, Unamuno and Gaston Baty, All U nited By Dulcinea

Víctor García Ruiz University of Navarre

Once upon a time there was a country called Spain, in which a civil war took place. The war ended in 1939 and many things did change in that country from then on. Sorne were political, sorne social, sorne theatrical. Right after the war the first state funded theater in Spain, the Teatro María Guerrero, headed by Luis Escobar was established. This theatre was to be followed very soon by the Teatro Español, also state funded. The attempts to start such theatres, that is, National Theatre, were old and had been many but the fact is that nothing of that sort occurred until the Franco regime. First 1 shall speak about the María Guerrero Theatre. The beginnings were tough mainly due to the lack of tradition of a "théátre d' art" as regards to the audience and the critics. But the first success did not take too long to arrive: it was a play called Dulcinea by Gaston Baty (1885-1952), a contemporary French man of theatre. The success was both critical and in terrns of audience. For the first time the María Guerrero went over a hundred perforrnances of one of Íts productions, and in those times one hundred perforrnances was the only label of real success. The prem¡¿~re took place on December 2, 1941. The success of Víctor Garc[a

Dulcinea did a lot to affirm the prestige of a new style in Spanish theatre and in creating a new public in Madrid. But my focus here is different: what 1 want is to explore how Baty' s Dulcinea remakes sorne aspects of the imaginative world of Don . Gaston Baty was a well known director and playwright, far more concerned with staging than with the text itself. He was a member of the well-known "Cartel des Quatres" (with Charles Dullin, and George Pitoeff) founded in 1926 under the spell of Jacques Copeau, the master of them aH. They all tried to counteract the cornmercial theatre and strengthen artistic creativity and the art of acting. Dulcinea has two parts and eight scenes in aH. The first part portrays freely the episodes in the "venta", the humiliation of Don Quixote when arriving back in a cage to his home town and his death. Baty, familiar with Spanish Golden Age literature, skilfully brings in characters and the atmosphere of Lazarillo. Rinconete y Cortadillo, and La Celestina; apart from the Don Quixote, obviously. Baty displays his great expertise and the results are brilliant, it must be said. But the most striking "liberty" in Baty's play is the turning of Maritornes, the shameless and provocative servant in Quixote, into the ideal dame of the eccentric knight Alonso Quijano. Maritornes, the epi tome of the lecherous barmaid, rises to the rank of not only Aldonza, the country girl, but to Dulcinea, the lady of Don Quixote's dreams. The contrast, of course, is more than dramatic. As a matter of fact, the high point in the play comes when Don Quixote gives in to the pressure around him and yields and, as a proof of his no longer being insane, before dying says: "[Dulcinea] Does not exist..." (86). And then, right after the death

338 Don Quixate. Unamuna and Gastan Baty,All Uníted By Dulcinea of Don Quixote and his blasphemous words, the girl Maritomes­ Aldonza shows up and calls herself Dulcinea. This is the hinge of Baty's play. Let us take a little break and cast a glance on one of the most controversial and important books on Don Quíxote, The Lije of Don Quíxote and Sancho according lo Miguel de Unamuno, first published in 1905, and with many reprints afterwards. If Baty plays with the different aspects and characters of the Cervantine novel, we must acknowledge that the pathbreaker in this kínd of game was Unamuno. As he points out, bis first target was to erase the pedantic and merely matter-of-fact approach of the shortsighted and devout scholars of the Quixote, who thrived in his days. Miguel de Unamuno, in his redoutable style, was craving to wipe out aH false erudition and replace it with spirit.

It seems to me that this inspiring outlook by Unamuno could be put down to three main points: nationalism, the quixotic faith and the very existence of Aldonza-Dulcinea. 1. Unamuno wrote that his Don Quixote and Sancho was an "essay in genuine Spanish Philosophy", or "Philosophy and Theology in the Spanish fashion" (9) l. To a French hispanist Unamuno wrote: "Cervantes found Don Quixote in the soul of the Spanish people and showed him to uso I have found him again and showed him again" (13). Unamuno writes elsewhere: "In 1605 Cervantes gave us the Bible of Spanish individualistic personal ism" (18). So, Don Quixote becomes the essence of the Spanish people. Thus, very much in the Romantic line of the "Generation of 98", Unamuno contributes to the nationalist revival of Spain in the early nineteen hundreds.

