Cantigas Gallego-Portugesas.
For much of the 13^th and 14^th centuries, the most active centre of lyric poetry/songs in the Iberian Peninsula was the territory north and south of the border separating Portugal and Galicia. These poems we know as Cantigas gallego-portuguesas or Galician-Portuguese Songs.

That this poetry was composed in Galician-Portuguese may seem surprising at a time when Castilian was becoming increasingly widespread as the Kingdom of Castile-León (which included Galicia, which had been forcibly annexed in 1072) extended its frontiers south at the expense of Muslim al-Andalus, in what is generally referred to as the “Reconquista.”

Furthermore, in the 13^th century, Castilian became the language of the court and of official communication, especially during the reign of Alfonso X, king of Castile-León from 1252 to 1284. Alfonso was a passionate promotor of Castilian, and under him scientific treatises, literary works etc. were translated from Arabic into the vernacular, and a history of the world and of Spain, and a codification of Castile’s laws and other works were rendered in Castilian rather than Latin.

In addition, Castilian was establishing itself as a literary vehicle with contemporary epic poetry (e.g. Poema de mío Cid c. 1200, and the Poema de Fernán González c. 1250, and learned verse mostly written by clerics (e.g. the poetry of Gonzalo de Berceo, 1190s-1260s, and the anonymous Libro de Alexandre c. 1240, and the Libro de Apolonio c. 1250).

Why Galician-Portuguese?
So why didn’t lyric poetry follow the route of the epic etc.? Why did even Alfonso X –that passionate promotor of Castilian— paradoxically write or sponsor hundreds of lyric poems in Galician-Portuguese, the most famous of which are his Cantigas de Santa María?

The main reason is the powerful influence of Provençal courtly poetry, the principal and most prestigious voice in lyric poetry in Europe from the 12^th to the 14^th centuries. But to understand why poetry from the south of France should have such an impact in the far north west of the Iberian Peninsula we have to turn briefly to religion and the road to Santiago de Compostela.

At a period when pilgrimages to Jerusalem were dangerous owing to constant hostility between Christians and Muslims (we are in the age of the Crusades), the popularization of the cult of St James (the martyred disciple of Christ who had allegedly been assigned by Him to spread the Word in the Iberian Peninsula and whose remains had been miraculously “discovered” in the 9^th century near Santiago) offered a viable alternative. After Rome, Santiago became the most visited pilgrimage destination in Europe during the Middle Ages. Predictably, given geographical proximity, most of the earliest pilgrims were French and these, together with French merchants who settled in the cities along the route, combined to give the route the popular name of camino francés (French Road).

Among the travelers were poets and minstrels from Provence, carrying with them their poetic practices. The prestige attached to their poetry was due not only to the quality and novelty of the poetry but also to the status of those composing and their audience. As the term “courtly” implies, this verse was composed mainly by cultured poets for an aristocratic audience.

This courtly poetry was able to flourish in the north west of the Iberian Peninsula thanks to the patronage and active participation of royalty (e. g. King Dinis of Portugal) and educated aristocracy who adopted themes and verse forms from Provence.

The imitation, however, was not slavish and in two matters they deviated from their source of inspiration.

First, they did not compose in Provençal but in Galician-Portuguese unlike, for example, contemporary poets in Catalonia who adopted Provençal in their lyrical verse owing probably to geographical proximity and a certain similarity in the languages of both regions. In the case of Galicia-Portugal, distance made it easier to adapt rather than adopt.

Second, the Galician-Portuguese poets also found inspiration in the popular songs of their region, transmitted orally in rural areas, coastal villages etc. These traditional songs, sung young women, had a universal appeal and were related thematically to a large pool of common experiences expressed by young women found in early European lyrics: e. g. the German Frauenlied or the French Chanson de femme. In this respect, too, there is precedence in the Iberian Peninsula in the Mozarabic kharjas but there is no reason to assume a direct influence of the latter on the Galician-Portuguese poems.

Three Categories of Poems/Songs.
Some 160 poets have been identified during this period and 1680 poems collected. The poems are divided into three categories established by the poets themselves: 1. Cantigas de amor (Love Songs); 2. Cantigas de amigo (Songs about the beloved); and 3. Cantigas de escarnho or de mal dezir (Songs of Ridicule and Insults). Virtually all the poets practiced all three kinds.

These cantigas (i. e. poems or songs) have survived in three manuscript collections or Cancioneiros (Songbooks). The oldest is the Cancioneiro da Ajuda, dating from the late 13^th to early 14^th century and now located in the Ajuda Palace Library, Lisbon. The collection contains 310 poems, all cantigas de amor.

The other two manuscripts are early 16^th-century copies -made in Italy for the Italian humanist Angelo Coloccio- of a cancioneiro, now lost. The more complete copy, the Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional (National Library) in Lisbon, contains 1,680 cantigas; it is still often referred by its original name of Colocci-Brancuti. The other copy, the Cancioneiro da Vaticana, in Rome, has over 1,200 poems.

