Entremes del estudiante y la sorda Sor Francisca de Santa Teresa
Life & Work • in the same convent as Sor Marcela for 15 years during the latter part of her life (72) • her manuscripts are still in the Discalced Trinitarian Convent (Madrid) • her work is derived from Sor Marcela’s (40), but her style is more baroque, less straight-forward • for Christmas & professions of new nuns, allegorical, but w/o the same humor, Alma never doubts/falters
Summary • A deaf woman (Inés) & a stupid mayor have a not bright son named Periquillo who claims to know Latin - he calls himself Petrus, speaks a weird interlanguage. A student from Salamanca, Pasante, tries to show up Periquillo, but is just as dumb, and at the end proposes an extravagant and ridiculous cure for Inés’ deafness (44)
Notes & Quotes • Funny misunderstandings (deafness, fake Latin) (45) • takes lots of artistic license w/ the poetic form (46) • Periquillo uses Spanish to say he doesn’t understand “romance” (45-47) • misuse of Latin very humorous for the nuns who definitely knew Latin (84-87) • Periquillo better suited to be a “burro” than a “maestro” (94-95) • Pasante (student) isn’t much smarter than Periquillo (104) • “es tan diestro / que sabe lo mismo / que su maestro” (112-14) • just b/c he studies in Salamanca doesn’t make him less ignorant • plays on words:
“curso” – class & “flujo de vientre” (135)
cartilla – cart & letter (154-56)
escribano, escribanique, escribanía (pp. 59-60)
mitra – pope’s hat & hangman’s hood (p. 60)
• Periquillo claims to remember being a baby (186) • superstition, withcraft (p. 63)
Engendering the Early Modern Stage Valerie Hegstrom & Amy Williamson, Ed.
Gender, the Canon and Early Modern Theater • “We cannot accurately comprehend the complexity of the dynamics governing women’s literary participation without considering the everyday realities that defined their lives” (3) • gender not evenly represented in GAT studies (7)
Women and Secular Theater • “women participated on all levels of the production and reception of plays” (107) • Gil Vicente’s daughter Paula was Maria of Portugal’s lady-in-waiting & “performed in his plays and wrote music and some theater of her own” (108) • private performances in palaces, homes of the nobility & gave noblewomen “the opportunity to sponsor and participate in performance” (111) • “women audience members made their presence heard and felt, and successful playwrights, directors of theater companies, and actors could neither afford to ignore nor dismiss them” (114) • women’s “active engagement on all levels of theatrical performances simultaneously supports and subverts the dominant male power structure and ideology” (117) o they work within the male structure to subvert it
Theater in the Convent • “Theater may serve to educate and support religious devotion, and it may also lend itself to subversion of patriarchal superstructure and outright rebellion” (211) o also allows independence/opportunities you don’t get extramuros (212) • “women spectators and actors alike can participate in the theatrical ritual together without the threat of objectification that can result from the male gaze” (213) o but sometimes there were “visitors of both genders & various social positions” (213) • music, dancing, fireworks, parades, etc. (214) • sometimes convent plays were performed outside the convent by others & in the convent by outside players (215) • “Convent theater can have many meanings. It can train and educate . . . “ (216)
Woman and Society in the Spanish Drama of the Golden Age
Woman and Society in the Spanish Drama of the Golden Age: A Study of the Mujer Varonil
Melveena McKendrick
Preface/Introduction
· “Mujer varonil is a term of praise, not of abuse, in the Golden-Age drama” (ix)
· definition: “the woman who is ‘masculine’ not only in her dress but also in her acts, her speech or even her whole attitude of mind” (x), women who “departed from the feminine norm” (43)
· change in attitude towards women: from worship to scorn (11)
· suggests women upheld the patriarchal structure in which she lived (39)
The pre-Lopistas
· “the adjective varonil as a standard of excellence” in relation to “woman’s capacity for resolute action” (53)
· claims that Cueva’s plays say “’That is what many women are capable of being’ or even ‘This is how some women are’” (56)
· uses terms “mujer varonil” and “hombre femenil”
· “women who depart from the norm in an admirable, positive or at least forgivable way, are varoniles; those who do so in a totally reprehensible way are just wicked women” (62)