I AH translations are my own.

339 Víctor García

2. The relationship between Quixote and Sancho is related with one of the major topics in Unamuno: the tension between faith and reason, realism and idealism, doubt and certainty. In fact, it is precisely in The life oi Don Quixote and Sancho that Unamuno displays for the first time the main ideas of his most influential essay Del sentimiento trágico de la vida en los hombres y en los pueblos published sorne ten years later (1913). A few quotations from chapter 10 will help us clarify matters. Sancho makes up his mind to deceive his master making him believe that "any peasant woman, the fírst I come across, is my lady Dulcinea; and if he refuses to believe it 1 will swear it" (159). Strangely enough, we have lo consider that even though Sancho thinks his master is crazy and easy to deceive, and keen to mix things up, nevertheless Sancho lets himself dragged into the faith of Don Quíxote. Sancho would Uve, feel, act and depend upon the spell of an odd power which took hím and led him against what he saw and understood. Sancho's life was a slow self dedication to the power of the Quixotic faíth. And now the core of Unamuno's contradictory vision of faith: Sancho' s belief in Don Quixote was not a dead faith, not a deceitful faith, not based upon ignorance. On the contrary, it was a living and true faith, a faith nurtured by doubt. "Because those who do hesitate, are the only ones who do belíeve. Those who do not doubt or have temptatíons against their faith, those do not believe; because real faith is fuelled by doubt" (159). "Sancho was aware of the madness of his master, he knew the windmills were windmills and not giants, he was certain the coarse peasant woman he was to meet in the way out ofToboso was not Aldonza Lorenzo and much less Dulcinea. And nevertheless, he did believe bis master and in bis master. Eventually he himself did believe in Dulcinea and her

340 Don Unamuno and Gaston Dulcinea spell. This is faith -eries out Unamuno- Sancho, and not the one of those who believe a dogma even without understanding its immediate sense" (159). "In keeping up this struggle between heart and head, between feeling and understanding, in the former saying yes! while the latter says no! and vice versa, in this and not in reconciling the two opposite principIes, consists the saving and fruitful faith" (160), according to Unamuno. 3. Let's now come down to a crucial point: did Aldonza really exist? Who was she? Unamuno was extremely sharp when he underlined the connection of the fiasco of the meeting of Don Quixote with Dulcinea in the outskirts of El Toboso and in a few lines at the end of chapter one (1), Cervantes writes how thrilled he was, when he found someone given the name of Lady! It occurred, as it is believed, that in a near his there lived an extremely good looking peasant girl, although she never came to know or to guess i1. Her name was Aldonza Lorenzo, and to her he considered it fitting to give the title of "Lady of his Thoughts" and, looking for a name akin to his own, he called her Dulcinea del Toboso, because she was a native of El Toboso. So, the fact is that Don Quixote was head over heels in love with a real peasant girl called Aldonza Lorenzo. Aldonza did exist. Being himself a squire, and being an honest man, Don Quixote knew that social differences were a gap that could not be bridged. That' s why Don Quixote never spoke to her and never let the secret come out of his heart.

It is quite tempting to consider that all his compulsive reading was a sort of an outlet for this frustrated love. Aldonza not only exists, she may be the underlying trigger which sets off Don Quixote' s manía for knightly romance.