Both the Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional and the Cancioneiro da Vaticana contain poems common to each other (including some cantigas de amor from the Cancioneiro da Ajuda), and both have poems belonging to the three categories mentioned above.

[Two 14^th-century parchment fragments have attracted attention because they contain the original musical notations. One is known as the Vindel parchment and contains seven poems by the troubadour MartÍn Codax; the other is the Sharrer Parchment with poems by King Dinis. Together, they total 13 cantigas.They all also appear in the National Library and Vatican cancioneiros. The MartÍn Codax poems are all cantigas de amigo; those of King Dinis are cantigas de amor.]

The Cantigas de amor.
These poems show the influence and ethos of courtly Provençal poetry. The setting is courtly and urban, and the emotions expressed in them are those of the poet’s (or poetic “I’s”) viewpoint, which was male –an important distinction from what we see in the cantigas de amigo. The distinguishing characteristic is the relationship between the lover and his lady whereby -following the code of courtly love- he is bound by rules that assert his inferiority and his lady’s superiority. Adapting feudal terminology, the lover “submits” himself to his lady: he is her “vassal” and she his “lord,” to the point that the masculine senhor is used with the feminine adjective e. g. mia senhor or senhor fremosa). However, the lady is cold, indifferent, unapproachable, which causes the poet to suffer, and leaves him sleepless and unable to declare his love. He may even die of love, but still, he remains faithful etc.

The following is an example of a cantiga de amor by Bernal de Bonaval, a 13^th-century Galician troubadour who was active in the court of Alfonso X 1252-84 and earlier in that of Ferdinand III Galicia 1231-1252, Alfonso’s father. He was widely recognized for his poetry, even earning the praise of Alfonso.

A dona que eu am’e tenho por senhor
Amostrade-mi-a, Deus, se vos en prazer for,
Senom dade-mi a morte.

A que tenh’eu por lume destes olhos meus
E por que choram sempr’, amostrade-mi-a, Deus,
Senom dade-mi a morte.

Essa que vos fezestes melhor parecer
De quantas sei, ai, Deus!, fazede-me-a veer
Senom dade-mi a morte.

Ai Deus! Que a mi fezestes mais ca mim amar,
Mostrade-mi-a, u possa com ela falar,
Senom, dade-mi a morte.

Translation.
The lady whom I love and hold as my lord,
God, show me her, if it pleases you,
If not, give me death.

She whom I consider to be the light of my eyes,
And because of whom I weep constantly, show me her, God,
if not, give me death.

She whom you made the most beautiful
Of all [women] who exist, let me see her,
If not, give me death.

Oh God, she whom you made me love more than myself,
Show me her, where I can speak to her,
If not, give me death.

2. Cantigas de escarnho e maldezir, satirical, defamatory poems –often comically so- also influenced by Provençal verse and connected to court lyrics. There is a wide variety of topics, ranging from everyday moral conduct to scandalous political behavior.

Sources.
Deyermond, A. D A Literary History of Spain: The Middle Ages London, New York 1971
Michael, Ian “The Galician-Portuguese Lyric,” in Spain: A Companion to Spanish Studies ed. P.E. Russell
https://cantigas.fcsh.unl.pt/manuscritos.asp?ling=eng Contains all the poems in Galician-Portuguese from the three Cancioneiros. There are English translations of all the introductory materials and a good introduction to the material as well as brief biographies of the poets. Some cantigas are translated into English verse.
Page from the Cancioneiro da Ajuda: Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=368265
Page from the Codax parchment< Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=368265

En Burgos está el buen rey.

1. En Burgos está el buen rey -asentado a su yantar,
cuando la Jimena Gómez -se le vino a querellar.
5. Cubierta toda de luto, -tocas de negro cendal,
las rodillas por el suelo -comenzara de fablar:
9. -Con mancilla vivo, rey, -con ella murió mi madre;
cada día que amanece -veo al que mató a mi padre
13. caballero en un caballo, -y en su mano un gavilan;
por facerme más despecho -cébalo en mi palomar,
17. mátame mis palomillas -criadas y por criar;
la sangre que sale de ellas -teñido me ha mi brial.
21. Enviéselo a decir, -envióme a amenazar.
Hacedme, buen rey, justicia, -no me la queráis negar.
25. Rey que non face justicia -non debiera de reinar,
ni cabalgar en caballo, -ni con la reina holgar
29. ni comer pan a manteles, -ni menos armas armar.-
El rey cuando aquesto oyera -comenzara de pensar:
33. -Si yo prendo o mato al Cid -mis cortes revolverse han;
pues si lo dejo de hacer -Dios me lo ha de demandar.
37. Mandarle quiero una carta, -mandarle quiero llamar.-
Las palabras no son dichas, -la carta camino va;
41. mensajero que la lleva -dado la había a su padre.
Cuando el Cid aquesto supo -así comenzó a fablar:
45. Malas mañas habéis, conde, -non vos las puedo quitar,
que carta que el rey vos manda -no me la queréis mostrar.
49. -Non era nada, mi fijo, -si non que vades allá;
fincad vos acá, mi fijo, -que yo iré en vueso lugar.
53. -Nunca Dios lo tal quisiese -ni Santa María su madre,
55. sino que donde vos fuéredes -tengo yo de ir adelante.

