Drama and Ethos

Natural-Law Ethics in Spanish Golden Age Theater

Robert L. Fiore

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780813186139
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Literaturkritik im Drama

Spanish Golden Age drama as an expression of morality falls between the extremes of art-for-art's-sake and utilitarianism. According to Spanish literary critics of the 16th and 17th centuries, drama imitated reality, the subject and domain of philosophy. The integration of drama and scholastic moral philosophy was an important aspect of the critical theory of this era, which held that art should both teach and delight.

Through close textual analysis of representative plays, this book examines the artistic fusion of natural-law philosophy and drama. It demonstrates the relationship between ethics and the central ideological themes of these works, illustrating that an awareness of the doctrines of natural law ethics is crucial to an enriched comprehension of the drama of Golden Age Spain.

Chapter One

The Climate of Opinion in Golden Age Spain

Thomistic natural-law ethics, the most important element of the revival of Scholasticism in Golden Age Spain, was extremely influential in the intellectual climate of this period, impressing itself upon many areas of Spanish thought. Scholars have demonstrated the importance of natural law with relation to the political thought of Counter-Reformation Spain, yet despite its pervasive influence on the literature of the period, no major studies have treated this topic. The impact of the notion of natural law on Golden Age literature can best be seen in the drama, where philosophical tenets are often essential to theme. Given the fact that natural law is such an important aspect of the literature of the Golden Age, it is helpful for the literary student to have a knowledge both of this philosophical doctrine and of the cultural climate in which it flourished.

Carl L. Becker traces the relationship of natural philosophy, and specifically of Thomistic natural law, to the climates of opinion prevailing in different periods of history. Having stated Aquinas’s definition of natural law and Dante’s arguments for a world monarchy, Becker relates these to the concept of climate of opinion.

Professor Whitehead has recently restored to circulation a seventeenth-century phrase—“climate of opinion.” The phrase is much needed. Whether arguments command assent or not depends less upon the logic that conveys them than upon the climate of opinion in which they are sustained. What renders Dante’s argument or St. Thomas’ definition meaningless to us is not bad logic or want of intelligence, but the medieval climate of opinion—those instinctively held preconceptions in the broad sense, that Weltanschauung or world pattern—which imposed upon Dante and St. Thomas a peculiar use of the intelligence and a special type of logic. To understand why we cannot easily follow Dante or St. Thomas it is necessary to understand (as well as may be) the nature of this climate of opinion.¹

Spain’s climate of opinion had changed a great deal during the course of the Renaissance, and by the end of the sixteenth century the dominant theological and philosophical views had reverted to some extent to those held during the Middle Ages. One popular concept common to these periods was that God guided man to his ultimate end; artists preferred to express this idea metaphorically, representing God as Dramatist and the world as a great theater.² Man accepted his role in the drama with resignation, since he could not alter the divine text; indeed if he attempted to do so, his ambition was considered sinful. He could never fully understand this drama; God alone could comprehend it. The function of man’s intelligence was “to demonstrate the truth of revealed knowledge, to reconcile diverse and pragmatic experience with the rational pattern of the world as given in faith.”³ Although the medieval period is popularly viewed as the age of faith or belief, it also embraced a large measure of rationalism, because of fundamental desire to substantiate faith through scholarship based on logic and reason. Medieval man certainly had his questions about matters of faith, and this is reflected in his literature and philosophy. His faith was like that of the father of the epileptic child who said to Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). Becker considers the thirteenth century to be an age both of reason and of faith:

This is not a paradox. On the contrary, passionate faith and an expert rationalism are apt to be united. Most men (of course I need parentheses here to take care of simple-minded folk and the genuine mystics)—most intelligent men who believe passionately that God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world—feel the need of good and sufficient reasons for their faith, all the more so if a few disturbing doubts have crept in to make them uneasy. This is perhaps one of the reasons why the thought of Dante’s time was so remorselessly rationalistic. The faith was still intact, surely; but it was just ceasing to be instinctively held–its ablest adherents just becoming conscious that it was held as faith. All the more need, therefore, for proving it up to the hilt. It was precisely because St. Thomas believed in a divinely ordered world that he needed, for his own peace of mind, an impregnable rational proof of a divinely ordered world.⁴

Thus what some critics take to be the simple faith of the Middle Ages was really not simple at all; doubts were weakening the acceptance of religious dogmas and there was a need to sustain belief by use of reason and logic.

