SOURCE: "The 'Everyman' Theme in Carpentier's El Camino del Santiago," in Symposium, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Fall, 1964, pp. 229-40.

[In the following essay, Foster examines Carpentier's thematic adaptation of the medieval Everyman allegory in "Highroad of St. James," demonstrating its moral significance in the context of contemporary literary methods.]

Given Alejo Carpentier's known preference¹ for the destruction of the unities of logical time and space, one is not surprised that a writer who is stylistically of the most advanced vanguard should find thematically useful the medieval religious concept of the Everyman theme.² Allegorical in intent, the Everyman is a representation of the common destiny of all mankind on the occasion of his pilgrimage through this life. It shall be the attempt of this study to examine Carpentier's "El Camino de Santiago"³ as a reinterpretation and a revitalization of that theme within the confines of the most contemporary of literatures.

In "El Camino de Santiago," Carpentier relates a typical emigration to the New World of a man who, upon his return to Spain, dissatisfied, convinces another to undertake the same journey, thus making a narrative circle of the incidents. This circular interpretation as well as the causes of the "indiano's" failure and dissatisfaction are the substance of the Everyman theme.

From the very outset, Carpentier handles his material on at least two levels of reality. The narrative's title is double in nature, suggesting at the same time Santiago de Compostela, the famous shrine and pilgrim's destination, and the New World city, Santiago de Cuba.

The story's main figure, Juan de Amberes, undertakes two pilgrimages, one religious in nature, to Santiago de Compostela, and one adventurous in nature, to Santiago de Cuba. The implication of the dual role of the "pilgrimage" is self-evident. It is not here pertinent to point out the nuances and subtle significance in Spanish history involved in this transfer of ardent interest from a religious shrine to a New World outpost—this has been adequately handled elsewhere⁴—but rather it is necessary only to underline this shift as it occurs as part of the narrative at present under consideration, and to what extent Juan, in so abruptly redirecting his steps, is a representative figure of that phenomenon.

There are three phases in the spiritual evolution of Juan de Amberes: Juan el Romero, "Juan el Cubano," and Juan el Indiano. This evolution is expressed in terms of a spiritual decaying and downfall which precisely correspond to the "historical" transformation of Juan de Amberes, who experiences a religious vision and undertakes a fervent and ascetic pilgrimage, into Juan el Indiano, who, wasted and worn and a victim of aboulia, returns to Spain morally bankrupt, only to send another along the same road to spiritual self-destruction.

The biography of Juan de Amberes' downfall is set against the background of general internal decay. The time is that of Felipe II and the beginnings of the Spanish Decline. Juan observes at one point the docking of a ship newly arrived from Spain, and what he observes as a detached bystander is indicative of the decay into which he is to be actively drawn:

La nave y los hombres parecían envueltos en un mismo remordimiento, como si hubiesen blasfemado el Santo Nombre en alguna tempestad, y los que ahora estaban enrollando cuerdas y plegando el trapío, lo hacían con el desgano de condenados a no poner más el pie en la tierra. . . . En aquel momento observó que por el puente de una gúmena bajaba a tierra una enorme rata, de rabo pelado, como achichonada y cubierta de pústulas. El soldado agarró una piedra con la mano que le quedaba libre, meciéndola para hallar el tino. La rata se había detenido al llegar al muelle, como forastero que al desembarcar en una ciudad desconocida se pregunta dónde están las casas. Al sentir el rebote de un guijarro que ahora le pasaba sobre el lomo para irse al agua del canal, la rata echó a correr hacia la casa de los predicadores quemados, donde se tenía el almacén del forraje. (Pp. 16-19)

Whether as a result of the rodents or of causes known only to God, a general plague shortly follows. Juan is one of its many victims, although not among the fatalities. Circumstantial to the plague is a wave of fear and renewed religious fervor.⁵ It is interesting, then, to note that the plague and its results, both disastrous and religious, proceed from the same source. Undoubtedly, Juan's religious vision, experienced at the height of his fevered delirium, is neither singular nor unique:

La ventana que daba a la calle se abrió al empuje de una ráfaga, apagándose el candil. Y Juan vio salir al Duque de Alba en el viento, tan espigado de cuerpo que se le culebreó como cinta de raso al orillar el dintel, seguido de las naranjas que ahora tenían embudos por sombreros, y se sacaban unas patas de ranas de los pellejos, riendo por las arrugas de sus cáscaras. Por el desván pasaba volando, de patio a calle, montada en el mástil de un laúd, una señora de pechos sacados del escote, con la basquina levantada y las nalgas desnudas bajo los alambres del guardainfantes. Una rafaga que hizo temblar la casa acabó de llevarse a la horrorosa gente, y Juan, medio desmayado de terror, buscando aire puro en la ventana, advirtió que el cielo estaba despejado y sereno. La Vía Láctea, por vez primera desde el pasado estío, blanqueaba el firmamento.

—¡El Camino de Santiago!—gimió el soldado, cayendo de rodillas ante su espada, clavada en el tablado del piso, cuya empuñadura dibujaba el signo de la cruz. (P. 25)

Thus Juan de Amberes becomes Juan el Romero, as his decision to undertake the pilgrimage follows closely upon the heels of this vision and his subsequent recovery and escape from the total ravages of the plague.

One does not doubt the sincerity nor the complete free will with which Juan takes up his journey. He is at first an exemplary pilgrim:

Juan el Romero es de los pocos que no solicitan remedios. El sudor que tanto le ha pringado el sayal cuando se andaba al sol entre viñas, le alivió el cuerpo de malos humores. Luego, agradecieron sus pulmones el bálsamo de los pinos, y ciertas brisas que, a veces, traían el olor del mar. Y cuando se da el primero baño, con baldes sacados del pozo santificado por la sed de tantos peregrinos, se siente tan entonado y alegre, que va a despacharse un jarro de vino a orillas del Adur, confiando en que hay dispensa para quien corre el peligro de resfriarse luego de haberse mojado la cabeza y los brazos por primera vez en varias semanas. Cuando regresa al hospital no es agua clara lo que carga su calabaza, sino tintazo del fuerte, y para beberlo despacio se adosa a un pilar del atrio. En el cielo se pinta siempre el Camino de Santiago. (Pp. 28-29)

However, now his ardor has diminished, and in the cold light of the physical rigors and sacrifices of the pilgrimage his goal does not burn in his soul as brightly as before. He begins to doubt the authenticity of his vision and finds himself tempted to attribute the terrible vision of a punishment for his sins to but a figment and a hallucination occasioned by plagued and delirious senses.⁶

Even more serious than doubt is the reawakening of the flesh, now strong and healthy again—easily given over to the appetizing visions with which the devil beleaguers the fasting penitent:

La salud recobrada le hace recordar, gratamente, aquellas mozas de Amberes, de carnes abundosas, que gustaban de los flacos españoles, peludos como chivos, y se los sentaban en el ancho regazo, antes del trato, para zafarles las corazas con brazos tan blancos que parecían de pasta de almendras. Ahora sólo vino llevará el romero en la calabaza que cuelga de los clavos de su bordón. (Pp. 29-30)

However, what most brings about the spiritual downfall of the pilgrim—and it is indeed a complete and final example of backsliding—is the Fair at Burgos. From Flanders to Santiago de Compostela, the weary traveler's steps take him through that medieval center of Spanish life, Burgos, capital of Castile. And like a tempting sin placed upon the unsure path of the Mount of Purgatory, wherein Juan and his fellow sinners would expiate their debt to God and wherein they would attain spiritual cleansing, so does Burgos lie in the midst of the toilsome journey to the greatest shrine of medieval Christendom to tempt and to deviate from the sure way the unwary penitent. All of the mundane and profane pleasures of the city quickly stifle the most pious of intentions:

El ánimo de ir rectamente a la catedral se le ablanda al sentir el humo de las frutas de sartén, el olor de las carnes en parrilla, los mondongos con perejil, el ajimójele, que le invita a probar, dadivosa, una anciana desdentada, cuyo tenducho se arrima a una puerta monumental, flanqueada por torres macizas. (P. 31)

Here Juan's downfall begins: his final straying from the path of moral virtue. The sounds of the bustling city are the signal for his sinful self-abandonment to the luxury of the senses. There is no doubt that Carpentier here is making use of the moral synthesis, the Everyman symbol, wherein man, i.e. Juan, endowed and blessed with the grace of God, willfully abandons virtue and, without hesitation and with a free and unfettered will, opts for the pleasures of the world, i.e. sin. While we have not hesitated to point out and to admit to the temper of the background against which Juan's choice is made, we now hasten to add that as such it is not to be interpreted as representative of any sort of a belief in an "environmental determinism" on the part of the author. First of all, the presence of the decadent society in which Juan's decisions are made but highlights the principal axiom of the Everyman theme: that no matter what the circumstances, man is gifted with a free will and is saved or damned as a result of his exercise of that free will, and on this basis alone. Further, the second axiom, which proceeds logically from the first, is that the circumstances despite which man must make his own decision, are devices of the devil placed in man's path to influence him accordingly. Thus, as a third axiom, man, as a flesh and blood individual naturally inclined toward an unpropitious decision, is called upon to create for himself and to frequent those circumstances which would best dispose him toward a "moral" exercise of his free will. Thus in these terms, Carpentier's figure may be seen as a reaffirmation of this fundamental and characteristic outlook of a large number of Western artists and commentators: an outlook which sees the individual and his actions functioning within the boundaries of these three axioms of the Everyman theme, no matter to what degree these axioms are re-expressed to suit the taste and the sophistication of the commentator in question and his time. Such an attitude is worthy of note because, first, many modern writers, obsessed with the social context of man, have drawn the logical, but not necessarily accurate, conclusion that man is a product (often a by-product) of his social context, thus divorcing from the individual those faculties of man which operate only in relation to a transcendental order: free will and the soul. It is a moot issue whether indeed man is the possessor of such faculties. Rather, it is pertinent only that at this point a Carpentier chooses to recognize such faculties in man at a time when others⁷ would tend to deny them, or at least not accept them in the all-encompassing terms of the portrayal of Juan de Amberes. On the other hand, of a secondary interest is the attitude implied by the Everyman theme toward man and his destiny in reference to a period when such a "moral" attitude was "out of fashion" and when the exoneration of men's weaknesses was effected in terms of an evil and decadent society. We refer to the picaresque novel which had its beginnings contemporaneously with Juan, and which, although didactic in nature, sloughed off the guilt complex which was due man for his sins by an adaptation of the creatural attitude which admitted of man's essential helplessness in the face of the deceitful Nature into which he was born. The principal intension here that man is "good" if Nature is so and "bad" accordingly with his environment is upsetting to the principle of the individual responsibility of the soul as previously understood.

An understanding in terms of these two orientations would be in and of itself sufficient to Carpentier's intent. However, Juan's succumbing to the lure of Burgos is not his final downfall, and to express the final steps in Juan's self-commitment to sin, the author returns to an historical foundation for his narrative, as Juan el Romero becomes Juan el Indiano. Whereas an embarkation for the New World may be read as a gesture of hope in Quevedo's La historia de la vida del Buscón,8 in "El Camino de Santiago" it signifies the ultimate straying from the path. And as the change in the referent of "Camino de Santiago" from Compostela to Cuba historically signified for Spain the beginning of her collapse as the supreme symbol of Christianity, so does the change in the referent in Juan's mind come to represent his moral decay. With the "romance de partida" ringing in his ears,⁹ Juan is over-whelmed by the figure of the "indiano" which he meets in Burgos:

Vuelven a escurrirse los oyentes, otra vez injuriados por los cantores, y se ve Juan empujado al cabo de un callejón donde un indiano embustero ofrece, con grandes aspavientos, como traídos del Cuzco, dos caimanes rellenos de paja. Lleva un mono en el hombro y un papagayo posado en la mano izquierda. Sopla en un gran caracol rosado, y de una caja encarnada sale un esclavo negro, como Lucifer de auto sacramental, ofreciendo collares de perlas melladas, piedras para quitar el dolor de cabeza, fajas de lana de vicuña, zarcillos de oropel, y otras buhonerías del Potosí. Al reir muestra el negro los dientes extrañamente tallados en punta y las mejillas marcadas a cuchillo, y agarrando unas sonajas se entrega al baile más extravagante, moviendo la cintura como si se le hubiera desgajado, con tal descaro de ademanes, que hasta la vieja de las panzas se aparta de sus ollas para venir a mirarlo. . . . El indiano, achispado por el vino habla luego de portentos menos pregonados: de una fuente de aguas milagrosas, donde los ancianos más encorvados y tullidos no hacían sino entrar, y al salirles la cabeza del agua, se les veía cubierta de pelos lustrosos, las arrugas borradas, con la salud devuelta, los huesos desentumecidos, y unos arrestos como para empreñar una armada de Amazonas. Hablaba del ámbar de la Florida, de las estatuas de gigantes vistas por el otro Pizarro en Puerto Viejo, de las calaveras halladas en Indias, con dientes de tres dedos de gordo, que tenían una oreja sola, y esa, en medio del colodrillo. Había, además, una ciudad, hermana de la de Jauja, donde todo era de oro—hasta las bacías de los barberos, las cazuelas y peroles, el calce de las carrozas, los candiles. "¡Ni que fueran alquimistas sus moradores!"—exclama el romero, atónito. Pero el indiano pide más vino y explica que el oro de Indias ha dado término a las lubricaciones de los persiguidores de la Gran Obra. El mercurio hermético, el elixir divino, la lunaria mayor, la calamina y el azófar, son abandonados ya por todos los estudiosos de Morieno, Raimundo y Avicena, ante la llegada de tantas y tantas naves cargadas de oro en barros, en vasos, en polvo, en piedras, en estatuas, en joyas. La transmutación no tiene objeto donde no hay operación que cumplir en hornacha para tener oro del mejor, hasta donde alcanza la mano de un buen extremeño, parado en una estancia de regular tamaño.

Noche es ya cuando el indiano se va al aposento, trabada la lengua por tanto vino bebido, y el negro sube, con el mono y el papagayo, al pajar de la cuadra. El romero, también metido en humos, yéndose a un lado y otro del bordón—y, a veces, girando en derredor—, acaba por salirse a un callejón de las afueras, donde una moza le acoge en su cama hasta mañana, a cambio del permiso de besar las santas veneras que comienzan a descoserse de su esclavina. Las muchas nubes que se ciernen sobre la ciudad ocultan, esta noche, el Camino de Santiago. (Pp. 34-37)

Thus Juan el Romero becomes Juan el Indiano, and his enrollment in the records of the Casa de la Contractación is equivalent to a signing away of his soul. Carpentier paints a turbid panorama of Spain in the New World.¹⁰ Into this milieu Juan wanders, caught up in the whirpool of a vicious and unrelenting life of which he is not an integral part, but of which he is eagerly willing to partake.

Throughout Juan's "journey," as summarized in the "Camino" of the title, he is always a detached observer, only sporadically a participant in all he sees. His passage through the world in which he finds himself is a learning experience—but a learning experience quite different from that of his fellow travelers in Western literature through the Hell that is life. Unlike them, Juan attains neither saintliness nor moral edification. Rather, what he learns from his observations is precisely what is calculated to repel, say, Bunyon's Christian. Juan learns and learns well. However, despite the childish curiosity which draws him into the midst of this morally destructive maelstrom, Juan has moments of unpleasant reflection in which he bitterly regrets the path that he has taken, and the representative and conscious role which he is fulfilling is again brought to the reader's attention. Nevertheless, such reflection leads not toward repentance, but away from it, and, as such, can only preclude sure disaster:

En fin, que cuando el tintazo avinagrado se le sube a la cabeza, Juan de Amberes maldice al hideputa de indiano que le hiciera embarcar para esta tierra roñosa, cuyo escaso oro se ha ido, hace años, en las uñas de unos pocos. De tanto lamentar su miseria, en un calor que le tiene el cuerpo ardido y la piel como espolvoreada de arena roja, se le inflaman los hipocondrios, se le torna pendenciero el ánimo, a semejanza de los vecinos de la villa, cocinados en su maldad, y una noche de tinto mal subido, arremete contra Jácome de Castellón, el genovés, por fullerías de dados, y le larga una cuchillada que lo tumba, bañado en sangre, las ollas de una mondonguera. Creyéndolo muerto, asustado por la gritería de las negras que salen de sus cuartos abrochándose las faldas, toma Juan un caballo que encuentra arrendado a una reja de madera, y sale de la ciudad a todo galope, por el camino del astillero, huyendo hacia donde se divisan, en días claros, las formas azules de lomas cubiertas de palmeras. Más allá debe haber monte cerrado, donde ocultarse de la justicia del Gobernador. (Pp. 49-50)

Clearly, such an incident is of vital importance to the narrative basis of the story. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that we be fully aware of the course which Juan's life is about to take. The details are of a minor importance—save in that they demonstrate the depths to which he has sunk as a Christian man of a supposed integral dignity.¹¹ In order to understand exactly why, in the face of Juan's actions to this point, the wrath of God does not descend upon him or why the chasms of Hell do not open before his fleeting horse, one must recognize the absence of Deus ex machina in the narrative. With the exception of the visions (and these are while in a feverish state of mind), Juan comes under no influence which might be called "extra-terrestrial." He is seen and acts in the light of real circumstances which are around him. Thus, nothing happens to Juan, despite his act of violence. Nothing, that is, that could be called justice. On the other hand, it is this "nothing" which proves to be the final blow to his mental and physical consistency, and as aboulia sets in, he becomes a victim of his own emotional and moral disintegration. The "dry rot" which brings on his delirium is, in its own way, a final justice.¹² A persual of sin to its farthest extremes brings with it its own punishment: satiation, jaded sensibilities, and boredom. Even before the sinner is condemned by Divine Judgment to eternal pain, sin itself, the cause of man's downfall, becomes no longer interesting and gratifying. Juan el Indiano, Everyman, undergoes the torments of boredom in the midst of what he so eagerly sought, much as did Spain, the political point of departure for our hero, languish while still in full command of the New World. Thus, while Juan in a fevered vision is called upon to repent, he has pushed himself to that extreme wherein he has already relinquished the right to direct his soul:

Juan se enfurece, patalea, grita, al verse envuelto por tantas mosquillas negras que zumban en sus oídos, pringándose con su propia sangre al darse de manotazos en las mejillas. Y una mañana despierta todo calofriado, con el rostro de cera, y una brasa atravesada en el pecho. Doña Yolofa y Doña Mandinga van por hierbas al monte—una que se piden a un Señor de los Bosques que debe ser otro engendro diabólico de estas tierras sin ley ni fundamento. Pero no hay más remedio que aceptar tales tisanas, y mientras se adormece esperando el alivio, el enfermo tiene un sueño terrible: ante su hamaca se yergue, de pronto, con torres que alcanzan el cielo, la Catedral de Compostela. Tan altas suben en su delirio que los campanarios se le pierden en las nubes, muy por encima de los buitres que se dejan llevar del aire, sin mover las alas, y parecen cruces negras que flotaran, como siniestro augurio, en aguas del firmamento. Por sobre el Pórtico de la Gloria, tendido está el Camino de Santiago, aunque es mediodía, con tal blancura que el Campo Estrellado parece mantel de la mesa de los ángeles. Juan se ve a sí mismo, hecho otro que él pudiera contemplar desde donde está, acercándose a la santa basílica, solo, extrañamente solo, en ciudad de peregrinos, vistiendo la esclavina de las conchas, afincando el bordón en la piedra gris del andén. Pero cerradas le están las puertas. Quiere entrar y no puede. Llama y no lo oyen. Juan Romero se prosterna, reza, gime, araña la santa madera, se retuerce en el suelo como un exorcizado, implorando que le dejen entrar. "¡Santiago!"-solloza. "¡Santiago!" (Pp. 63-64)