Translation: The good king is in Burgos/ seated at his table [to eat]/ when Jimena Gómez/ came to complain to him./ Dressed all in mourning,/ [with] a bonnet of black silk/ kneeling on the ground,/ she began to speak:/- “In disgrace I live, my king/ with that [disgrace] my mother died;/ each day that dawns/ I see [the man] who killed my father/ a knight on horseback/ and on his hand a hawk;/ to make me despair even more/ he feeds it in my dovecot,/ he kills my little doves/ those already born and to be born,/ the blood that runs from them/ has stained my silk dress./ I sent [a message] to let him know,/ he sent [a message] threatening me./ Give me justice, my king/ don’t deny me it;/ the king who does not provide justice/ doesn’t deserve to rule,/ nor ride on horseback/ nor take his ease with his queen/ nor eat bread off a tablecloth,/ nor even bear arms./

The king when he heard this/ began to reflect: “If I take or kill the Cid/ the Court will rebel;/ [but] if I don’t do it/ God will call me to account;/ I’ll send him [the Cid] a letter/ I’ll send for him to come.”

The words are scarcely said/ and the letter is on its way;/ the messenger carrying it/ has given it to his [the Cid’s] father./ When the Cid found this out/ he began to speak out thus:/ “You are behaving slyly, Count [the Cid is addressing his father],/ I cannot rid you of that,/ since the letter that the king has sent you/ you won’t show it to me.”/ “It was nothing, my son,/ except that you should go there;/ stay here, my son,/ I’ll go in your place.”/ “May God never allow such a thing,/ nor Holy Mary, His mother,/ for wherever you go/ I shall go ahead.”

Historical Background. In the Poema de mio Cid, the hero, Rodrigo de Vivar, i. e. el Cid, was portrayed as a dignified, prudent, generous individual who overcame adversity through his leadership and skill in arms. In short, an exemplary heroic figure but one who showed at the same time a surprisingly down-to-earth concern about money -not only for himself but also for his followers- and a deep and tender love for his family.

There are ballads/ romances that follow this tradition, but there are, too, ballads that show another, less attractive side for the modern reader. There are, in effect, three ballad cycles dealing with the Cid: 1. those concerning his youth, 2. those dealing with the siege of Zamora (when Sancho of Castile lost his life and his brother, Alfonso – the famous Alfonso VI of the epic poem, and conqueror of Toledo, 1085- replaced him as king), and 3. those inspired by the Poema.

The youth and Zamora ballads are largely fictional and derive from lost epics which responded to a popular demand in the late 13^th and 14^th centuries for something new about the Cid’s life. One of these poems was the Mocedades del Cid (Youthful Exploits of the Cid), probably the last Castilian epic (Deyermond 47), which invents dashing tales about the Cid’s early life, which any Harlequin reader will appreciate. It includes a love affair with Urraca (Alfonso VI’s sister) as well as his relationship with Jimena, whose father Rodrigo kills over family rivalry. Adding spice to this is the king’s command that Rodrigo marry Jimena as requested by Jimena herself! Rodrigo then undertakes adventures against Moorish and Christian adversaries and ends up besieging the city of Paris, at which point the manuscript ends. These fictions enjoyed enormous popularity for centuries.

There are several versions of En Burgos está el buen rey” all centring on Jimena’s request for reparation for the shame suffered from the death of her father. Failure to act will cast doubt on the king’s right to rule. What Jimena wants is not specified here, but she complains about the way the Cid continues to humiliate her, to the point of threatening her. It is behaviour unbecoming of a knight and totally at odds with the hero of the epic Poema.

Jimena’s criticism of the young Cid is confirmed by Rodrigo’s behaviour in other ballads, and even by his haughty response to his father at the end of this poem. At no time in this version of the ballad do we know what reparation Jimena wants nor what the king’s letter to the Cid contains, and the poem ends on a defiant note as Rodrigo says what he is going to do: go to the court. We can suspect fireworks, as indeed the sequel bears out: the youthful Cid insults the king. (In another version of the romance, Jimena asks the king for Rodrigo’s hand in marriage; the ending is the same.). According to the scholar Ramón Menéndez Pidal, this romance survived well into the 20^th century in Andalusia and amongst the Sephardic Jews of Morocco.

Metre and rhyme.
This version of the romance consists of 56 octosyllabic lines (lines of 8 syllables). For practical reasons of space, romances are often written in lines of 16 syllables -as here- with a break at the end of the eighth, so that, for example, En Burgos está el buen rey is line 1 and asentado a su yantar is line 2.

