Voices of Horror and Love: the Meaning of Calderón's Assonances

Abstract

The article investigates two groups of theatrical romances from the work of Pedro Calderón de la Barca: those that rhmye on -ú, u-a, u-e and u-o and those that base their assonance on the i. Comparing passages from different plays that use the first group's assonance, the article argues that these rhymes are used to arouse negative emotions and associations, based mainly on the sonority of the verse. After the same procedure with the second group of romances, the i-based assonances are linked to the love theme. Based on the debate about the semantic value of the different letters, contemporary to Calderón, the text shows that the asonances of the Calderonian theatre have discernible functions. Finally, the author relates this use of asonances to the ideas of universal harmony that were widespread at the time.