· “greatness of soul is a human, not a sexual, quality” (65)
· possible definition of feminism: “the depiction of women in a way which emphasizes their common humanity with men at the cost of conventional sexual distinctions” (70)
Cervantes and the Valencians
· conflict between Nature and Society (77, 101)
· playwrights consider accepting Love to be the defining feminine quality, rejecting it is unfeminine (89, 92)
· desire for vengeance (honor) is a masculine concern (103)
· mujeres varoniles “are all essentially feminine and are made to conform finally to the feminine norm” (104)
· “the outcome is a feminism of a different and more limited sort: liberal in important respects, but ultimately conservative” (105)
· “the woman who resents her sex or who despises men, and is their physical equal, even superior, will react more violently than the normal woman when she is sexually victimized and has no means of real retaliation” (115)
· when they fail they are being punished for their “arrogant feminism” (118)
· Calderón recognizes the human condition before people’s sex (126)
· “a vow of chastity can thus become a more effective means of social emancipation than marriage itself” (138)
· why does she differentiate between mujer varonil & mujer vestida de hombre? (139)
· Spanish playwrights had limited sympathy for the female rebel (141)
The mujer esquiva
· “It is not prompted by a desire to reject the essential nature of her sexual being, but by the way in which the concept of Nature is invoked by men to justify their delegation of woman to an inactive, inferior role in life” (143)
· dramatists are unable to “conceive of any assertion of female independence other than that based on some reprehensible character trait” (145)
· “any evasion or denial of love is a revolt against Nature itself” (149)
· women seen as “fickle, shallow, unreliable, insincere and motivated by vanity and caprice” (154)
· female arrogance must be punished (156)
· desire to be a man “born of impatience with the limitations imposed on them by their own sex” (166)
· self-preoccupation is a male prerogative (168)
· “the challenge to men represented by the woman who is seemingly immune to them is an accepted one, and the eventual submission of the mujer esquiva must have been equally pleasing to dramatist and male audience alike” (171)
· neo Platonism: “love is part of the natural order of the Universe” (172)
· men are “naturally reluctant to free woman of her traditional dependence upon and dominance by the man” (173)
The amazon, the leader, the warrior
· “all the Amazons sooner or later revert to the feminine norm and fall in love” (176)
· “they cannot hope to evade their destiny as creatures of love dependent on love” (182)
· “exploits the idea of the spirited female without challenging that of superiority of the male” (186)
· “to accuse a woman of being a woman has always been man’s favourite way of trying to dismiss the opposition she represents” (202)
· “the lady of the high baroque has recourse more naturally to her ingenuity than to mere courage, to mental rather than physical agility” (210)
· female warriors are distant (time & geography)
The scholar, the career woman
· they have to pass as men to have a career, including dressing like them (230)
· also reverts “to the conventional female role” (232)
· fits with the “mundo al revés topos” (235)
· there are a few examples of no character change after marriage (237)
· “tears, sighs, jealousy and suspicion” as symptoms of femininity, but a “highly emotional state” is asexual (238)
The bella cazadora
· “a love of the outdoor life . . . is almost a sure sign of female unorthodoxy” (242)
· seduction as occupational hazard (244)
· mujeres hombrunas – excessive masculinity (246)
The avenger
· those that seek revenge presents “a direct challenge to the superiority of the male” by usurping his role (261)
· Mira de Amescua warns the honor code can be taken to extremes (265)
· revenge plays reveal a “belief in woman’s equality in honour and its protection” (273)
Sources and Influences
· mujer varonil “represents a fusion, in time and place, of nearly all the manifestations of the extraordinary woman which history, mythology and literature, from the days of classical antiquity down to the seventeenth century itself” (276)
· Matulka claims this trope “was created to allow the Spanish dramatists to carry the feminist theme on to stage” (282)
o but McKendrick says it was “more the reaction against a contemporary aspect of feminism” (287) [i.e. revolt against love]