This ballad has an assonance rhyme of a (-e) which, as is customary in Spanish ballads, falls on the even lines: e. g. line 2: a (1)/sen (2)/tad (3)/o a (4)/su (5)/yan (6)/tar (7)/ (+e 8)/; line 4: se (1)/le (2)/vi (3)/no a (40/que (5)/re (6)/llar (7)/ (+e 8)/

(NB. When a line of poetry ends with a stressed vowel –as here-, the syllable count of that line will add up to 7 but a theoretical e (called paragogic e) is appended to create the 8th syllable.)

Commentary.
En Burgos… opens with a passionate petition by Jimena Gómez to the king, Alfonso VI, then moves to a moment of reflection by the king before ending with a brief dialogue between the Cid and his father, Count Diego Laínez. There are in effect, three parts or scenes: 1. lines 1-30 containing Jimena’s petition, 2. lines 31-38 focusing briefly on the king’s reaction and inner thoughts, and 3. lines 39-56 which capture the moment when the Cid confronts his father over the message received from the king. Neither monarch nor count is named, and the Cid is only identified in line 33. But this would not be an obstacle for the listening audience since the tale was sufficiently well known not to require such clarification.

In such cases of familiarity, what would prevent boredom arising from the repetition of a well-known tale? As much as anything, the role of the anonymous juglares/ minstrels was central. They were performers and their success (and livelihood) depended on their persuasive narrating ability which would include voice modulation, eye contact, timing, body language etc. They needed to attract the attention of their audiences as quickly as possible and maintain it; they needed to know where to begin and when to end. They also knew not to be long winded. These factors influenced the style they adopted. At the same time, they might vary the content, even ad lib etc., which is why we often have more than one version of a ballad.

One of the most salient features of the ballad in general is the sense of movement and drama. The drama here is enhanced by a generous use of dialogue combined with verbs in the preterite tense, the tense most appropriate for moving the narrative along. Underscoring the sense of movement is the astonishing shortage of adjectives (which often slow down a narrative). In the 56 lines that make up this ballad, there is only one true adjective: negro, l. 6!

In Alfonso’s very brief internal soliloquy (ll. 33-38), and the next four lines describing the speed with which Alfonso’s message is delivered to the Cid’s father (ll. 39-42) there is a switch to the present tense. The use of the present tense is much more effective than reported speech, since it conveys much more immediacy and urgency to the king’s dilemma, and in the hands of an accomplished minstrel could have striking impact.

The setting to the En Burgos… begins abruptly and is brief: the king seated at his table, the arrival of Jimena dressed in mourning. Jimena’s passionate address to the king takes up most of this first part. Her petition is well argued beginning with her distress caused by her father’s death at the hands of the Cid and by her mother’s death as a result of the unavenged disgrace/ dishonour. She paints an unflattering picture of the Cid destroying her property and threatening her when she complains (ll. 21-22). At this point, Jimena appeals/ turns directly to the king for justice.

It is the climax of her petition which ends with a series of negatives (ll. 26-30) that succinctly underline the responsibilities and privileges of monarchs. It is cleverly done. She puts pressure on the king, but she does not personalize the issue and thereby possibly antagonize Alfonso. The implication is that no king would wish to be seen as failing to provide justice, and Alfonso is no different.

In seeking redress for her misfortune and distress, Jimena shows herself to be resourceful and determined. She has taken on the task of seeking justice in a male-dominated, military environment. The speed with which the king quickly weighs the pros and cons of Jimena’s request in reaching his decision is a testament to Jimena’s boldness and persuasive argument. He decides to send for the Cid.

Part 3 moves quickly from the delivery of the king’s letter to a brief dialogue between the Cid and his father in which the Cid chastises his father for keeping the letter from him. There is an element of misunderstanding on both sides. The count’s reply suggests that he wishes to protect his son from repercussions that might arise from the king’s letter. He will go to the king instead. The Cid reply, on the other hand, hints at disobedience: wherever his father is going, he will go ahead of him. [FYI. The ballad that follows this romance portrays a very belligerent Cid in his contempt for the king and his general display of bad manners at court. The ballad begins: Cabalga Diego Laínez/ al buen rey besar la mano.]

 

Early Lyrical Poetry in Spain: The Kharjas.
The kharjas (jarchas in Spanish) are brief lyrical poems or songs from al-Andalus, the land in the Iberian Peninsula occupied or controlled by Muslims (or Moors, the term often used in Spanish history for the Muslims) from the 8^th to 15^th centuries. These poems are dated between the 11^th and 13^th centuries and are found appended to longer poems called a muwashshahas, written in classical Arabic or in Hebrew (the Jews constituting a significant minority in al Andalus during Moorish rule).