When he subsequently is able to return to Spain, Juan is only the shell of the Juan el Romero which he now hardly remembers. Recovered from his delirium, he is literally burnt out by the fevers which once racked his body. Nothing does he remember of the horrifying vision which was his in the jungle. Externally, he is an "indiano", a strange and curious individual who haunts the market places and fair grounds: a configuration of the "indiano" who so spellbound him years before.¹³ The external peculiarity of his person, so singular to those whom his antics entertain, is a physical expression of the internal metamorphosis which his soul has undergone. No longer is Juan el Indiano also Juan el Cristiano, but, rather, his present status seems to exclude by definition the principles which as Juan el Romero he so blithely abandoned. In that his soul took on the moral attributes of the New World's society into which he so whole-heartedly threw himself, so has he taken on the physical attributes inherent in the epithet "indiano." Juan de Amberes, Everyman, Spain—each in turn yielding a potential level of interpretation—in willfully detouring from the original Camino de Santiago and, moreover, by substituting a profane, and by definition sinful, Camino de Santiago in its place, have irrevocably sealed their doom. Carpentier's narrative is a perfect circle as Juan el Indiano and a new Juan el Romero reenact what is now a twice-told tale. Like a circle, the narrative, lacking a visible beginning and a visible end, renders prisoners of what it envelops: once the circle is closed, there is no escape. The true Camino de Santiago has been irretrievably left outside the tightening circumference of circumstance, and is now no longer Man's guiding symbol:

Mira el cielo anublado, rogando por el sol, pero le contesta la lluvia, cayendo sobre la meseta de piedras grises y piedras de azufre, donde las merinas mojadas se apretujan en el verdor de un ojo de agua, hundiendo las uñas en la greda. (P. 74)

Seen in terms of the commentary to which we have subjected "El Camino de Santiago," there can be no doubt as to the allegorical function of Juan, be he de Amberes, el Indiano or el Romero. The story of his travels in itself supports a purely literal examination. The short-sighted will, beyond this, want to consider the political representation of a degenerating and decadent Spain of the 16th century. Yet beyond both these levels of examination, certainly valid as far as they go, is what we consider the undeniable implications of the Everyman theme. Juan's progress, the choices he makes, and his eventual outcome all demonstrate in one way or another a belief on the part of the author which closely corresponds to that of the medieval writers: that "no man is an island," that the individual, in as much as he proceeds from whence comes all mankind, is a fulfillment as well as a figuration of all mankind. Medieval art in all areas, the source of the Everyman theme, was incapable of seeing individual beings, individual acts, individual circumstances and consequences. Every being, every act, every single circumstance and consequence brought with it repercussions throughout the universe and throughout mankind.¹⁴

