6. Tirso y Molière

7/30/2019 6. Tirso y Molire

1/26

Serving Don Juan:Decorum in Tirso de Molina and MoUi re

ROBERT BAYLISSA lthough from quite different methodological and disciplinary

perspectives, both Larry W. Riggs and George Mariscal identify adefinitive marker of the "early modernity" generally ascribed to sixteenth-and seventeenth-century western Europe: a convergence of and compe-tition between rival discourses (and, implicitly, the ideologies informingsuch discursive models) with both epistemological and ontological im-plications.' Both Spain and France witnessed the emergence and estab-lishment of public theaters and professional theater industries in the midstof this sea change, and in each country authors of popular comedy drewupon such discursive plurality to entertain their audiences-as well as tocomment on or critique the broader society in which dramatist, actor,and audience found themselves. This comparative study posits the im -portance of the neoclassical precept of decorum in our efforts to tracethe ways in which this broader cultural shift translates to early moderntheatrical practice. Decorum's usefulness as a tool for navigating thecomplex web of intersecting modes of discourse at the early modernplaywright's disposal is proposed by way of case-study, namely throughthe two versions of the Don Juan myth penned by Tirso de Molina (in ElbturladordeSevilla, 1630) and Moli&re (in Dom Juanou le Festin de Pierre,1665). A focus on the servants attending to the plays' title characters, andon the master-servant relationship formed in each text, illuminates thefundamentally different ways in which the two playwrights negotiatethe discursive heterogeneity that decorum was meant to systematicallyaddress.Early modern dramatists' conception of character and their means of


2/26

ComparativeDramaa neoaristotelian precept whose call for a "unity of character" or socialverisimilitude is both literary and social, insofar as it prescribes a hierar-chical social order both for the spectacle onstage and for the audiencewitnessing it. The master-servant relationships that are discursively rep-resented by Tirso and Moliere constitute divergent "readings" of deco-rum in terms of the socially and culturally marginal figure of the servantand his ethical position vis-A-vis the noble protagonist. While the so-cially marginal voice of Tirso's Catalin6n continues to be read as a kindof"moral conscience" in the play,2 I will qualify such a reading in light ofthe insights gained from a comparison to Moli&re's Sganarelle-a roleoriginally performed by the playwright himself. Indeed, we will see thatthe relationship between the servant's voice and his claims to moral au-thority is precisely where, in different ways, both Tirso and Moli&re situ-ate the comic tension and dramatic irony of their plays.The moral dimension of the two works-in both cases punctuatedby Don Juan's eventual demise in an act of divine justice-has domi-nated readings of the plays at least since the heyday of the New Criticism,especially in the case ofEl burladorde Sevilla. Indeed, since the SpanishRomantic playwright Jos6 Zorilla rewrote the story as an archetypalconflict between good and evil in which Don Juan Tenorio is spareddamnation at the last minute, the Don Juan legend has been read in suchexemplary terms. Despite the more satirical and comic presentations ofthe story by Byron, Moli6re, and Tirso, the notion of Don Juan as moralexemplum has been retroactively applied to their works. I would arguethat this mode of reading tempts the twenty-first-century critic tounderestimate the degree to which the codes, conventions, and aestheticconcerns of early modern comedy would serve as a filter through whichany ostensibly moralist critique would be represented onstage and inter-preted by an early modern audience.While by no means denying the presence of a moral problem in theTirso and Moli6re plays, this study proposes a more nuanced analysis oftheir comic treatment that considers more carefully the voices from whichsuch a moralist critique is enunciated. As a pillar of the codes of comedy,

192


3/26

RobertBayliss

domestic servants attending to a morally bankrupt antihero. Thus, whereSganarelle's frustrated attempts to sermonize "from below" simultaneouslyappeal to and impede the audience's identification with his moralist per-spective, Catalin6nfs ethically ambivalent voice engages the audiencemetatheatrically with a firm grounding in the aesthetic dimensions ofcomic reception. This difference of characterization, between the frus-trated preacher and the buffoonish stage director, indicates alternatecomic strategies for framing the representation of moral corruption.Serving Don Juan, and in turn serving the audience witnessing the stag-ing of his exploits, becomes the focal point for understanding how DomJuan ou le festin de pierredeviates from El burladorde Sevilla in itsresponse to the ideological parameters set by decorum in the early mod-ern theater.

I. Decorum, Language, and PowerA revisiting of the dramatic code of neoaristotelian decorum today en-joys the obvious benefits of the lessons learned in the fields of dramaticcriticism and literary and cultural theory over the centuries since theearly modern period. While the discursive heterogeneity described abovehas received ample attention in readings of plays through the lenses ofsuch theoretical frameworks as semiotics, reception theory, the NewHistoricism, and performance theory, I see merit in revisiting the phe-nomenon also from within the discourses and theories contemporary toneoclassical playwrights. Both early modern dramatic texts and thetheoretical treatises contemporary to them are documents that engageearly modern ideologies in ways that poststructuralist theories con-tinue to rediscover and reinvent. Decorum in particular resonates withpostmodern perspectives on ideology and power and their impact onthe representation of class and gender.

As authors of publicly performed dramatic spectacles, one could saythat Tirso and Moli&re each served two masters: on the one hand a het-

193


4/26

ComparativeDramadictated by neoaristotelian decorum. By staging a diverse cross-section ofthe social spectrum while still observing the precept that diction matchcharacter, early modern comedy and tragicomedy embraced a polyphonythat made multiple interpretations possible, depending upon the ideologi-cal positioning, social identity (in terms of both class and gender), andsubjective experience of the individual member of the paying public. In-terpretation was also subject to extratextual elements of the dramatic spec-tacle,3 suggesting that the multiple layers of signifiers at work in a givenperformance extend beyond the level ofverbal (and hence textually rep-resentable) discourse.The domestic servant attending to the (usually male) protagonist ismost frequently assigned the traditional role of buffoon or comic fool,the Italian commedia dell'arte arlequin later recast by Molire4)or Span-ish gracioso.His voice emerges from the discursive cacophony describedabove to negotiate its complexity, coming to the aid ofthe audience in itsconstruction ofmeaning. In a period given to metatheatrical gesture, heis the character who most frequently shatters the staged illusion of mi-mesis by directly addressing the audience, in effect offering an interpre-tation of the spectacle in which he is participating, and in the processpresenting to the audience a "reading" of what is being representedonstage. In her study of Elizabethan drama, Lori Culwell characterizesthis presentation as a use of "exegesis rather than strictly practicingmimesis, thus integrating and mirroring the evolution of the self in theRenaissance"'5 The domestic servant had been a longstanding resourcefor authors of comedy to offer such direct spectacle-witness communi-cation at least as far back as classical Roman comedy, in which the slaveassumes center-stage to negotiate the plot schemes upon which his suc-cess depends.While this precursor to the early modern servant was at timesworking for and at times working against his master,he invariably enjoyeda relationship with the audience unlike that of any other character.The unique nature of this relationship often led earlier generationsof scholars to consider the comic buffoon serving the more "serious"male protagonist a privileged voice through which authorial intent could6