There are three kinds of kharjas: those written in colloquial or Andalusi Arabic (i. e. not classical), those written in Hebrew, and finally those containing words or phrases in early Romance together with Andalusi Arabic or Hebrew (Some scholars call this combination “Mozarabic.” A Mozarab was a Christian living in al-Andalus). Numbering almost 70, it is this third kind that interests us because for a long time they were said to be the earliest evidence of poems in a Romance tongue. In view of subsequent challenges to this assertion, we’ll identify this third kind as Disputed Kharjas.

A Brief Historical and Social Context.
It will be clear from the above paragraphs that we are actually dealing with more than one language. To understand why, we should keep in mind that during the Middle Ages Spain, as a unified country, did not exist. The Iberian Peninsula (to give a more neutral term) was made up of different Christian and Muslim (Moorish) kingdoms with the former gradually expanding at the cost of the latter which, from the 13^th to the 15^th century, were reduced to one kingdom, that of Granada in the south.

Straddling the divide between Christians and the Muslims were the Jews, whose influence on both groups was profound. The Peninsula, then, was inhabited by three religions and was multilingual and multiracial: Arabic, Hebrew, and the Romance languages evolving out of Latin: Galician-Portuguese, Castilian and Catalan (not to mention local dialects such as Aragonese, and “Mozarabic,” a hybrid tongue combining Arabic and early Romance).

Awareness of this multilingual, multiracial make-up of the Peninsula is relevant when we consider that, in addition to the Disputed kharjas, two other groups of lyrical poems later emerged that reflected something of the linguistic pot that existed in the Middle Ages: 1. the cantigas de amigo in Galician-Portuguese (roughly between 1220 and 1350), and 2. the villancicos in Castilian (from the 15^th century).

The Disputed Kharjas. Background History.
The existence of the Disputed kharjas and their significance were not recognized until 1948 when a Jewish scholar, Samuel Stern, studying in England (Oxford), published an article in French in a Spanish journal with the name Al-Andalus (a most appropriate coincidence given the multilingual, multiracial environment in which the kharjas were composed!)

The obstacle to an earlier recognition of their significance was that these Disputed kharjas were not written in Latin script but transcribed in Arabic or Hebrew. Since both Arabic and Hebrew omit vowels, this made the task of deciphering these refrains doubly difficult, and there have been numerous instances where scholars have resorted to conjecture when transcribing and deciphering these ancient songs.

The full impact of Stern’s discovery, however, came with the dating of the Disputed kharjas. The earliest -and one of the best known- must precede 1042, since it is appended to a Hebrew muwashshah that is a panegyric by a certain Yosef the Scribe to a man who died in that year (and Hebrew poetry at the time did not permit eulogies addressed to the dead).

Why was this important?
There are two reasons. 1. Up until the publication of Stern’s articles, it was believed that the earliest examples of lyrical poetry in Romance were those from Provençal (southern France), dating from around 1100. Suddenly, there was a radical challenge, the repercussions of which are still felt as scholars discuss and theorise on influences and sources, and a lot of academic mud has been slung as national sensitivities and scholarly reputations have been questioned.

2. It was not long before nationalistic and religious contamination set in. For example, the Disputed kharjas were seen as evidence of the persistence/ survival of pre-Islamic lyric verse, and evidence of Christian/Mozarabic culture. Their discovery, not long after the end of the brutal Spanish Civil War (1936-39), also fitted conveniently the ideological argument of General Franco’s Catholic regime that Spain had always been at the forefront of the battle against Islam and had always resisted the contagion of Muslim thought.

Where did these Disputed kharjas come from? It was quickly argued that these kharjas formed part of a popular, oral tradition of songs –most of which had not survived- sung by Christian (i. e. Mozarab) women while doing e. g. housework or at the communal washing place by a river etc. At some time, they were overheard by cultured Arab or Hebrew poets who, attracted perhaps by their freshness and spontaneity, “exited” their muwashshahas (kharja means “exit” or “outing”) with a kharja. Indeed, it has been argued that the muwashshahas were in fact “built on them (the kharjas)” (Deyermond 8).

Thematically, the Disputed kharjas deal overwhelmingly with love. It was quickly noted that in about 80% of the extant examples, the voice we hear is that of a young woman whose love life was a source of uncertainty or heartache. She revealed her desires, hopes, frustrations, fears, sickness, torment and so on. Often she addressed another person seeking advice about what to do: her mother, a friend or friends –called hermana(s), literally sister(s). Other times she communicated her feelings directly to her lover.

These thematic characteristics were then seized upon as being part of a larger European phenomenon and compared to similar lyrics sung by young women in other parts of Europe (e. g. France, Germany, Italy, Greece). And close to home many scholars called attention especially to the Galician-Portuguese cantigas de amigo. None of these other European songs appeared as early as the kharjas, but the fact that similar kinds of songs appeared in such divergent areas suggested a common experience and a similar way of conveying it. That experience happened to have been transcribed earlier in the Disputed kharjas in al-Andalus than in any other Romance tongue.