· influenced by “the culture of the Italian Renaissance & the medieval concept of courtly love” (283)
· Lope created the mujer esquiva (286)
· real mujeres varoniles usually found w/in royalty/aristocracy (296)
· Feliciana Enríquez de Guzmán an exemplary woman/evoked curiosity (299)
· classical figures/myths popular & important (308)
· mujer varonil as “product of Europe’s awareness of the extraordinary woman” (309)
Conclusion
· wearing male dress does not make you varonil (311)
· we cannot “ascribe our own sexual awareness” to other societies (316)
· the term varonil “the highest accolade bestowed by man on female behavior" (316)
· revolt “against Society and convention” (317)
· male homosexuality more of a threat than female homosexuality (318)
· mujer varonil as a form of female catharsis (320)
· “the mujer varonil role was a marvelous opportunity for actresses to indulge any desires . . . they themselves might have had” (321)
· “watching the inevitable subjection of female to male was a marvellous opportunity for self-congratulatory male esteem” (322)
· sex hides masculine characteristics or vice versa (323) - it's an illusion
· drew attention to woman’s position & injustices she suffered (325)
· playwrights upheld woman against society but not nature (328)
o “explored within the limits of what was socially conceivable”
auto-sacramental (celebrating the Eucharist), preceded by a loa
Themes: mirroring & echoing (xxx)
“a radical reversal of contemporary social hierarchical values” (xix)
Mexicans (Aztecs) called noble (1)
gold mines contaminate soil/crops (p. 7)
parallel between human sacrifice & the Eucharist
spiritual poverty vs. earthly riches (102-03)
Religion & Zeal as husband & wife, also mercy & justice (94-95)
defamiliarization of European weaponry (p. 17)
“no quiere mi benigna / condición, que mueran, sino / que se conviertan y vivan” (223-25)
indigenous beliefs are “cifras / de nustras sacras Verdades” (262-63) – Satan’s imitations
a series of parallels – bounty of the earth (p. 25), priests (p. 26), sacrifice (p. 27), baptism
(p. 29), etc.
a sort of “how-to” for catechizing Indians (visual, not auditory – p. 31)
Madrid as center of Catholic world, where auto will be performed (p. 33)
defends herself against critics (p. 35), using America (p. 37)
Auto looks for parallels between Catholicism & classical traditions (p. 33)
AUTO
Characters:
El Divino Narciso
La Gracia
La Gentilidad (gentile)
La Sinagoga
La Naturaleza Humana [shepherdess]
Eco, que hace La Naturaleza Angélica (Réproba) [Satan]
Dos Coros de Música
La Soberbia
El Amor Propio
Ninfas y Pastores
Synopsis:
Sinagoga praises the Lord while Gentilidad praises Narciso. Naturaleza Humana is mother of both (i.e. we’re all brothers & sisters) & says someday their roles will be reversed – Sinagoga will be wrong & Gentilidad will be right. She takes S’s message and G’s poetry to create her allegory. They re-enter dressed as nymphs & sing more praises & Naturaleza explains that she is fallen/separated from God but has an advocate to intercede for her. She also introduces the water metaphor – hers is muddied, hopes to make it crystal one day.
Eco comes on w/ his faithful friends, Amor Propio & Soberbia, who are both bothered that the praises are not for them. He decides to combat this by playing the role of Echo & will avenge his/her rejection by keeping Naturaleza from seeing Narciso’s face as well. He uses Noah’s ark, the Tower of Babel & an idol to talk about the human condition. He then uses stories of the prophets from the Bible (Abel, Enoch, Abraham, Moses) to illustrate how men have come close to God. He also admits Christ’s divinity & his fear of Him. His decides to tempt Narciso by appealing to his (hungry) human side.
Narciso, on a mountain top, rejects human sustenance & Echo tempts him w/ riches & food. He rejects her & she swears to kill him. Naturaleza enters & explains how long & how much she has suffered in her search for Narciso & describes his beauty. Her soliloquy expounds upon biblical prophesy.
Gracia appears singing as a shepherdess & Naturaleza asks her who she is. Gracia reveals that she helped her in the garden (of Eden) until her disgrace & consequent dismissal separated them. Naturaleza remembers & wishes to embrace her long-lost friend, but cannot without Narciso’s help, which she should enlist by making Him see himself in her countenance.
Narciso enters singing about a lost lamb & his diligent pursuit of her, despite her unwillingness to come to Him. He also sings about the effects of His eventual wrath and the agony He feels being apart from her.