194


5/26

the rest of the dramatispersonae. f his voice is privileged, however, de-corum precludes that such privilege be morally or ideologically grounded;it is based instead, I would argue, on the codes and conventions of earlymodern comedy, on the audience's aesthetic experience of witnessingthe comic spectacle. My resistance to equating the servant's voice withthat of the dramatist stems from the recognition of two functions of thenotion of decorum in the early modern period: one as a literary pre-scription that diction match character, disseminated through themillennia from Aristotle's Poetics,and the other as a notion of sociallyacceptable behavior.7Both senses of the term bear ideological implica-tions: not only do norms and guidelines for socially acceptable behaviorreflect ideology in their designation, but the literary representation ofsocial difference can also be read as an ideological statement. Rather thandivorcing aesthetics from ideology,however, my reading of decorum pos-its that the socially marginal voice of the servant is exploited by the earlymodern dramatist for comic effect-an aesthetic concern very much tiedto early modern ideologies of class difference.

The precept that a character must act and speak in a decorous man-ner-i.e., actions and language must appropriately reflect the "station"or position of the character-implicitly recognizes differences in socialrank and gender, in turn discursively stratifying the social order andeither affirming or critiquing the validity of its structure in its represen-tation onstage.8 The "message" of decorum for the dramatist is that theaudience must be able to recognize the differences between a king and apeasant, a lady and a gentleman, or an aristocrat and a lackey. By makingthe speech of each character reflect his or her social station, the preceptof decorum assures that in early modern comedy and tragicomedy (bothofwhich bring various social stations into contact with one another, fromkings to peasant farmers), multiple styles of speech must be brought intodialogue and contact with one another. Decorum, therefore, fosters adynamic discursive space in the early modern theater that is ripe fortension and conflict, for a staging of the competition between rival dis-

RobertBayliss 195


6/26

196 ComparativeDramato the two examples of the Don Juan legend being studied here, we cansay that both plays represent a stratified social order whose structure isin turn discursively reinforced and stratified.What is especially intrigu-ing about this representation of social difference, however, is that it yieldsa plurality of voices that often operate in discursively (and hence ideo-logically) contradictory ways. The dynamic nature of this collision ofdiscursive modes, arguably the root ofwhat has made our contemporarystudies of early modern drama such a vibrant and active field, will helpexplain the difference between Tirso's and Molire's versions of the samelegend. Because the tensions of interdiscursive conflict can be portrayedand resolved or even exploited in a variety of ways, the same source ma-terial may yield quite different results when taken up by dramatists ofdiffering cultural contexts writing for distinctive audiences. BerylSchlossman has effectively demonstrated, for example, that Tirso's DonJuan manipulates the traditional courtly discourse of desire differentlythan does Moli&re's Dom Juan.10 Beyond this difference in the portrayalof the Don Juan figure,moreover, the Spanish servant Catalin6n embod-ies a discourse of the comic fool or gracioso hat contrasts even moresharply with Sganarelle, Moli&re's servant to Dom Juan. Indeed, thesedifferences change the relationship between master and servant, andultimately the relationship between the dramatic spectacle and the audi-ence witnessing it.

The precept of decorum bore ideological implications since its codi-fication through the appropriation of Aristotle by Italian Renaissancedramatic theorists. Francesco Robortello's influential treatise DeComoedia (On Comedy) (which is in fact cited in Lope de Vegas semi-nal treatise Arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo (New Art ofMaking Comedies) and would exercise similar influence in French neo-classical dramatic theoryl1 ) reflects decorumrs ideological positioning ofcomedy's subjects according to social class. While discussing the notionof character, he admonishes the would-be comic poet that "praises be-coming to men of low birth are not praises if ascribed to men of higherbreeding. The character of a servant, if applied to a gallant gentleman,


7/26

RobertBayliss

Robortello's assertion. An implicit elitist world view is thus manifestedonstage: concerns of the lowly servant are appropriately earthy and cor-poreal, while the noble master's thoughts are by contrast of a loftier andmore spiritual plane-even in the case of Tirso's diabolical Don Juan,who in succeeding centuries would become a Romantic "hero" worthyof redemption. Indeed, this very disjuncture between Don Juan's socialrank and his comportment-a discord between word and deed that couldbe called a problematization of decorum-is central to the agon of bothplays.

Evidence of the persistence of a Robortellian reading of Aristoteliandecorum through the seventeenth century can be found throughout thetreatises on drama written in both Spain and France. In the former case,Lope de Vega's Arte nuevo dehacercomediasen este tiempoprescribesthe style of speech appropriate for the social station of several stockcomediacharacters:

Si hablare el rey, imite cuanto puedala gravedad real; si el viejo hablare,procure una modestia sentenciosa ...El lacayo no trate cosas altas,ni diga los concetos que hemos vistoen algunas comedias extranjeras.(If the king speaks, imitate whenever possible royal gravity; if the oldman speaks, procure for him a modest sententiousness; ... The lackeyshould not speak of lofty matters, nor should he employ the conceits thatwe have seen used in some foreign comedies).13

For evidence of decorum's presence across the Pyrenees one needlook no further than the extant documents of the "Querelle du Cid;" thebitter dispute over the neoclassical orthodoxy of Corneille's Le Cid.Whilethis widely popular play did observe the Aristotelian unities, the issue ofcharacterization and decorum was a key part of Georges de Scud6ry'sattacks on its merit. Milorad R. Margiti considers Scud6ry's claim thatChim6ne's speech does not befit her station as indicative of his overallbias against Corneille, the bourgeois playwright intruding on noble cul-