All this sounds plausible. BUT these arguments are largely conjectural and are influenced by or based on 1. nationalistic objectives which distort their meanings; 2. a faulty understanding of the texts thanks to paleographical inadequacies; 3. viewing the kharjas as complete poems in themselves (enthusiastic Hispanists started to divorce the kharjas from their muwashshahas soon after their discovery, as if they were independent pieces instead of seeing them as examples of poetic activity in a multilingual society.

These Euro or Hispanocentric arguments began to be challenged in the 1970s , and gathered force in the 1980s. Objections were based on 1. questions of rhyme, metrics and language (no Disputed kharja is written entirely in early Romance), and 2. on the lack, hitherto, of any “ancient Hispanic poetry” (Corriente 117) which could allow a comparison with these kharjas.

Furthermore, the argument for a similarity between the Disputed kharjas and other popular European lyrics began to unravel when it was demonstrated that there was nothing especially Christian/European in these kharjas to support the claim that they “were the earliest known traces of Romance lyrics” (Corriente 116).

In addition, it had been argued -following Stern’s discovery- that the muwashshaha with their kharjas were a Hispano-Arabic invention from around 900 AD and that it was “the one Andalusi genre which has been enthusiastically claimed by Spanish scholars” (Labanyi 16). Subsequent research now suggests that the muwashshahas and the kharjas were, in fact, “by-products of Eastern Arabic literary models” (Corriente 116, 112) in which the final stanza –the equivalent of the kharja— introduced a “lighter and livelier style of folk poetry” (Corriente 110) aimed at “stylistic variation” (Corriente 117).

Argument against the “First Romance Lyrics” Interpretations.
[Note: in the following paragraph, all alphabetical and numeral references are taken from Federico Corriente’s excellent survey which concludes with a list of the Disputed kharjas from both Arabic (A) and Hebrew (H) sources, 43 Arabic and 26 Hebrew.]

One of the most telling arguments against the claim that the kharjas were the earliest examples of Romance lyrics is simply to consider the names of the lovers addressed or referred to by the female speaker: they are almost all of Muslim origin: Abulqasim (A 17), Abulhajjaj (A 19, Ibn Alhajib (A 30), Ibn Addayyan (H 1), Bairam (H 5), Ibn Muhajir (H 13). We also find the names of three eminent figures from the Old Testament, Ibrahim (A 1), Jonah (A 33), (Ishaq i. e. Isaac H 2), a text revered by Muslims and Jews. There are, also, two references to Sura Yasin (A 29, 30; the Surah Yasin is the 36^th Surah of the Qur’an), Allah (A 27) and the semitic expressions ya rabbi and ya rab (Oh God, H 6, 9). Furthermore, the lover is regularly addressed in the Arabic habibi, while there are two Arabic titles: emir (A 43), sidi (lord A 20, 39, H 1, 11), and Cidello (H 3).

These details give weight, then, to Muslim and/or Hebrew compositions in which the composers incorporated early Romance words or phrases to mark a different linguistic register from that of the muwashshaha rather than an appropriation by these authors of indigenous folk songs sung by Christian/ Mozarab women. If it were a case of appropriation, we might expect the retention of the Christian names of those men addressed or referred to, or the use of perhaps amigo instead of habibi for lover, or other clear allusions to an indigenous, Christian heritage.

Tone of the Disputed kharjas.
The tone of these kharjas, especially those appended to Arabic muwashshahas is frequently suggestive, irreverent and/or sensually frank. Surprising perhaps, but not unusual. A similar tone can be found in female-voiced lyrics universally. The following from the Disputed kharjas will give some idea:

“Come my lord, … come to me at night or else … I shall come to you (A 1); “Kiss me and lead me by the necklace, you with the little cherry mouth” (A 11); “Don’t bite me, my darling (A 23); “You came away with marks from biting” (A 26); “I would offer you my little mouth, red like cistus flowers” (A 20); “Kiss my little mouth … you will drink sweet juice from it” (A 25); “Little mouth like a necklace, sweet like honey, come, kiss me, my darling, come to me, join me in love, because I am dying” (A 36); “Mother, what good is the sura Yasin… Rather, if I am about to die, bring me Ibn Alhajib as a remedy and I shall be cured” (A 30); “Tell me, mother… do my relatives suspect that I fornicate? My love is of the kind that is paid in installments” (A 35).

The language used by the female voice is simple and direct, but its boldness and frankness suggest that the woman is not always the perplexed maiden simply seeking advice that some of these Disputed kharjas might convey. Indeed, it has been argued that these songs were “put deliberately into the mouths of lower-class young lovers” (Corriente 120), even possibly of female slaves who would be less inclined to use a more decorous, allusive language. [The term “female-voiced” has been used introduced at the end as a reminder that one of the much-discussed topics on this matter is whether these lyrics were composed by women or whether in fact the female voice was appropriated by a male composer. But that is another question and not the purpose of this post].

The following examples are from Corriente: the upper case signals romance-based word, the lower case represents Arabic or Hebrew words.

