Punishment without Revenge by Lope de Vega Lope de Vega (1562-1635) is a Spanish dramatist. His play El castigo sin venganza (Punishment without revenge) was written during his last years of life. This play is dedicated to problem of absolute despotism. It was written in 1631 and was put on stage only once in 1632 in Madrid theatre. The concept of this play was dedicated to social-political problems and was slightly veiled because it takes place outside Spain. The source of this play was one of the novels written by Italian Matteo Bandelo. Ferrari marquis Niccolo III dEste killed his wife and his son for committed adultery.
Lope de Vega changed the story a bit and made from bloody family novel a play with social problems. Bandello main character is wife of Niccolo III dEste who admitted her guilt for adultery and seduction of young Ugo, whereas the main character of Lope de Vegos play was Ferrari duke. In accordance with a story, Ferrari duke embodied cold Machiavelli prudence of absolute governor and cruel implacability and severity of absolute government interest. We will examine this play to see whether “Punishment without Revenge” is an essentially religious play, which shows that the world is ultimately governed by God, or is primarily a secular play whose plot depends, not on any sense of divine guidance, but simply on human freedom and responsibility. Ive read this play and consider that it is rather secular than divine. We can notice two style tendencies in this play: one is more sophisticated whereas the second one is more vivid, free and natural manner.
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The dramatic poetry in this play appeals to imagination and feelings, not to the reason. It is characterized by predominance of action under character. The plot of Punishment without revenge reflects values, social standards and the conventionalities in society. Probably we can call this play a national one (despite the fact that it doesnt take place in Spain).
We cannot assume that Lope de Vega doesnt describe values and truths, common to all mankind. Although the historical plot is a fiction, it is quite natural and strained.
Love is idealized in romantic and knights traditions, but later it becomes the source of social conflict originated from confrontation between nature and civilization. From the first glance it can be considered as a particular type of Spanish tragedy called drama of honor, where husband kills his wife to avenge the adultery (real or supposed).
The plot of this play definitely depends on freedom of a man and responsibility for his own actions it is completely based on social traditions and rules. It is not dictated by the God or somebody else directly, although at the same time it is expressed as a constant chain of opportunities and accidents. Although Duke married his wife because of governmental interests, he has to obey the social standards of the Court. Federico and Cassandra love each other: They have Confessed their sin without the need To torture them. (Lope de Vega, 1999. p.258) He is shocked to know about the adultery: while I was away, the two Of you got on extremely well Together.
(Lope de Vega, 1999. p.253) The husband kills wife, his action didnt help him to recover his reputation and to restore the social conventionalities. This play can be called a story of love that burns its victims: Examining works of Lope de Vega, we notice that his tragedies were written mostly in his earliest and latest periods of work. Punishment without revenge can be considered as his classical tragedy. Ferrari Duke married a young Mantuani princess Cassandra. He didnt love her but had to marry her because of governmental interests. Duke Ferrari discovers that princess loves his own natural son duke Federico. (Federicos feelings): He cannot bring himself to call Her mother — how could he when his father’s wife Is now his own devoted (Lope de Vega, 1999. p.254) Although he loves them both, he is shocked by their behavior: Such treachery! Must I believe That any son is capable Of infamy as terrible As this against the very man Responsible for his… (Lope de Vega, 1999.
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p.251) In accordance with a rule You should revenge secretly for veiled offence (the duke Ferrari is the only one who knows about this adultery), he forces Federico to become an involuntary killer of Cassandra. Later he accused Federico of murder and kills him. The accusation is based on supposition that Federico killed a future mother of a future heir apparent. The Duke doesnt love his wife and Casandra suffers without love and passion: The wife is blessed who does not know The nobleman’s disdain; who, when The morning comes, can rise and know Her husband’s love will never change. (Lope de Vega, 1999. p.203) The baroque paradoxicalness of tragedy is based on ambiguity and illusion: each character of this play gives rise to compassion and condemnation from the side of spectators. Lope de Vega has a lot of plays with religious character. However, Punishment without revenge cannot be considered as a play of religious character. It is more social than religious.
This Spanish drama has extremely strong social meaning. This play is a dark drama of honor, ad at the same time it is one of he most beautiful stories of passion. It shows the contradictions between nobility and simple life, freedom and abeyance to the rules. CASANDRA. You think nobility A guarantee against unhappiness? It’s even worse when there is vileness such As this. What would I give to be An ordinary peasant-girl (Lope de Vega, 1999. p.203) It has a perfect structure and discovers the complex nature of a human being.
Punishment without revenge is a testament of Spanish love drama. Social political conditions in Spain (XVI-XVII) were a compromise between cruel tempers of the court and feelings. Lope de Vega reflected this drastic contradiction in Punishment without revenge. He used a lot of characters and tried to describe the life of Spain. Lope de Vega tried to combine the storm of all those feelings and limits, established by the church and the government. In accordance to his play, the natural feelings (love, passion, tenderness, devotion, etc) were opposed to rules of Spanish society that demanded strictly limited characteristics and rules.
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Despite of classical French tragedy, Lope de Vega doesnt have the limits. The driving force of his tragedy is a chance, an opportunity. This chance decides the destiny of people. The structure of Punishment without revenge is very interesting. You can notice that any accident that interferes into a current flow of events perturbs calm life. The accident brings tragedy into the play.
It drives to despair and tragedy. The development and solution of this love story is the main idea of his dramatic fibula. Lope de Vega chooses love and passion as the most powerful instruments that are able to show all power of human instincts and human nature. From one side, love and passion can show all majesty and multiformity of human behavior in the family and society, whereas from the other side, it gives possibility to demonstrate all the value of political and religious ideas that were important in Spanish society. Lope de Vega represents the facts and describes the idea of implicit obedience to the Catholic Church and monarchy government. One can notice the conglomerate of chances, accidents and sudden events, the infatuations of lovers, but there is only one regulating force that dominates. This unchangeable regulating force is embodied in the absolute monarchy of a king and imperishability of monarchy power.
Even when passions interfere into a private life of duke, the result is predetermined: the considerations of political character are dominating over the feelings. Duke Ferrari loves his son and his wife, but kills them because he has to obey to the social rules. The embodiment of supreme justice can sanction bloody and cruel actions when they are dictated by motives of family honor and allegiance to social principles. Lope de Vega demonstrates the impartiality of supreme justice that is definitely secular. He doesnt show class contradictions and focuses attention on problems of love and passion. It is very difficult to say that the play is secular or divine because this division is very conditional: we can speak about prevailing of divine or secular parts in the tragedy.
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The author tried to show the world as it is, I would like to compare love in The Punishment without Revenge with works of Servantes. The feeling in Lope de Vegas play is love that is not afraid of barriers. Such passionate love was quite ordinary for Spain: it wasnt anything special. The tradition of such love originates from the poetry of province troubadours, Petrarka and his followers. The basis of this tradition is a philosophy of neoplatonism. This philosophy overcomes dualism of medieval scholastics that separates divine from secular and appealed to understand the God in secular images.
The philosophy called to rise up to the divine love by means of secular love. Probably, such kind of love is shown in The Punishment without Revenge. It has features of divine origin when it determines the development of conflict in the tragedy, built on the ideal material. Yet the tragedy is more secular because it doesnt have religious and moralizing pathos. The main problem of the tragedy is the problem of human feelings. Examining human behavior, the author is not inclined to admire with human nature.
He tries to show the examples of humanistic moral and believes in good.
Bibliography:
Lope de Vega, Gwynne Edwards. (1999).
Fuente Ovejuna; the Knight from Olmedo; Punishment without Revenge. Oxford University Press.