Narciso comes to the fountain & admires & describes His own reflection with Petrarchan imagery. Echo approaches, wishing to poison the water in the fountain, and realizes the Narciso see Naturaleza as His reflection. Echo is enraged and pained by this.
Amor Propio & Soberbia enter & share a short comical dialogue about wanting to make Echo feel better but knowing that their presence only makes things worse. They stop Echo before she can throw herself from a precipice. Echo, now mute, communicates by repeating parts of her friend’s dialogue (anaphora).
Narciso reveals that his suffering is b/c of the reflection he sees in the fountain & Echo echoes his words as she did those of her friends to communicate her suffering. Narciso reveals that He came to give His life for this love and his words mirror those uttered in Gethsemane.
There is an earthquake & an eclipse as Narciso dies and the other characters express their fright, awe and marvel. As they speak of the effects of his death, an off-stage voice repeatedly proclaims Narciso to be the Son of God. Echo laments that His death foiled his/her plan. Amor Propio & Soberbia decide to try to make Echo forget about Narciso.
Naturaleza enters & mourns Narciso’s death along with the whole earth & looks for Him but does not find His body. Gracia asks her why she weeps & says that Narciso is alive, echoing the words of the Bible. Narciso appears on stage once again & asks her why she weeps. He reveals His identity but doesn’t allow her to touch him yet.
Echo, Amor Propio & Soberbia threaten Naturaleza but Gracia & Narciso promise to defend her & explain that now there’s a way to remedy her sins. Echo cannot understand this & Gracia recaps while praising His perfection in a long monologue, using traditional symbols of Christ, like the ermine & the lilly. The sacrament wafer appears & Narciso explains that it is His blood & body, & Naturaleza rejoices while Echo & friends lament. Naturaleza & Narciso embrace & they sing a song of praise.
Extra Notes & Quotes:
Stage directions about the scenery and costuming!!
self-aware allegory – nature explains it (p. 47), asks other characters to participate (p. 49)
“¡Oh, qué bien suenan unidas / las alabanzas acordes, / que de Su Beldad divina / celebran las perfecciones!” (202-05)
Narciso = Christ
Mirroring/water/reflections:
“los Orbes, / para servirle de espejos,” (99-100)
“¡Oh, quiera el Cielo / que mis esperanzas topen / alguna Fuente que, libre / de aquellas aguas salobres, / represente el Narciso / enteras las perfecciones!” (250-55)
“su imagen que mira en ella” (461)
“que consigamos siquiera / que en las turbas aguas / de su culpa sea, / para que Su imagen / borrada parezca” (625-30)
“llegando a aquella Fuente, / cuyas cristalinas aguas / . . . / siempre limpias, siempre intactas” (1025-27, 1029)
“vuelve tú la imagen clara / de la beldad de Narciso” (1055-56)
“para que a las Divinas / sirvan las Humanas Letras” (330-31)
characters aware of the roles they’re playing – Satan as Echo (p. 65)
onstage transformation? (see the stage direction, not present in Spanish text)
Echo’s story of rejection perhaps reflects the story of Satan being cast out of Eden? (p. 67)
Lots of singing involved
mystic language:
“Decidme dónde está El que mi alma adora” (880)
“mi Divino Amado” (940)
“al mirarla sienta / del amor los efectos, / ansias, deseos, lágrimas y afectos” (1118-
19)
“de la sed por ti estoy abrasado” (1236)
“¡Vén, Esposa, a tu Querido” (1297)
“De ella estoy enamorado; / y aunque amor Me ha de matar, / Me es más fácil el dejar / la vida, que no el cuidado” (1467-70)
Petrarchan imagery:
“sus dos labios hermosea / partida cinta rosada, / por quien la voz delicada,
Major focus on body (Otis Green - sic and non (yes and no)) - Cast mind up to God with an earthy context (the Medieval period freely discussed the body)
Very didactic (those who do good receive a good reward, those who do bad receive a bad punishment) - designed to encourage people to perform good acts - Example: El conde Lucanor (every cuento ends with a short couplet-moraleja) + Another late yet applicable transitional example (moving into Renacimiento): El Cortesano - Castiglione (series of rules on how to be a cortesano and practice amor cortesano)
Major forms of text: Romances (Coplas por la muerte de su padre), canciones (El cantar del mío Cid)
Opening up of world to the alien/other/otherness - Began questioning "who am I?" (Example: Lazarillo de Tormes, Santa Teresa's Libro de la vida) + Any time the narrator states "this is the way things are" is indicative of a renacentista text.