A 4: ALBO, qad min FOGORE,/ almudhi MEW DOLEDORE: PESED+AL arraqibE,/ ES TU+ STA NOKHTE amiri. You, the blond one, that’s enough burning [me with passion], you abuser, my tormentor; in spite of the guardian, be my prince tonight!

A 20: SI SABES, ya sidi,/ KAN BEBES MEW bassE!/ MA BOKELLA hamra/ +(D)dayfAREY kalwarsE. If you knew, my lord how many of my kisses you would drink! I would offer you my little mouth, red like cistus flowers.

A 25: amanE, ya habib,/ alwahsha ME+N FARAS!/ BEN, BEJA MA BOKELLA,/ LEW SUKKO TE+N BEBRAS. Mercy, my darling, you would make me grieve with your absence! Kiss my little mouth, handsome; you will drink a sweet juice from it.

A 36: BOKELLA+ al iqdE,/ DOLCE KOM+ ashshuhdE,/ BEN BEYJAME,/habib, ji indi,/ ADUNNE+M+ AMANDE,/ KE MOYROME. Little mouth like a necklace, sweet like honey, come, kiss me, my daring, come to me, join me in love, because I am dying.

A 38: MAMMA+ EST+ alghulam/ la bud kulla liyya,/ halal aw haram. Mother, this boy has to be mine, lawfully or unlawfully!

H 18: TANT AMARE, TANT AMARE,/ habib TANT AMARE,/ ENFERMERON WELYOS jidOS,/ YA DOLENT TAN MALE. [From] so much love, so much love, my darling, from somuch lve my healthy eyes became ill; they now ache so badly. [This is the earliest recorded song coming at the end of a Hebrew panegyric dated 1042.]

H 4: GARRIR BOS+EY YERMANELLAS,/KI+M KONTENER(D) MEW MALE,/SIN alhabib NON BIBREYO,/ AD OB L+ IREYDEMANDARE? i shall tell you, little sisters: who will hold back my illness? Without my darling I cannot live: where shall I go and find him?

H 9: BAY(D)SE MEW QORCON DE MIB,/ ya rab, SI SE ME TORNARAD?/ TAN MAL ME DOLED L+ alhabib!/ ENFERMO YED, KAND SANARAD? My heart is leaving me, oh God! Will he ever come back? My darling is hurting me so badly! [My heart] is ill, when will it be cured?

Sources.
Corriente, Federico “The Kharjas: An Updated Survey of Theories, Texts and their Interpretations,” Romance Philology, Vol. 63, No. 1, (2009), 109-29.
Cummins, John G The Spanish Traditional Lyric Oxford, New York: Pergamon Press, 1977.
Deyermond, A. D. A Literary History of Spain: The Middle Ages. London, New York 1971.
Klinck, Anne L and Rasmussen eds. Medieval Woman’s Song: Cross Cultural Approaches. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania Press, 2002.
Labanyi, Jo Spanish Literature: A Very Short Introduction Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010.

Pepe el Romano.
Let’s begin with a paradox: Pepe el Romano plays an important role in the drama but he neither appears onstage nor do we hear him speak at all! He is invisible and silent, because the action takes place entirely in Bernarda’s house, a space which men are strictly prohibited from entering. Indeed, all we know about Pepe, we learn from the Alba family and their two servants, La Poncia and Criada.

[The Alba household is made up entirely of women, nine in all. Bernarda, her five unmarried daughters –Angustias, Magdalena, Amelia, Martirio and Adela-, her deranged mother (Maria Josefa), and two servants, La Poncia and the other called simply Criada (i. e. Maid).]

So why is Pepe el Romano important and why are men prohibited from entering the house? To address Pepe’s importance first: It is around him that Lorca creates a drama based on his relationship with two of Bernarda’s daughters, the oldest, Angustias, and the youngest, Adela.

Pepe, Angustias and Honour.
But why does Bernarda ban men from her house? Simply put, men are a threat to family honour, and Bernarda is obsessed with her family honour, with the importance attached to appearances, and with the status or esteem her family enjoys in the village.

Pepe pays proper court to Angustias, visiting her at her window. This is socially acceptable because her modesty and family honour are protected by the wrought-iron grille that covers the window. [In Andalusia, it is normal to see street-level windows protected by wrought-iron grills (rejas) through which it was customary for courting couples to communicate and so maintain proper decorum.] However, Pepe also has a clandestine affair at the same time with Adela and this is a grave threat to the honour etc. of the Alba family; it is improper, scandalous.

Bernarda’s obsession with honour obeys a social attitude that stretches back centuries and finds fertile ground in Spain’s Golden Age (approx. 16^th and 17^th centuries), where it played a major role (see, for example, Fuenteovejuna, El Burlador de Sevilla). Traditionally, the defence of honour and status fell to the men of the family, but Bernarda is twice widowed and has no sons or other male members to take on that responsibility.