341 Víctor Gorda

All of these stories, nevertheless, were packed full of lecherous lo ve affairs. Knights and dames, engaged in hot passions, were all but chaste. Don Quixote, poor thing! There is no other way around: Cervantes, who knew something about platonic love, has to idealize Don Quixote's love to the full, beyond all limits. Let us note that in Don Quixote there are three levels of love that can be singled out: first, the carnal coarse affair between Maritornes and the "arriero morisco" (the moorish mule driver): a base and purely sexual matter. Second, there are a number of flesh and bone lovers, whose dealings are not as idealistic and detached as Don Quixote's. These honest love stories have physical uníon in sight. Although tragic, one instance ís Marcela and Grisóstomo's case. The point here is the ideal and the physical coming together. And then, at the highest level, we find the sublime love story of Don Quixote and Dulcinea, an utterly ideal form of love. But this hidden love makes the situation completely paradoxical for Don Quixote. In the outskirts of El Toboso our knight should be expecting and trembling at the possibility of meeting the real Aldonza, and was probably relieved by the trick and by the fake Dulcinea. The spell and Sancho's teasing eventually alIowed him to stay in his dream world, to keep on fancying high thoughts. Unamuno puts it this way: "And now we come to the most dismal moment in our knight's career: the defeat of Alonso Quijano el Bueno inside Don Quixote .... Don Quixote was staring in blurred sight at the woman that Sancho called "Queen and Lady". He, as Don Quixote expected to find Dulcinea, but underneath Don Quixote, Alonso Quijano expected to see Aldonza Lorenzo, for whom he sighed twelve years of deep sighs" (160). But the disappointment is more than cruel: Alonso, or perhaps Don Quixote, realizes that the dreadful peasant girl who jumps on her mule like aman is not his beloved Aldonza I Dulcinea.

342 Don Quixote. Unamuno and Gastan Baty.All United By Dulcinea

"Please you, Sancho -says Don Quixote- do not try to cheer up my real sadnesses with false joys" (161). "This sadness - Unamuno remarks- is precisely his twelve year old sadness of love, the sadness of his madness. Why! Do you really think that Alonso Quijano didn't know he was insane? Alonso fully accepted his madness as the only remedy for his love, as a gift from pious heaven. But when he learned that his madness was bearing real fruit", the knightly insanity of Don Quixote gave way to the love insanity of Alonso Quijano (161). The miracle will not happen though. The awful country girl behaves in the rudest fashion towards Don Quixote and the whole scene becomes grotesque. The blow is so devastating that Alonso -along with Don Quixote- is definitely doomed to madness. Unamuno refuses to insist: "Keep on, my readers. 1 feel so melancholy that my imagination can not recall it. It is totally impossible to read the martyrdom of the wretched Alonso without deep anguish" (162).

Let me go back now to Gaston Baty's Dulcinea, especially its second part, which seems to me close to Unamuno's insights.

Remember Maritornes, at the end of part 1, has just named herself Dulcinea in front of Don Quixote, who dies a traitor to his dame. This second part has four scenes. The first could be labeled "The takeover". Sancho is full of the idealism of Don Quixote but both Sanchica and Teresa, with their down-to-earth outlook, absolutely bar him from joining Maritornes-Dulcinea. Because in Baty's play Maritornes is the heiress to Don Quixote, not Sancho. She takes over the task of making the les son of the knight of La Mancha everlasting. Sancho fails, gives in to his inner self, his meanness, his conversion is not complete. But the quixotic faith goes to Maritornes who becomes a crazed Dulcinea.

343 Víctor Gorda Ruiz

The next two scenes are a lavish display of Dulcinea' s insanity and foolery, a wide range of "quixotesque" behaviour. She helps a dying beggar but is accused of robbery and witchcraft, then gives water to an exhausted blacksmith but ruins the making of a valuable sword. In her escape she reaches the lowest leve!. She joins a bunch of beggars, thieves, a "Celestinesque" procuress, a friar on the run from his community, etc. A gritty portrait of every misery including prostitution, robbery, witchcraft, blasphemy, sacrilege ... Dulcinea dares to kiss the sore limb of a cripple but her sublime generosity is mocked with ludicrous remarks claiming the kiss has produced a miracle. The underworld despises her and, eventually, she gives herself up to justice. The saínt, the doer of good ends up being prosecuted. The last scene is both the utter humiliation of Dulcinea and her apotheosís. She is set free on grounds of madness and delusion. Sancho is called in and, in his cunning way, confesses the final betrayal of Don Quixote to his Dulcinea. Reality clashes with Dreams and Fantasy. At this stage Baty's play is filled up with rampant pessimism and the most unbearable sense of failure. But the outcome could not be so vulgar and nasty. The humiliated tavern girl brings about a last minute conversion: one of the judges, moved by her idealism, allows her to go out of the room and find the mob that will kill her as a witch. Maritornes is finally transfigured in Dulcinea. A gloomy ending is tumed into an inspiring one. 1 don't know whether or not Baty had read Unamuno, but he seems to follow closely in his footsteps in the three traits 1 mentioned before: a devout concern for Spain and its Golden Age