The individual becomes very important - The biografía makes an appearance (see above examples)
Life is challenged by society
Lyrical "yo" is internalized - Example: La poesía de Garcilaso de la Vega
Love is very pronounced - Novela pastoril (Example: Montemayor's La Diana) - This idea stems from Petrarch in Italy + Sonnets, églogas, etc.
Humanism - Fray Luis de León - Shift to focus on rationality
Siglo de oro (16th-17th C. {encompasses both renacimiento and baroque periods}) Key points:
Prolific production of plays - Although the Golden Age embarks both periods (Renacimiento and baroque), it is worth highlighting mainly because of it's huge literary contributions
The Quijote is published (1605 - pt.1, 1615 - pt.2) by Miguel de Cervantes (or is it Cide Hamete Benengeli?) - This text is more of a mix of the two genres (renacentista y barroco) + Renacentista conventions: - Careful explanation of everything (In this sense, definitely not a fantastic text) - Sense of closure + Baroque conventions: - Metafiction - Layering
Culteranismo/Gongorismo (~1580) - Luis de Góngora + A baroque convention that focuses on the beauty of the language and meaning, at the expense of comprehension
Conceptismo (~1580) - Francisco de Quevedo + Another baroque style whose major concentration is on word-play and semantics (Quevedo and Góngora frequently verbally abused each other in their poetry)
Golden Age theater contains more barroco elements than renacentista
Key writers:
Lope de Vega (aka. El fénix, Lope considers himself more conceptista (semantic jouissance, if you will) - El caballero de Olmedo (1622), La dama boba (1613), Las cortes de la muerte, etc...)
Barroco (1681 (la muerte de Calderón)-18th C.) Key points:
Appearance vs. Reality - Theme of desengaño + Which can mean two things: 1. disillusionment 2. Awareness of the truth of things (Example: La dama duende, Quevedo's "Ah de la vida...nadie me responde...")
In art, it is an excessively decorative style, as seen particularly in the architecture of the period (The Catholic Church was rather fond of el barroco)
Neoclasicismo (18th C., mainly after 1714, when Felipe V was brought to power, thus bringing in foreign artists and influences) Key points:
New process of redefining Spaniard; an attempt to emphasize their Spanish-ness before the court + This is in reaction to the excessive gaudiness of rococo (in painting) + Clearly an attempt to go back to a time when "things were better"
Through out the baroque period, Spain was losing it's hegemony (hence, it makes perfect sense to look to the past, when Spain was a global power)
This movement goes hand-in-hand with the Enlightenment (Ilustración), which was a period of high rationality. It was felt that rational thought could solve all world problems (The US government is extremely neoclassical, look at the White house!)
In theater, the three unities became protocol: 1) Play occurred in less than 24 hours 2) Action occurred all in one place 3) Play contained only one plot
The essay and fábula became popular writing styles (Example: Samaniego's Fábulas literarias)
Battle between Britain and France in the Iberian Peninsula (most of Napoleonic War takes place in Spain)
Spain slowly arrives into Romanticismo
Romanticismo (1833 (la muerte de Fernando VII)-1840's (the last Romantic text is 1849)) Key points:
Individual experience is preeminent way of knowing the universe + "Yo" takes on a TITANIC figure ("I" vs. the universe) (Example: Duque de Riva's Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino) + Challenges everything
Enormous shift from Neoclassicism + Hundreds of actors + Use of technology (flames (final scene of Zorrilla's Don Juan Tenorio, explosions!) + Rode horses on the stage + Extremely dramatic and emotional + Diverse periods of time (years, even decades can pass during a single play - again, see Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino) + Action takes place all over the map + Multiple plot lines (sending all three of the unities to the proverbial Mexican "goma")
Bécquer is a little tardío in his Romanticismo; Rimas y leyendas is published over 1858-1864 + Bécquer is a "shifty figure" as his style makes him more modernistic (he is very careful and precise with his meaning (something like Culteranismo) when he writes) - Maybe pre-modernist would be a better identification
Reflection of what is really going on in the world
Focus on the Middle class (Example: Pérez Galdós Torquemada en la hoguera - 1889)
Subgéneros: + Naturalismo - emphasizes the gross and disgusting as well as the sublime and beautiful (Example: Pardo Bazán's "Un destripador de antaño") + Costumbrismo - focuses on giving "little pictures" (a painting with words) of the customs of the people; moves throughout Realism
Key writers:
Benito Pérez GaldósMisericordia (1897) + Concerned with political problems; is a liberal thinker who is concerned with the working class and loves the characters in his novels + Misericordia is a contemporary social novel
Obsessed with problem of Spain - no longer an Empire + What does it mean to be a Spaniard?