This mixture of faith and doubt helped to produce a large and important body of rationalistic philosophy and literature which attempted to reconcile faith and reason. One may have profound faith, as Thomas and Dante did, and still have enough doubt to desire rational proof of his beliefs. Faith does not preclude doubt; in effect doubt is probably essential to faith. For in the absence of doubt, doctrine would be accepted as concrete fact, and it would not be necessary to have faith in order to believe it. One need not have faith that there is a sun, since it is seen and experienced in everyday life; pragmatic experience leads one to accept as a fact that the sun exists. Although medieval Christians believed that there was a God, a heaven, and an immortal soul, they also doubted these beliefs. Had they not experienced doubt, they would not have had the need for rational proof of doctrines, and much of the excellent literature and philosophy of the Middle Ages might not exist today. Doubt had stimulated their minds to seek reasons for the mysterious phenomena which confronted them. There was a need to define, to study, and to prove religious dogmas in order to restore the stability that Christianity had enjoyed in the past. To whom were they to turn? Surely there was no better guide than Thomas Aquinas, a man of profound faith who had felt the need to prove rationally his religious convictions. Thomas, in reconciling faith with reason, did for the Christians what Averroes had done for the Arabs and Maimonides for the Jews; all had turned to Aristotle as their master and used logic and empiricism as valid instruments in their philosophy. The Summa Theologica fulfilled a basic necessity; it compartmentalized God, the universe, and man in an orderly fashion, appealing to rational thought.

In Spain of the sixteenth century, secularism and insistent questioning of doctrine began to penetrate orthodoxy; this tendency was accelerated by the Reformation. Spain was in dire need of answers to such questions, and she did exactly what the medieval Christian did: she turned to scholastic philosophy, especially that of Thomas Aquinas, to quiet the doubts that plagued her and to protect and sustain her Catholic faith. This revival of Scholasticism was a most important element of the climate of opinion in Golden Age Spain. It had a profound effect on both the religious and the laity, since it was widely taught in the universities and appeared in sermons from the pulpit as well as in the literature of the period.

It may prove difficult at times for twentieth-century man to comprehend the concepts held by medieval Christians and by Spaniards of the Golden Age, since our climate of opinion differs so greatly from theirs. We of the twentieth century have lived through two suicidal wars and countless other devastating events which have caused us to view man as illogical and unreasonable in his behavior. No longer can we readily accept the scholastic idea that human behavior is controlled by reason, nor do we accept the logic which they used to prove their case. The climate of opinion of the twentieth century will not sustain an interest in the philosophical arguments and the methodology utilized in Counter-Reformation Spain. The Spaniard of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, like the Christian of the Middle Ages, believed that God, existence, the universe, and man could be studied in a rationalistic way with deductive logic as the methodology. Theology and philosophy, for them the two most important fields of knowledge, helped to reconcile pragmatic experience with revealed truth. The interest in moral philosophy, and particularly in natural-law ethics, in Renaissance and baroque Spain was still quite evident in the eighteenth century, but it is not compatible with the intellectual climate of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which are concerned primarily with the union of fact and reason. The study of theology and philosophy has given way in the twentieth century to a preference for history and natural science, a fact readily seen in the curricula of our universities. Twentieth-century man feels the need to study those natural phenomena and recorded events of history which he accepts as concrete facts, rather than the abstract ideas of moral philosophy and religion so dear to the Spaniard of the Golden Age. We of the twentieth century are far removed from the intellectual world of Counter-Reformation Spain, but we should not dismiss as absurd the concepts which were popular at that time. The climate of opinion in Spain was rational rather than factual, and the Spaniards were very much interested in metaphysics. They preferred the study of theology and philosophy to that of history and science in answering the questions which were important to them.

Spain of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries found herself in the position of champion of the faith, as she had been during the reconquista. Philip II attempted to conserve, fortify, and unify the power and riches which Spain had acquired during the reign of Charles V. Both kings were regarded as protectors of the faith and both had carried their religion beyond their borders with missionary zeal. With equal ardor at home and abroad they fought the sects which had broken from what they held to be orthodox beliefs. The legacy that Charles left his son included not only territory and power but also the costly religious wars and the powerful enemies which were to trouble Spain for many years to come. As a typical leader of his age, Philip seized the opportunity to use his political and religious position to strengthen the Spanish monarchy racially and religiously. The fervor of the reconquista was transformed into the zeal of the Counter-Reformation under the reign of Philip. Again the bellicose religious spirit of the Spaniards was brought to bear; they fought the Turks at Lepanto, the Protestants throughout Europe, and the heretics in Spain. This tremendous battle with heresy both abroad and at home was reflected in many facets of Spanish culture, sometimes paradoxically, as in the case of the auto da fe on the one hand and of the auto sacramental on the other. One of the beneficial effects of the Counter-Reformation in Spain was that it produced a moral awakening. The clergy and the laity lacked discipline, customs were ripe for change, and religious nepotism needed to be eliminated. The Council of Trent, in which the Spaniards played an important role, was useful in that it served as a defensive and regenerative religious force protecting and renewing the dogmas, thereby helping to reform the Church.