Yet, on the other hand, Carpentier may not be said to conceive of his Everyman as fulfilling the same function as his medieval counterpart. In medieval culture, the Everyman was, as we have just noted, assumed, by definition of man at that time, to be unquestionably a reality. Then, from that assumption, Everyman issued in the garb of moral didacticism: his existence and function was to educate, to awaken, to terrify, and to inspire the beholder. The basic reality of his presence being an accepted fact, he could then be put to use within the framework and the transcendental purpose of medieval art, i.e., the spiritual perfection of mankind. Surely this cannot be said to be the function fulfilled by Juan de Amberes. In the first place, Carpentier is an experienced sophisticate, and one would not believe it likely for him to profess the basic assumptions of medieval art and culture in general. And, second, a naïveté reminiscent of Berceo would not only not be germane to a writer of the 20th century, but a bit ridiculous as well. Rather, we see Carpentier's recourse to the Everyman theme as a phenomenon indicative of a new orientation in contemporary fiction. We have already pointed out, but must stress again at this point, that there is a growing interest among contemporary authors in turning away from a temporal and spatial localization of man, and an attempt to examine him as a phenomenon which occurs more in a relationship to itself than to anything else. With the growing hyperbole of the age in which we live, an epoch in which man's struggle to free himself from temporal and spatial restrictions, such an interest and such an attempt are not inappropriate. Carpentier's very style is a technical tour de force which would restrict this interpretation. The circular narrative leaves the reader unable to make a precise identification of the individual Juans, thus putting them (or him) apart from the historical setting which the narrative, by nature, is not able to dispense with. Once such a separation is obtained, and the social environment of man rejected as only an incidental and not an integral part of his personality, the next logical step is a return to the theme of individual responsibility. Whether seen as the form of the Christian soul and its free will, as it is by Carpentier (again, because of the narrative setting), or seen as the one cohesive force in mankind, as it is by Roa Bastos,¹⁵ man is seen as an individual who can and who must himself chart the course of his life. Man's downfall comes from any weakness on his own part in being able to carry out this basic responsibility inherent in his existence.

While Juan de Amberes' downfall, the abandonment of his soul to sin and indifference, is seen within the familiar context of Catholicism,¹⁶ it is our hope that we have been conclusive in demonstrating that such a context is but a touchstone for a higher reality expressive of the essential and fundamental nature of Man's, of Everyman's, being.

Notes

¹ F. Alegría observes in his Breve historio de la novela hispanoamericana (México: Studium, 1959), p. 258: "Fundamentalmente, le obsesiona la idea de transpasar los límites del tiempo, de superarlo y conseguir una síntesis histórica monumental en que el hombre cambia de circunstancia pero no de esencia y, en el fondo, repite una eterna fábula cuyo diseño es posible captar y fijar en la obra de arte."

² "Everyman" derives from a Dutch mystery play (c. 1520) of the same name and dealing with the rewards and punishments of man after death. It is found in English in a collection of similar dramatic pieces dating from the latter half of the last century. For a text see Everyman and other interludes (London: J. M. Dent, 1909), pp. 1-25.

³ In Guerra del tiempo (México: Compañía General de Ediciones, 1958?), pp. 15-76.

⁴ Cf. the writings of A. Castro, in particular his Santiago de España (Buenos Aires: Emecé, 1958).

⁵ "El Camino de Santiago," cf. pp. 20, 21-22.

⁶ Ibid., cf. p. 29.

⁷ Say, for example, Manuel Rojas, to a very large extent.

⁸ Wherein Pablos remarks: "a ver si mudando mundo y tierra mejoraría mi suerte. Y fuéme peor, pues nunca mejora su estado quien muda solamente de lugar y no de vida y costumbres" (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1959), p. 148. Whether the implication of the New World and new ways as hopeful are to be taken at face value is another question.

⁹

—¡Animo, pues, caballeros,
Animo, pobres hidalgos,
Miserables, buenas nuevas
Albricias, todo cuitado!
¡Qué el que quiere partirse
A vêr este nuevo pasmo
Diez navios salen juntos
De Sevilla este año! . . .

("El Camino de Santiago," p. 34)

¹⁰ Ibid., cf. pp. 46-47.

¹¹ However, see in passing ibid., pp. 55-56.

¹² Ibid., cf. p. 58.

¹³ Ibid., pp. 74-76.

¹⁴ For an excellent discussion of this basic assumption in Medieval European culture, see W. Sypher, Four Stages of Renaissance Style, Transformations in Art and Literature, 1400-1700 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955), Section I.

¹⁵ In Hijo de hombre (Buenos Aires: Losada, 1961). See my "Christ as a Narrative Symbol in Roa Bastos' Hijo de hombre," Books Abroad (Winter, 1963), XXXVII, 16-20.

¹⁶ See the following passages in "El Camino de Santiago" for this religious background: pp. 22, 27, 40 et seq., 54, 68.