The Lion, the Witch, and the Monkey: Animal Metamorphosis in the Dutch-language Adaptations of Calderón's El Mayor Encanto, Amor, c. 1670

Abstract

The two parallel adaptations of Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s El mayor encanto, amor, a retelling of Circe’s and Ulysses’ story from Homer’s Odyssey, put animals onstage. However, the animals were certainly not all live animals, for the lions, bears, and tigers that feature in the two adaptations were too dangerous. Therefore, actors performed some animals via costumes. The article considers not only how this was a practical solution, but also how the costumes reflected the transformations that Circe performed on the Greek crewmen accompanying Ulysses. The transformations were incomplete, since even as animals the crewmen retained their ability to reason and, in some cases, even their speech. As such, the plays challenged the early modern understanding of animals as creatures without reason, solely led by their natural impulses. In their animal appearances, they failed to communicate with the human characters, but remained intelligible to the audience, disrupting the fiction of the play. Thus, the adaptations of El mayor encanto, amor questioned whether humans and animals are all that different.