197


8/26

ComparativeDramaII. Two Modes of Service: Catalin6n and Sganarelle

It is useful to return to the notion of the early modern dramatist as serv-ing two masters, in other words of his need to please the paying public(aesthetically) in a way that did not displease the monitoring state(ideologically). We should first qualify that this presentation of aestheticsand ideology as a binary opposition is simplistic, both in its assumptionof an ideologically monolithic public audience and in the fact that courtlysociety participated on both ideological and aesthetic levels. In the Spanishcorralesde comedias he upper echelons of society reserved the best seatsin the house-los aposentos-fromwhich plays were both enjoyed andscreened. Moreover, royal patronage is an important economic elementin both Spanish and French theater industries, but especially worth keep-ing in mind in the case of Molire. 15Both the aesthetic demands and the ideological parameters of theearly modern audience are complicated matters, then, which may explainwhy both dramatists employ the servant, by tradition an intermediaryfigure, to intervene in the comic presentation of morally grave material.Through Catalin6n, Tirso manages in the same metatheatrical gestureto guide audience reception toward comic ends and to voice an ideologi-cally orthodox moral censure of the antihero, even if such statements aredisingenuous for being motivated by fear and self-interest rather than bymoral righteousness. Meanwhile, through Sganarelle, MoliUre lampoonsthe preaching of moral objections to libertinage in a way that appeals topublic decency and yet makes problematic the audience's identificationwith that morally appropriate and decorous point of view. In both com-edies, the ideological center is framed by the sociodramatic margins,which one might consider a carnivalesque rendering of moral prescrip-tion that allows the audience to enjoy the spectacle of a man behavingvery badly.The Spanish Comedia's traditional association of the comic orgracioso servant with the low, carnivalesque, and grotesque 16 is clearlymanifested in Catalin6n, whose very name is a scatological reference, as

198


9/26

RobertBayliss

intrinsic superiority of character and virtue held by the ruling classesthat is implicit in early modern treatises dealing with decorum. As such,he is the most clearly comic character in the play, both as a source oflaughter and as a "low" foil to his "high" master. The fact that he ad-dresses the play's running premonition (that Don Juan will eventuallypay for his sins) more frequently than any other single character doesnot change his primarily comic function in the play; such premonitionsare framed in comic terms, through his decorously low voice, in a waythat anticipates the fall of his master while undercutting such dramatictension with humor.Read in this way,the servant's voice is less bound tomorality than it is to the aesthetics of comedy.

This aesthetic function explains why,while Moli6re's servant makesexplicit on several occasions that his service to Dom Juan is out of finan-cial necessity alone and against his better judgment, Catalin6n is moreethically and morally ambivalent. In reaction to his master's under-developed moral conscience, he is an ideologically slippery character os-cillating between praise and blame of Don Juan's burlas,or "tricks." Attimes he fears the consequences of his master's moral decisions: "el quevive de burlar / burlado habri de escapar / pagando tantos pecados / deuna vez" (he who lives to trick /will have to come out the tricked / payingfor so many sins / once and for all). 18 But at other times he is a more thanwilling accomplice:

Catalin6n:Al fin, pretendes gozara Tisbea?

Don Juan: Si burlarEs hAbito antiguo mio,qu6 me preguntas, sabiendomi condici6n?

Catalin6n: Ya s6 que erescastigo de las mujeres.

(221)(Catalin6n:So are you trying to seduce Tisbea?Don Juan: If tricking women is my old practice,

199


10/26

ComparativeDramaand the successful consummation of his burla.The servant's passingcomment as he leaves the stage,"iPobre mujer! Harto bien / te pagamosla posada" (222; Poor woman! How poorly / we pay you for your hospi-tality), reinforces his awareness of but indifference to the ethical impli-cations of the womanizing that he aids and abets. The admonition ismade in a metatheatrical aside: such warnings are voiced by Catalin6nto the audience rather than to the soon-to-be-victim, a purelyperformative speech act devoid of any constantive substance, to useAustin's terminology.19When Catalin6n does speak to the issue ofwhatconsequences may result from his master's behavior, it is always framedin terms of self-interest and self-preservation, trademark characteristicsof the Spanish gracioso,n so exaggerated a way as to inspire laughter. Itis a telling reminder of Catalin6n's decorously "low"voice that his nameis a derivative of a colloquial (read through decorum as "low") word fordiarrhea (see note 16), by which Tirso constructs the running joke of theplay: as the plot progresses his fear increases, as does his concern that hemay soil himself. Nomenclature reinforces ideology, then, and as themounting tally of his master's burlas and later defiance of the stoneguest contribute to the accumulating moral tension in the play,Catalin6nserves the audience (through both metatheatrical asides and grotesquepleas to his master) a healthy dose of comic relief. Until Don Juan isliterally consumed by the fires ofhell, then, the moral implications of hissocially destructive behavior are primarily voiced by a servant who canonly speak with tongue in cheek.

From the audience's perspective, then, Catalin6n can hardly be seenas a "moral compass" whose reactions to his master's actions could guidetheir reception of the play in ethical terms. Rather than voice the moralmessage of an ideologically conservative condemnation of libertinism,as Abrams would have us believe (see note 16), his attitude is too incon-sistent, too involved in the aesthetic reception of the comedy, and toobound by decorum to his social station to provide a uniform ethical re-ception of the events that he witnesses. A better voice for representingthe moral condemnation ofDon Juan can be found in the collective dis-

200


11/26

RobertBaylissdecisive confrontation: upon learning (from Catalin6n) of Don Juan'sdeath literally by an act of God, the king can only marvel at the super-natural (divine) justice dispensed where his ow n human and secularauthority has failed to act. The point here is that Catalin6n's failure toadjudicate with consistency or moral authority, while enunciating thelow discourse dictated by decorum for his station, is symptomatic of awider failure in Tirso's play to discursively contain Don Juan that ex-tends throughout the entire social spectrum.2' A practically voicelessstone statue will instead procure the libertine's physical containment inthe fires of Hell; physical and spiritual action (and, incidentally, stagemachinery) trumps language in the case of a man whose modus oper-andi is to subvert the binding power of words. 22 The female victims ofTirsds Don Juan, as it turns out, do not need the king to bring their se-ducer to justice; nonetheless, their presence and especially the voicing oftheir complaints does put into words for the audience the cost at whichDon Juan's conquests have come. Once God intervenes, the king's role isreduced to cleaning up the mess of the social system that Don Juan hasmade, and to invoking the formulaic mode of comedia closure withironic festivity, by marrying off the play's burladasand establishing amonument so that his subjects will interpret the story in the future as acautionary tale. Kings, ladies, and gentlemen thus describe the moralhorror of Don Juan's actions from the perspective of Spanish society'supper ranks, while Catalin6n's voice reveals an appropriately (that is tosay, a decorously) "low" perspective. Collectively they frame Don Juan'sstory in the codes and conventions of comedy.

