Table Of ContentA 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
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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.
