays .4 But I will belabor the point no further. I like
Unamuno too much to enjoy being on the other side from him, even
in a matter of pedantry.
What about the fact that Don Quixote repents of his illusions
on his deathbed and admits that his deeds were mad? Much has
been made of this scene by critics, but I believe it has been misinter–
preted. All Don Quixote is saying as death approaches is that the
curtain of the stage he acted on is coming down. To act, as he did,
on the stage of life, one must be possessed, as indeed he had been.
Don Quixote's last words, in repenting his follies, are certainly not
4. Robert T er Horst in his recent book,
Calderon.
The
Secular Plays,
suggests that
Calderon made a dramatic science of the insights first explored by Cervantes. He
writes: " ... despite this greater and more symmetrical elaboration in Calderon,
Cervantes made the initial discovery... . In transferring his major creative activity
from the public stage to the privacies of prose fiction , Cervantes creates and dis–
covers ... a whole new universe.... With elaborations and adaptations of
genius , Calderon integrates Cervantes's new theater into his own stage.... In this
fresh field of knowledge , Calderon is a great scientist. He fashions its corresponding
principle." I think this could hardly be better said.