Because Moli&re's Dom Juan never successfully seduces any womenonstage, the victims in his play do not forge such a collective voice; in-stead, the servant Sganarelle assumes a more central role in articulatingcondemnation of Dom Juan's unacceptable behavior, thus standing instark contrast to Catalin6n's ambivalence. From the opening scene of theFrench Dom Juan the audience is prompted by his servant to disapproveof his master's behavior. Whereas Tirso's play opens with a burla in

201


12/26

ComparativeDramaservant to Dom Juan's most recent victim Elvire, that he should not ex-pect his master to honor his marriage vows to her. In other words, wefirst witness not Dom Juan in action but Sganarelle's verbal portrait ofhim, and this portrait leaves no doubt as to how we are to receive thecharacter of the protagonist when he finally does appear in the followingscene: "tu vois en Dom Juan mon maitre, le plus grand sc6l6rat que laterre ait jamais port6, un enrag6, un chien, un diable, un Turc, un h6r6tique,qui ne croit ni ciel, ni enfer, ni loup-garou.... Suffit qu'il faut que lecourroux du ciel l'accable quelque jour. (Dom Juan, my master, is thegreatest scoundrel who ever walked the earth, a mad dog, a demon, aTurk, a heretic who doesn't believe in Heaven, or Hell, or werewolveseven.... Suffice it to say that the wrath of Heaven hangs over him everyday).23 This prologue to Dom Juan's acts of deceit and seduction offersan unequivocal guide to the audience as they prepare to witness andinterpret Dom Juan's deceptive speech acts.24 In the process, Sganarellealso appeals to a set of values and morals, ostensibly shared with theaudience, in opposition to those of his master. His function is to focusthe spectator's attention to the play's object of derision, the pharmakos-master that he serves.Sganarelle's explicit and repeated denunciation of his master'slibertinism fosters a relationship with the audience that assumes a dy-namic not unlike that of a preacher speaking to his congregation-interms of his moral orthodoxy, if not his social authority. By continuallyreminding us of his disapproval, the servant distances himself from hismaster and from his behavior, extricating himself from all guilt and blamethat an association with Dom Juan might otherwise bring. The spectatoris therefore constantly reminded that he is witnessing sinful and loath-some behavior, at which we should point from a distance but with whichwe should never sympathize or identify. Sganarelle in effect renders hisplay a cautionary tale in which, according to Riggs,"The comedian's func-tion, as Moliere always insists, is to show the effects-moral and social-of the vices endemic to his time'"26 So strong, in fact, is Sganarelle's senseof moral righteousness that an ongoing struggle emerges in his opening

202


13/26

RobertBayliss

In effect, the moral compass that orients Sganarelle's reception (andostensibly the audience's reception as well) is pitted against his sociallydetermined role as servant to Dom Juan. The servant's moral superiorityis trumped by the master's social superiority, leaving Sganarelle discur-sively impotent, unable to reason with Dom Juan or to dialecticallycounter his logic. The servant's first attempt to debate his master is in-dicative of how Sganarelle's discursive efforts are thwarted:

DI:. Et ne trouves-tu pas, dis-moi, que j'ai raison den user de lasorte?

S: H6! Monsieur ...DJ: Quoi? Parle.S: Assur6ment que vous avez raison, si vous le voulez; on ne peutpas aller li contre. Mais, si vous ne le vouliez pas, ce serait peut-&tre une autre affaire.DI: Eh bien! je te donne la libert6 de parler, et de me dire tes

sentiments.S: En ce cas, monsieur,je vous dirai franchement que je n'approuve

point votre m6thode, et que je trouve fort villain d'aimer de tousc6t6s comme vous faites. (25-26)(DJ: And I have a right, do you think, to behave that way?S: Well, Sir ...Di: What? Go on.S: Certainly it's your right, if you insist; one wouldn't dare

contradict you. But if you didnft insist, one might answerotherwise.D1: Very well. I give you leave to speak freely, and to tell me what you

truly feel.S: In that case, Sir, I'll tell you frankly that I don't approve yourconduct in the least. I think it's shameful to love in all directionsas you do . [13-14])

The response to Sganarelle's straightforward challenge of his master'spractices is an extensive self-justification by Dom Juan: the social cus-tom of monogamy is an unjust check of his desire and love of beauty;once a seduction is complete, desire fades; his passion is akin to the drivefor conquest that transformed Alexander into Alexander the Great. Theeffect of Dom Juan's speech is dizzying to the poor servant, who simply

203


14/26

ComparativeDramacependant il est vrai que vous ne l'avez pas. J'avais les plus bellespens6es du monde, et vos discours m'ont brouill6 tout cela.Laissez faire; une autre fois je mettrai mes raisonnementspara6crit, pour disputer avec vous. (28)

(DJ: Well-what have you to say to it?S: Heavens! I've a great deal to say,... but I don't know how to sayit.You've twisted things in such a way as to make it seem thatyou're in the right; and yet the fact is that you're not. Iwas readywith the best arguments in the world, and you've made amuddleof them.Well, let it go; the next time I discuss anything with you,I'll put my thoughts in writing before-hand. [17])