The intense interest in moral philosophy which characterized the Renaissance and baroque periods increased the popularity of Seneca and caused Stoicism to be Christianized. The Stoics’ concept of the law of nature as the principle of moral order and their view of man’s relation to the universe attracted Spanish thought at this time. Both Stoicism and skepticism, especially that of Erasmus of Rotterdam, influenced the literature of desengaño, which came to be so popular in the seventeenth century. Platonism came into great favor during the Renaissance and had a profound effect on the idealistic philosophy, theology, and literature of the time.⁵ Platonic philosophy concerned itself with the moral life; its metaphysics treated the powers of nature, and this encouraged the study of natural philosophy. God was unknowable in essence, but all aspects of nature pointed toward him. In the neoplatonic literature of Spain, the anthropocentric view of man had been propagated by the idealized knights, lovers, and shepherds. Some famous theologians of the time regarded this idealized secular literature as a type of engaño, lacking moral discipline and irresponsibly encouraging a form of escapism. In answer to this escapism Spain produced literature which dealt with mysticism, asceticism, and the desengaño theme.⁶ One of the aims of the Counter-Reformation in Spain, according to Stephen Gilman, was to return to man’s existence the final meaning and absolute terms of man’s life that were so evident to the medieval mind.

The “undeceived” individual interpreted his perceptions in a different manner after having seen them placed in logical contrast with the infinite and the eternal. He saw a world of confusion, rapidity, and death, but he believed in one regulated and organized by absolute standards, by hierarchy and by category. It was an Aristotelian rather than a Platonic arrangement. As in the autos the four elements were restrained from chaotic battle only by divine command. Thus the combination of rigidity and frenzy that characterized the life of Spain as she entered the 17th century.⁷

The intuitive Platonic and Augustinian philosophies faded and were replaced by the pragmatic empiricism of Aristotle and its derivative, Christian Scholasticism.⁸ Spain was eclectic, choosing those philosophical systems which best suited her theological position. Diverse schools of thought were popular at different times and in different geographical locations. The University of Alcalá became a center of learning where the philosophical thought of John Duns Scotus was in vogue, while the University of Salamanca was mainly interested in Thomism. With this intellectual activity, Spain produced several well-known thinkers. Francisco de Vitoria was instrumental in introducing Thomas’s Summa Theologica as a basis for philosophical study at the University of Salamanca. Domingo de Soto was influential in legal studies; Melchor Cano, in critical methodology; Luis de Molina, in ethics; Francisco Suárez, in metaphysics. All of these men were disciples of Thomistic natural-law philosophy, as Bernice Hamilton points out in a chapter devoted to natural law and its implications:

The Thomist version of natural-law theory, which was strongly attacked in all northern universities during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and largely jettisoned in Protestant countries, continued unbroken in Spain, and had, indeed, a new flowering during the sixteenth or “golden” century . . . Vitoria and Suárez provide lucid statements of natural-law theory and draw from it some distinctly liberal political conclusions. Domingo de Soto and Molina, each in a different way, contrive to modify these clear statements: Soto by his Augustinian language and his tendency to adopt the jurists’, rather than the theologians’, definition of natural law; Molina, by his many doubts about the clarity and universal knowability of the natural law, and by his harsher attitude to the old (Moslem) if not to the new (Indian) infidels.⁹

Among these scholars the work of Suárez was particularly important in the revival of Thomistic Scholasticism; his renowned commentary on the Summa Theologica was the basis for the study of metaphysics in Spain for many years.

The doctrine of Thomas Aquinas as presented in the Summa was the most influential body of thought in the rationalism which held sway in the intellectual climate of Spain during the Counter-Reformation. Of special interest in Thomistic philosophy was natural-law ethics. Thomas Aquinas believed that there was order in the universe under God, who directed all creatures to their ends by a hierarchy of laws: the eternal law—the governance of all things; the natural law—man’s participation in the eternal law as a rational being, able to choose between good and evil; the positive law—scriptures which supplement the natural law; and positive human law. Defining law in the general sense as a kind of “rule and measure of acts, whereby man is induced to act or is restrained from action,”¹⁰ Aquinas held that there existed an eternal law by which God directed all creatures to their ends. “Law is nothing else but a dictate of practical reason emanating from the ruler who governs a perfect community. Now it is evident, granted the world is ruled by Divine Providence . . . that the whole community of the universe is governed by Divine Reason. Wherefore the very Idea of the government of things in God the Ruler of the universe, has the nature of a law. And since the Divine Reason’s conception of things is not subject to time but is eternal . . . therefore it is that this kind of law must be called eternal.”¹¹ Aquinas believed that God was not indifferent as to whether his plan of creation was carried out, and that thus h...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1. The Climate of Opinion in Golden Age Spain
• 2. Fuenteovejuna
• 3. La mejor espigadera
• 4. The Auto Sacramental
• 5. El gran teatro del mundo
• 6. No hay más fortuna que Dios
• 7. A Dios por razón de estado
• 8. Conclusion
• Notes
• Index