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Calderón's Silvas
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
The silva is a form of verse which was used by Lope de Vega in increasing quantity from about 1620. Though it never rose to take a place among the most popular meters, Lope used as many as 259 lines of silvas in La Noche de San Juan (Acad. N., VIII), of 1631, and 255 lines in Las bizarrías de Belisa (Acad. N., XI), of 1634. This represents respectively 8.5 and 9.3 per cent of the total number of lines in the play. Among plays of less certain date, La boba para los ostros y discreta para sí has 315 lines of silvas, or 11.1 per cent of the play in that meter, while Más pueden celos que amor has 304 lines of silvas, representing 11.4 per cent of the total number of lines. This trend towards a freer use of silvas in the drama was likewise reflected in the works of other writers.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1943
References
1 See Morley and Bruerton, The Chronology of Lope de Vega's Comedias (New York, 1940), pp. 30–31.
2 See Morley and Bruerton, op. cit., p. 175.
3 Ibid., p. 215.
4 See S. G. Morley, “The use of verse-forms (strophes) by Tirso de Molina,” B Hi, vii (1905), 387–408; “El uso de las combinaciones métricas en las comedias de Tirso de Molina,” ibid., xvi (1914), 177–208; “Studies in Spanish Dramatic Versification of the Siglo de Oro. Alarcón and Moreto,” Univ. Calif. Publ. Mod. Philol., vii (1918), 131–173.
5 Hilborn, A Chronology of the Plays of D. Pedro Calderón de la Barca (Toronto, 1938).
6 These are: Type 1 (rimed aAbBcC, etc.); Type 2 (long and short lines rimed irregularly, some unrimed lines, no fixed order of length); Type 3 (all long lines, 50 per cent to 98 per cent rimed, no fixed order, usually in pairs); Type 4 (long and short lines mixed irregularly, all rimed in pairs). See Morley, “Studies in Spanish Dramatic Versification, etc.,” ibid., pp. 141–143; Morley and Bruerton, op. cit., p. 12.
7 This table shows analyses of silvas of all comedias printed in Hartzenbusch's edition in BAE except El condenado de amor, which does not appear to have been written by Calderón. (See Hilborn, op. cit., p. 75.) I have included Amor, honor y poder, the versification of which seems genuinely Calderonian, and excluded La selva confusa (not in BAE) because of its nonconformity in many respects to Calderón's usual versification pattern at the time of its presentation. Its silvas are treated in some measure by Morley and Bruerton (op. cit., pp. 340–341). Dates preceded by “ca.” in the tables are those drawn from my previous study. Other abbreviations are: c—comedia; a—auto; e—entremés, etc.; d—date; v—Volume and page (Hartzenbusch's edition in BAE except for autos, for which references are to Pando y Mier's edition); l—number of lines; rp—rimed in pairs; pc—per cent of lines rimed in pairs; or—other rimes; unr—unrimed; pc.7's—per cent of 7's.
8 New abbreviations are: dp—dated plays; dv—plays dated only by verse; np—number of complete plays in the period; abab, abba, axa—percentage of silva lines so rimed; qu—percentage of quintilla rimes in the silvas. In this table, figures under “rp” and subsequent headings to “Pc.7's” represent percentages of the total number of silva lines, but otherwise the meanings are unaltered, and “l” represents the average number of fines of silvas in the plays of the period. Years not included in the periods mark lacunae in the dates of the dated plays. There is no longer any distinction made between abab, etc. and ABAB, etc. Under “Type 1,” “Type 2,” “Type 4,” the figures show the number of passages of the type named.
9 Northup, Three Plays by Calderón (Heath & Co., 1926), pp. 80–84.