Even more than his manipulation of women, Dom Juan's most impres-sive exercise of authority (or abuse of power) is his discursive domi-nance over his servant, whom he forbids to sermonize further. Soonafter the above exchange, however, Sganarelle makes another attempt tochallenge his master's discursive authority, this time under the guise ofspeaking to a "hypothetical" master who lacks Dom Juan's ability to jus-tify himself.Notwithstanding this rhetorical pretext, the master demandssilence and directs Sganarelle to help him plot his next seduction.What the audience witnesses, then, is an abuse of discursive powerby an antiheroic nobleman, and the frustrated attempts by an incompe-tent buffoon to stem such abuse; such a spectacle would inspire bothsympathy for Sganarelle's struggle and pity of his incompetence. Withoutpostulating a univocal response from his historical audience, we canassert that Moliere's Dom Juan assumes the role of ridicule, he object ofcomic derision, that characterizes this controversial phase of theplaywright's career: the play was hastily produced to replace the bannedTartuffe in 1665, and like Tartuffe and Le Misanthrope'sAlceste, DomJuan functions as a satirical figure. The fact that his servant representsthe moral and ethical high ground in the play, and that he points theaudience to share these standards as they interpret Dom Juan's actions,means that the frustration experienced by Sganarelle onstage can onlybe amplified for the audience: while both the servant and his audiencewould presumably share their disapproval of what the master does, theaudience must in addition deal with the frustration of having a discur-

204


15/26

RobertBayliss

This is as decorum dictates that it must be: one cannot be "put in hisplace" from below. As in Tirso's play, it will only be the divine interven-tion of the ultimate authority in heaven that can silence Dom Juan onceand for all in the play's dramatic conclusion, for decorum's ideologicalimplications will not allow such "poetic justice" to be achieved by ser-vant over master. As if to emphasize the fact that Dom Juan's punish-ment is delivered in spite of (not because of) Sganarelle's position, theplay closes with the latter lamenting the loss of his wages: would thatGod had only struck the immoral libertine down after he had paid hisservant! The play thus closes with the hysterical rant of a pathetic andself-interested servant, true to decorum, but in a way that makes onereconsider his relationship with the audience up until this final scene.The fact that Sganarelle had constituted something akin to a "voice ofreason" for the majority of the play, insofar as he had voiced the majorityof complaints against Dom Juans subversion of honn6tet, s undone byhis final act of wretched self-interest-again, framing the articulation ofmoral opposition through the codes of comedy.

A curious dialectic is established between Dom Juan and Sganarelleover the course of the play, one whose terms are dictated by the former.In their first exchange of the play, a scene described above, Dom Juan'sself-justifying speech leaves Sganarelle practically speechless, and he isprohibited from sermonizing any further. Because such "sermonizing"was a failed attempt to voice an ideologically orthodox opinion of DomJuan's behavior, the stage had been set for Dom Juan to exercise his dis-cursive authority in a way that allowed the audience to experience first-hand his distorted logic and egoistic sense of entitlement to the libertieshe takes with women. The master's discursive oppression of the servantestablishes his own moral bankruptcy and antiexemplarity.

The third act of Moli6re's play opens with another failed attempt atdiscursive subversion by the servant, who has disguised Dom Juan as acountry peasant and himself as a doctor to aid their escape from thefamily of his latest victim. After hiding their identity through an inver-

205


16/26

ComparativeDramaS: [C]ar cet habit me donne de F'esprit, et je me sens en humeur dedisputer contre vous. Vous savez bien que vous me permettez les

disputes, et que vous ne me dMfendez que les remontrances.D1 . Eh bien? (79)(S: This costume has sharpened my wits, and I feel in the mood todebate. You'll recall that you allow me to debate with you, and

that the only thing you forbid is preaching.D1: Very well, go ahead. [71])

After establishing through their own peculiar dialectic method thatDom Juan is an atheist unbothered by superstition, the servant attemptsa syllogism meant to logically establish as irrefutable truth that God doesin fact exist. The attempt is a complete disaster, and his discursive impo-tence in the face of his social superior is reaffirmed: "Oh! Dame,interrompez-moi donc, si vous voulez. Je ne saurais disputer, si Fon nem'interrompt. Vous vous taisez expr6s, et me laissez parler par belle mal-ice" (80-8 1; Oh, my God, interrupt me, won't you? I can't argue if I'm notinterrupted. You're deliberately keeping quiet, and you're letting me runon out of sheer malice [73]). Sganarelle's ineptitude makes him hesitate,in order to argue that his master's silence interrupts him. After beingprompted to conclude his argument, the failed syllogism descends to thelevel of physical comedy,as Sganarelle falls to the floor while attemptingto use bodily gestures to prove that God exists and that his master's be-havior will not go unpunished. Again, Sganarelle's warning is absolutelycorrect and accurate, as the play's final scene will affirm, but his articula-tion is ridiculously incompetent, as decorum dictates a servant's discourseshould be.The most important consequence of Sganarelle's decorum-compliantdiscursive submission is that it allows his master to speak for himself,which in turn allows the audience to se e unequivocally how bad he re-ally is, how truly he deserves the punishment that he ultimately receives.In the tradition of Le Tartuffe, whose prohibition led to the hasty inser-tion of Dom Juanas a substitute for prearranged performances,27 Moli&re'sduplicitous and disingenuous protagonist makes the best case for his owncondemnation. Sganarelle unwittingly succeeds through failure in this

206


17/26

RobertBaylissoutrage that he expresses in asides to the audience, which continuethrough the play's conclusion, just before he mourns his lost wages:

[P] ar sa mort, un chacun satisfait. Ciel offens6, lois viol6es, filles s6duites,families d6shonor6es, parents outrag6s, femmes mises a mal, maris pouss6s bout, tout le monde est content. (139)(My master's death gives satisfaction to everyone: Heaven he offended,the girls he ruined, the families he dishonored, the laws he broke, theparents he outraged, the wives he led astray, the husbands he drove todespair, they're all well pleased. [146])

In keeping with the comic servant's role as intermediary between audi-ence and spectacle, Sganarelle's ability to interpret the play's action forthe audience is an effective means of glossing the "text" of Don Juan'sverbal swagger from a morally authoritative perspective. True to themandate of decorum, however, any such moral authority does not eraseSganarelle's social subordination, which renders him discursively abject.Immediately following the abandoned Elvire's emphatic reproach at theend of the first act, for example, the following exchange occurs:

S: (Apart.) Si le remords le pouvait prendre!D]: (aprs un moment de rMflexion.) Allons songer

l'ex6cution de notre entreprise amoureuse.S: (seul.) Ah! Quel abominable maitre me vois-je oblig6 de

servir! (37)(S : [aside] If only he were capable of remorse!DJ: [aftera moment'sreflection] Now, then, let's go aheadwith our amorous enterprise. [exit]S: Oh, what a wicked master I'm forced to serve! [26])

Dom Juan's discursive authority thus extends beyond social class andinto gender. The only physically violent act that he commits occurs off-stage in Moli&re's play (the killing of the commander, father of an earliervictim). His abuse of women is not physically but discursively violent, ashe employs the rhetoric of devotion and submission intrinsic to the dis-course of courtly love in order to fool his victims. In J.Douglas Canfield's

207


18/26

ComparativeDramawhereas Tirso's complicit servant can only acknowledge the wrong be-ing done to Tisbea in an aside (out of earshot to everyone but themetatheatrically engaged audience), Sganarelle identifies on a discursivelevel with Dom Juan's women as victim to his master's discursive con-quest. In the second act, this shared experience inspires the compas-sion to warn Charlotte and Mathurine, the two country girls whom hismaster has targeted.

S: Ah! Pauvres filles que vous 6tes, j'ai piti6 de votre innocence, etje ne puis souffrir de vous voir courir A otre malheur. Croyez-moi l'une et l'autre: ne vous amusez point a tous les contes qu'onvous fait, et demeurez dans votre village.DI: (dans le fond du th6ftre,Apart.) Je voudrais bien savoirpourquoi Sganarelle ne me suit pas.

S: Mon maitre est un fourbe; il n'a dessein que de vous abuser, et ena bien abuse d'autres; c'est 1'pouser du genre humain,...(ApercevantDom Juan.)Cela est faux; et quiconque vous diracela, cous lui devez dire qu'il en a menti. Mon maitre n'est pointl'6poseur du genre humain, il n'est point fourbe, il n'a pas desseinde vous tromper,et n'en a point abus6 d'autres. Ah! Tenez, levoilA; demandez-le plut6t A ui-mme. (59-60)

(S: Ah, you poor girls, I pity your innocence, and I can't bear to seeyo u in such a hurry to be undone. Take my advice, both of you:don't let yourselves be led astray by all the lies you've beenhearing: stay here in your little village, and be safe.Df: [Speaking to himself,as he reenters.]W hy didn't Sganarellefollow me, I wonder? What can he be doing?S: [To the girls.] My master is a trickster. All he wants to do is to

seduce you, as he has so many others. He's quite ready to marrythe whole human race: ... [HenoticesDon Juan.] All that, ofcourse, is false, and if anyone says those things to you, you musttell him that he is a liar. My master is not prepared to marry thewhole human race, he is not a trickster, he has no intention ofdeceiving you, and he has never seduced anybody. But ah , herehe is! If you don't believe me, ask him. [59-601)Sganarelle thus comes to employ two distinct modes of discourse, oneinsincere and purely performative to satisfy his master and the othermore candid and genuine when out of earshot of Dom Juan. Juxtaposedas they are in the passage above, it is clear that one is explicitly antitheti-

208


19/26

RobertBayliss

from his master, whether in dialogue with Dom Juan's female victims orin an aside to the audience. His identification and empathy with thesewomen thus adds an inflection of gender to his communications withthe audience, who shares with Dom Juan's victims a frustrating depen-dence on Sganarelle's faltering voice to articulate an ethical and moralassessment of the protagonist.

We have seen that because Tirso's Catalin6n is more ambivalenttoward his master's ethics, he denies the audience a clear guide to in-terpretation on moral grounds. This ambivalence does not, however,diminishes his importance in the audience's reception of the play. Thekey difference between the two servants is that Sganarelle prescribesfor the audience a morally grounded mode of interpretation, whileCatalin6n's prescription is grounded in aesthetics. By taking up andtacitly condoning Don Juan's schemes (as when, for example, he re-sponds to Don Juan's prompt to conceal his identity as he prepares toseduce Tisbea by exclaiming "iA mi ... / quieres advertirme a mi / loque he de hacer!" (212; As if you had to tell me what to do!), the ser-vant anticipates the imminent burlawith enthusiasm and excitement.By warning in an aside of the peril faced by an innocent victim as hismaster begins his rhetorical assault on an innocent victim-to-be("Desdichado tAi, que has dado / en manos de Lucifer!" [261; Woe toyou, who have fallen / into the hands of Lucifer!]), Catalin6n is guidingaudience expectations for the crime about to be committed and tacitlycondoning it, as if to say "watch and marvel as my master works hismagic.' Catalin6n's designation of his master as "Lucifer" in the lastquote is in my opinion motivated less by morality than by the aesthet-ics of comedy: he casts his master in the epic and archetypal role in ametatheatrical aside. His gloss on the "text" being staged for the audi-ence is to indicate an impending experience by the audience ofadmiratio t Don Juan's audacity. Furthermore, his expressions of fear,typical of the gracioso figure, serve both to heighten the audience'sawareness of the danger that Don Juan faces, thus heightening a sense

209


20/26

ComparativeDramaIf Don Juan is the "author" of the play's action, in that his libido

and ego drive the plot, Catalin6n serves as his editor, re-presenting theaction in a way that privileges the audience's aesthetic experience of it.It is noteworthy that while Sganarelle's assessment of his master canonly be voiced out of earshot of his master, Catalin6n's commentary isonly further stimulated by Don Juan's presence. Hence while Sganarelle'snaming of his master (scoundrel, rogue, monster,etc.) is offered to theaudience as a way of distancing it and himself ethically from D om Juan,Catalin6n's most important act of nomenclature gives the play its titleand is enthusiastically encouraged by his master:

C: Y tfi, sefior, ereslangosta de las mujeres,y con p6iblico preg6n,

porque de ti se guardaracuando a noticia vinierade la que doncella fuera,fuera bien se pregonara:"Gudrdense todos de un hombreque a las mujeres engafia,y es el burlador de Espafia"

DI: T6 me has dado gentil nombre.(246-47)