344 Dulcinea literature; a deep engagement with quixotic idealism, and a close attention to Dulcinea. It has to be observed that Unamuno, in spite of all his ídiosyncratic bend towards contradiction, can be considered within the boundaries of "liberal" or "critical" thinking, so to speak. As for Gaston Baty, he belongs to an advanced French Catholicism devoid of any attachment to political party views or historical conceptions about society or specific systems of govemance. His general attitude seems to me pretty open and I would like to underline the earthy portrait of that Spain, miles away from a prudish or sanctimonious attitude. Baty is far from dodging certain aspects of reality, especially those conceming sex, and his language can be considered direct or even crude. It has to be said that many of those "bad taste" words and situations stayed in the Spanish translation -which is excellent, by the way and was published shortIy afterwards- but I am certain that those 'improper' details were absent on stage. My last point in tbis paper will take us back to the beginning, thus c10sing a sort of circle. This "liberar' experiment by Unamuno 1 have been perusing also gave way to a more conservative outlook. First, I am hinting at the book by Ramiro de Maeztu Don Quixote, Don Juan y la Celestina. Ensayos en empatía (1926) and, less widely known, but more to the point now, to a review-article by Joaquín de Entrambasaguas shortly after the success of Dulcinea in the María Guerrero Theatre. After the war, Entrambasaguas was to be the pundit in Spanish Studies in Spain for decades. Fair1y monarchist and fair1y Francoist, he had many strings in the field within his hand~ and from the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas he pulled them frequently to show bis influence.

345 Víctor Carda

His review "Al margen de Dulcinea, de Gaston Baty" was published in 1942. Entrambasguas is keen on calling attention to the links between Dulcinea and "the Hispanic spirit in the current moment of Spanish history" (156). "No sceníc version of Don Quixote -as far as 1 can recall- has been able to go beyond the forrn and get down to its perrnanent depth, to íts spirit and ideology" (156). The pitch of this bias comes at the end, in the paragraph titled "Coordination with this Spanish hour", a fuIl exhibitíon of nationalistic fervour. "For many years, -he says- all those years of fatally losing our way on our historie route, the figure of Don Quixote was just literature for every Spanish generation. Even today, many naive souls have a bitter, disdainful smile for every unselfish spiritual attitude" . "The great success of Dulcinea in Spain, with its triumphant spirítualism, brings forth our national attitude far better than many other indications, in spite of the many greasy "Sanchos", determined to díIute it". "These days, when Western Culture -whose core and soul is Spain- seeks to regain, through bIood and sacrifice, its primitive spirit, this Dulcinea by Gaston B, with all its spIendour and literary beauty, comes to strengthen our distressed but not dísenchanted souIs and to teach us that we are bound to create and defend a noble and higher world, that of the spirit, till the last sigh of our lives". What Entrambasguas is hinting at with "bIood and sacrifice", 1 prefer not to look into -BIue Division? Gerrnany's víctorious pace on the battlefieIds?

346 Don Dulcinea

This piece of pompous prose was written sixty years ago. Today it is difficult to say whether ir' S just a far cry from common sense, a na'ive display of patriotic enthusiasm, a cunning form of increasing power or, simply, a completely outdated review.

Notes Baty, Gaston. Dulcinea [1938]. Tr. Huberto Pérez de la Ossa. Madrid: Gredos, 1944. Entrambasaguas, Joaquín de. "Al margen de Dulcinea, de Gaston Baty". Cuadernos de Literatura Contemporánea 1-6 (1942): 155~ 66. Maeztu, Ramiro de. Don Quixote, Don Juan y la Celestina: ensayos en simpatía [1926]. Buenos Aires: Espasa-Calpe, 1938. Unamuno, Miguel de. Vida de Don Quixote y Sancho. Obras Completas. Vol. 3. Ed. Manuel García Blanco. Madrid: Escelicer, 1966.

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