Miguel de Unamuno + Unorthodox Christianity - desperately wants to believe in God, but can't + Always self-conscious; his writings are frequently removing layer after layer of narration, seeking for a deeper/true meaning
Key writers:
Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo Niebla (1914) - characterized as a nivola, "San Manuel Bueno, Martír" (1930)
Late 1950's - period of Social realism
Vanguardismo ("Modernism" in English) (Early 20th C.-1936 (?) (guerra civil y la subsiguiente isolación de España))
Reaction to and rejection of Modernismo (in Spanish)
Various "-ismos" + Dadaismo (Duchamp (NY Dadaismo)) + Surrealismo (Dalí, Buñuel...) + Tremendismo (Cela) + Expresionismo - Cubismo (Picasso) + Creacionismo (Huidobro, Vallejo, Borges, (early) Neruda, poets during the first half of 20th C.)
Wanted to establish truth or at least unify truth + Claims to be more "real" than realismo
Antonio Buero Vallejo En la ardiente oscuridad (1950), Las meninas (1960), El tragaluz (1967), El sueño de la razón (1970), etc. + Largely political commentary with some very experimental theatrical techniques + Yes, this is who Jared is writing his thesis on
I would like to thank Wikipedia, dictionary.com, and cervantesvirtual for being so link-able.
Ok, so it's not on the reading list, but I seem to be the only one writing on this blasted thing, so here is a book that I'm reading to help prepare for my thesis. So far, I want to talk a little bit about how simulacra and mimesis fit into the performance of theater. I see it as an improved copy of the copy (especially in the case of Buero's Las meninas). El gran Pratt recommended this book for me today. All I've read so far is the preface, but so far so good. I will expand on the post as soon as I've read more.
Don Juan, you slimeball. It is hard to read El burlador and not get disgusted by Don Juan. His uncanny knack for the art of seduction is amazing, especially considering how successful he is (You can't tell me that seducing a woman on her wedding day is easy!). The moment of this play where I let out an audible "ugh" was at lines 1876-1879, when Don Juan lies about his relationship with Aminta. D.J.: "...a Aminta el alma di, y he gozado..." Batricio: "¿Su honor?" D.J.: "Sí." Ooh, you are such a slimeball! To Aminta's husband, Batricio, Don Juan confesses that he has already stolen her virtue (although he hasn't...yet). It is pretty easy to read El burlador and think that Don Juan gets his just desserts when Gonzalo drags him to his death. What if Don Juan, however, wasn't the only guilty party in his lies and deceit? We have to take into consideration Tisbea, a self-proclaimed Doña Juana (Line 1013: "Yo soy la que hacía siempre de los hombres burla tanta"), who definitely sought to push societal limits by wedding a noble (although ignoble) man. That shouldn't happen. It is interesting to consider also that Ana, a noble woman, has not-so-noble intentions for a relationship with Mota, only to (almost) be fooled by Don Juan. I know that none of this makes Don Juan anymore innocent, but it does help to prove that everyone is at least in some way guilty, not to the extent of Don Juan, but to some degree. One final note, I loved Don Juan's character. Talk about perseverance. He got what he wanted no matter how many hoops he had to jump through. As a person, I wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole, but as a character, his success as a seducer is without equal. Overall, this was a great play and by reading it, it makes me understand why so many authors have used Don Juan-like characters in their own works.