(C: And you, sir, are the scourge of women for all to see; so that anymaiden may protect herself when news of your arrival comes, itwould be well that it was proclaimed aloud, "Beware of a manwho tricks women, known as the Trickster of Spain:'DJ: You've given me a distinguished name!)This is the name that Tirso will adapt for his title, and that Don Juan

himself will appropriate when asked his name by another victim.Catalin6n's service to his master, while tempered at times by fear for hisow n personal welfare, shows none of the reluctance on ethical groundsthat characterizes Sganarelle. He is so thoroughly implicated in Don Juan'smisogyny that the stone Comendador specifically asks for los dos (bothof you) to accept his fateful invitation to dine at his tomb.Why, then, is Catalin6n ultimately spared his master's fate? While

210


21/26

RobertBayliss

tion of the patriarchal Christian worldview that Tirso presents, in linewith the prescriptive agenda of decorum, does not depend upon the fateofone from Catalin6n's caste. After all, what more would one expect froma man whose low birth, according to the understanding of the socialorder espoused by decorum, means he is destined to be associated with"low" concerns? The ideological threat that Don Juan poses is seriousonly because he is of noble stock, of the empowered elite. Catalin6n hasno power to abuse, and the gracioso s not to be taken seriously.

Why, then, is Catalin6n invited to share in the morbid banquet? Inpractical terms we can say that for Tirso to demonstrate the recovery ofthe social order disrupted by Don Juan, he must have a witness to theprotagonist's demise who can report to the king what has occurred, thusallowing secular authority to reassert the legitimacy of the institution ofmarriage, previously threatened by Don Juan, once divine authority hasremoved the perpetrator. Furthermore, while the Comendador does actas a representative of God's wrath, he is also the father of a dishonoreddaughter who needs a witness to announce that his damaged honorhas been avenged and repaired. But the most satisfying answer that Ifind to this last question is in aesthetic terms: more than Tirso or theComendador, it is the audience that needs Catalin6n, who has estab-lished himself over the course of the play as an important intermediaryand as a catalyst to the aesthetic reception of the spectacle. His typecastcowardice climaxes in the banquet scene, which both contrasts his master'sbravado and audacity and provides moments of comic relief in the midstof some very morally serious matters.

His presence allows for the explicit mentioning of grotesque detailsthat are below the discourse of nobility that decorum designates as ap-propriate for Don Juan: when served the grim repast of the underworld,Catalin6n the glutton may ask what he is being served (insects, serpents,and fingernails) so that these details may be presented without Don Juan'sparticipation. Such questions regarding food and drink, after all, wouldbe inappropriate for a character of noble stock to ask his guest; even in

211


22/26

ComparativeDramatable a capacity to influence audience reception in a way that still re-spects the bounds of decorum while tilting the play's ambiguous mix-ture of the low and high, the comic and tragic, toward the former.

Returning to the greater attention paid to the voices of Tirso'sscorned women, we may observe that the effect of this female presencesupports a reading in line with the didactic function of decorum, for itmakes explicit the disastrous social consequences of Don Juan's con-quests, or the aftermath of his burlas.Rather than focus exclusively onthe personal consequences for Don Juan, that is, the fate of his soul (asMolire and eventually the Romantic versions of the legend would do),it presents for the audience the wider social implications of his abuseof society's courtship and marriage practices, indeed of his abuse ofthe power that men exercise over women in early modern society.29Moli&re chooses instead to present this abuse almost exclusively throughthe interpretive lens of the discursively inept Sganarelle-with the ex-ception of Elvire, who appears scorned and outraged early in the play,and again in act 4 to beg him disinterestedly to reform for the sake ofhis own soul.This movement, away from the social repercussions of Dom Juan'smisdeeds and toward the moral implications of his life and lifestyle, ex-plains MoliUre's omission of Tirso's final betrothal scene. After Catalin6ninforms us of his master's fate, Tirso concludes his comediawith the king'sarrangement of marriages for his now avenged victims, a corrective toDon Juan's perversion and subversion of conjugal desire. Royally arrangedmarriage contracts represent the model for sublimating and controllingdesire toward ideologically orthodox ends (the social institution and re-ligious sacrament of matrimony), thus offering a positive model of moraland social exemplarity after the spectacle of Don Juan's negative example.Moli&re offers no such model-because, as Larry W. Riggs has persua-sively argued, Moli6re was less interested in promoting an official hege-monic ideology as he was in undermining the manipulation of totalizinghegemonic discourse for personal gain.

3" His focus on exposing the vicesof his society, rather than on offering a positive model of conduct, con-

212


23/26

RobertBayliss 213While serving their respective incarnations of the Don Juan arche-

type, then, Sganarelle and Catalin6n provide important service for theirrespective audiences as well. Despite their very different strategies forperforming this service, both characters demonstrate how decorum de-lineates the development of character and the ideological function ofearly modern drama. While the precept may at first appear to place lim-its and boundaries on how early modern playwrights may choose to rep-resent social reality, the ways in which Tirso and Moli&re manipulatethese limits speak to its creative possibilities, and to how each playwrightunderstands his role as author of public spectacle and the social functionof comedy.

The Universityof Kansas

NOTES'George Mariscal, Contradictory ubjects: Quevedo,Cervantes,and Seventeenth-Century

Spanish Culture (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 3, and Larry W. Riggs, Moli6re andPlurality:Decompositionof the ClassicistSelf (New York: Peter Lang, 1989), 1-24.2See, for example, Edward Friedman, "Redressing the Trickster: El burladorde Sevilla and

Critical Transitions:' Revista Canadiensede EstudiosHispAnicos,29, no. 1 (2004): 61-77. WhileCatalin6n is not the focus of Friedman's study,he is referenced throughout the essay as the play's"moral conscience.'

IRoger Chartier offers a detailed description of early modern comedy's performance con-text as key to interpretation in Formsand Meanings:Texts, Performances,and Audiences fromCodex to Computer (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 43-82.

1A detailed study of Molire's debt to his Italian contemporaries in the development of theSganarelle character can be found in Larry W. Riggs,"Stammering Clowns: Sganarelle, Sosie, andMoli&re as Moralists," Romance Quarterly36, no . 4 (1989): 401-5. For a detailed albeit specula-tive exploration of the representation of this and other characters in Moli&re's comedies, seeNathan Gross, From Gesture to Idea: Esthetics and Ethics in Moliere's Comedy (New York:Columbia University Press, 1982).1Lori M. Culwell,"The Role of the Clown in Shakespeare's Theatre; EarlyModern LiteraryStudies, SHAKSPER-L list (2004), http://extra.shu.ac.uk/emls/iemls/shaksper/files/ROLE%20CLOWN.txt.IAn example pertinent to our discussion of the Don Juan legend is Fred Abrams,"'Catalin6n'


24/26

214 ComparativeDrama' Several "classic" studies of Tirso's play focus on its implicit critique of the early modernSpanish nobility. See especially John Varey, "Social Criticism in El burladorde Sevilla' TheatreResearch International , no. 3 (1977): 197-221; Everett Hesse, "Gender and the Discourse of

Decayin El burladordeSevilla"Bulletin of the Comediantes 7, no. 2 (1995): 155-63; and MercedesSAenz-Alonso, Don Juanyel donjuanismo(Madrid: Guadarrama, 1969). The bibliography dealingwith Moli&re's play as social critique is similarly extensive. I have found particularly useful thethird chapter in James F. Gaines, Social Structures in Moli6re's Theater (Columbus: Ohio StateUniversity Press, 1984), 87-133. While not focused on Dom Juan,Riggs's MoliareandPlurality samong the most comprehensive and theoretically current studies of Moli&re's critique of societythrough comedy. See also Harold C. Knutson, The Triumph of Wit: Moliere and RestorationComedy (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1988).9 See especially Surveiller et punir: naissancede la prison (Paris: Gallimard, 1975) andFolieet d&raison:histoirede ]a folieA lFgeclassique(Paris: Plon, 1961), in which Foucault pointsto the ideological function of discourse to create subject positions that classify and categorizeindividuals.10Beryl Schlossman, "Dissappearing Acts: Style, Seduction, and Performance" MLN 106,

no. 5 (1991): 1030-47. For a more general comparison of Moli&re's comedies to the SpanishComedia, see Thomas P. Finn, Molire's Spanish Connection:Seventeenth-Century SpanishTheatricalInfluence on Imaginary dentity in Moli&re(New York: Peter Lang, 2001).For an excellent overview of the relationship between neoclassical dramatic theory andthe practice of Moli&e's dramaturgy, see Andrew Calder, Moliere: The Theory and PracticeofComedy (London: Athlone Press, 1993).

"2DramaticTheory and Criticism:Greeks to Grotowski,ed. Bernard F. Dukore (Orlando:Harcourt Brace 1974), 128." F61ix Lope de Vega Carpio, Arte nuevo de hacercomedias;La discretaenamorada Madrid:Espasa-Calpe, 1981), 16-17. All translations of the Arte nuevo are mine.14 Milorad R. Margiti, "Sociological Aspects of 'La Querelle du Cid" in Homage to Paul&nichou, ed. Sylvie Romanowski and Monique Bilezikian (Birmingham: Summa Publications,1994), 59-74.'1 Gretchen Elizabeth Smith's The Performanceof Male Nobility in Moli.re's ComMdies-Ballets:Staging the Courtier Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005) is an innovative study of Molire thatfocuses on how his theatrical practice is conditioned by his relationship with the king.1 Critical examinations of this dimension of the figure of the Spanish graciosoare com-

monplace, but in reference to El burladorde Sevilla see especially Maya Schdra, "El graciosoen Tirso de Molina: fidelidad y autonomia" Cuadernoshispanoamericanos , no. 24 (1977):419-39, and James A. Parr, "Erotismo y alimentaci6n en El burladorde Sevilla: el mundo alrev6s" Edadde oro 9 (1990): 231-39.17 Am6rico Castro,introduction to El vergonzoso en palacio;El urladorde Sevillayconvidadodepiedra,by in Tirso de Molina (Gabriel T61lez) (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1980), 205.'1 Tirso de Molina (Gabriel T6llez), Marta Iapiadosa;El burladorde Sevilla, ed. AntonioPrieto (Madrid: Magisterio Espafiol, 1974), 242. Subsequent citations refer to this edition andare cited in the text. All English translations of El burladorde Sevilla are mine.


25/26

RobertBayliss 21521A reading of this struggle for discursive authority in Tirso's play may be found in Barbara

Simerka, "Early Modern Skepticism and Unbelief and the Demystification of Providential Ideologyin El burladorde Sevilla" Gestos: Teoriay Practicadel Teatro Hispanico12, no. 23 (1997): 39-66.22For a comparative reading of various incarnations of the Don Juan legend that focuses

on the violation of "word-as-bond:' see J. Douglas Canfield, "The Classical Treatment of DonJuan in Tirso, Moli6re, and Mozart: What CulturalWork Does It Perform?" ComparativeDrama31, no . 1 (1997): 42-64, and Shoshana Felman, The Scandalof theSpeakingBody:Don JuanwithJ.L. Austin, or Seduction in Two Languages (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003).23Moli6re, Dom Juan,suivi de Prolongement,Etude dumythe et r6critures, d. Jean-Luc

Vincent (Paris: Gallimard, 2002), 23-24 (all original French citations of the play are from thisedition); DonJuan:ComedyinFiveActs, 1665, ed. and trans. Richard Wilbur (New York: Harcourt,2001), 9-10 (all translations of Dom Juan are from this edition). Subsequent citations of theseworks appear in the text.

"24ee Felman for a comprehensive treatment of the Don Juan myth through the lens ofSpeech-Act theory.

211 efer here to Sganarelle's rhetorical strategy to identify with the audience on a moral plane,bu t I do no t assume that the experience of the heterogeneous theatergoing public of seventeenth-century France would be so unanimous or homogenous.

26Riggs, "Stammering Clowns" 404."r ee note 17, above. Riggs also explains the circumstances ofDom Juan's composition and

argues that it shares with Le Tartuffe a strategy of dramatizing the discursive hegemony of thestate in seventeenth-century France.28Canfield, 42.29Canfield's article "Classical Treatment of Don Juan" analyzes the patriarchal misogyny

implicit in ho w the men associated with Don Juan's female victims react to the news of their (thewomen's and their own) dishonor.11See especially Riggs's introduction to Moli&re andPluralism.


26/26

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

TITLE: Serving Don Juan: Decorum in Tirso de Molina and

Moliere

SOURCE: Comp Drama 40 no2 Summ 2006

The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it

is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in

violation of the copyright is prohibited.

Documents

6. Tirso y Molière