Traditionally, too, family honour was embodied in the women … especially wives and daughters, and with five unmarried daughters, Bernarda has her work cut out! Determined, nevertheless, to defend her family’s honour, Bernarda predictably prohibits men entering her house, even those who have attended her second husband’s funeral: “I don’t want them passing through here,” she informs La Poncia (Act I, 125). [In case we think that family honour is passé, it’s worth remembering that it is still very much alive nowadays, with honour killings frequently reported in some conservative societies. And in these societies, women are often seen to be as determined as men in advocating severe punishment on other women.]

Men may not enter Bernarda’s house, but she cannot prevent them passing by her house, including Pepe. But we know Pepe has a legitimate reason: he is set to marry Angustias. However, she is thirty-nine-years-old, sickly (Act I, 139), and unattractive (Act I, 121) whereas Pepe is a handsome twenty-five-year-old (Act I, 140). Given the age difference and Angustias’s health, it is hardly surprising that Pepe’s interest in Angustias lies in her wealth (as Magdalena points out, Act I, 139): Angustias is rich having inherited all the money from her father, Bernarda’s first husband (Act I, 121, 140).

Pepe, Adela and the Consequences of Dishonour.
We know that Pepe is authorized to court Angustias at her window, but where does he meet Adela? No doubt they do see each other at her window, but it is clear too that they both have access to the house’s “corral” (enclosed yard), a place of erotic encounters to judge from what we learn in the play. For example, it is from the “corral” that Adela returns with her hair disheveled (Act II, 193) and her petticoat covered in straw (Act III, 197) after meeting Pepe. It is there that Bernarda’s second husband lifted the Criada’s petticoat (Act I, 123), and it is there that the stud stallion will mate with Bernarda’s fillies (Act III, 178).

The point is that despite Bernarda’s draconian restrictions imposed on her daughters (they will spend eight years in mourning following her second husband’s death Act I, 129), Pepe has penetrated the protective wall erected by her. But Adela also breaks her mother’s rules by being a willing participant and in doing so has actively betrayed the honour of the family. Angustias accuses Adela of being the “Deshonra de nuestra familia” “the dishonour/ shame of our family” (Act III, 197), and Magdalena has no wish to see her any more (Act III, 198).

Pepe escapes retribution fleeing on his horse, but Adela commits suicide, not however out of shame, but because her envious sister Martirio (who also loves Pepe) misleads her into believing that Pepe has been killed by Bernarda (Act III, 198). Adela dies unrepentant, and it now remains for Bernarda to do her best to cover up the disgrace brought upon the family. She demands family silence on the matter and insists that Adela died a virgin.

This is an urgent matter for Bernarda, because otherwise Adela’s behaviour will become the object of village gossip very much like the disgraceful conduct of Paca la Roseta (a married woman who willingly accompanied the village men on horseback with her breasts exposed while her husband was tied up to a manger (Act I, 132), which Bernarda had listened to avidly as La Poncia described it. Or the scandal of the daughter of La Librada (a local widow), who had given birth to a child by an unknown father and killed it to cover her shame and left it buried under some stones (Act II, 175). In this case, Bernarda is vociferous in clamouring for her death.

With family honour threatened by Adela’s shameful behaviour and suicide, Bernarda now finds herself in a situation that she condemned in others and hastens to mount “damage control.” She demands silence claiming at the same time that Adela died a virgin. Bernarda’s last words (and the last of the play) are “Silence! Silence, I’ve said! Silence” but given village life we are left with the impression that Adela will ironically have the last word, her death/suicide speaking volumes in village circles.

Pepe: Example of Male Behaviour and Freedom.
Pepe el Romano’s escape without any apparent consequences for him confirms Adela’s earlier observation that men get away with their transgressions (“They are forgiven everything” Act II, 159) and Amelia’s reflection that “To be born a woman is the greatest punishment” Act II, 159).

Pepe’s misbehavior is the most obvious since he is involved directly with the Alba family, courting Angustias and having an affair with Adela at the same time. Nevertheless, there are three other men, mentioned briefly, whose behavior is hardly exemplary: Bernarda’s second husband Antonio Maria Benavides Act I, 123, 127, who has pursued Criada, lifting her petticoat, Act I, 123, La Poncia’s husband Evaristo el Colin’s whose first words to her are bluntly sexual: “Come here. Let me feel you” and Enrique Humanas Act I, 136, III, 170) who gives the ugly Martirio hope of marriage before abandoning her for a richer girl (according to Martirio, Act I, 136, although later it becomes clear that Bernarda intervened Act III, 170).

The point is that men are not punished for their transgressions. They have freedom of movement and are free from punishment for their misbehavior. The most egregious example can be seen in the brief family history of Adelaida, a neighbour. It’s a very complicated picture. Her unnamed father had murdered his first wife’s husband, then abandoned her for another who had a daughter. He then had an affair with the daughter (who was Adelaida’s mother) … all of this without consequences for him because, as Martirio puts it succinctly, men cover for each other (Act I, 136)!

Women, on the other hand are trapped. For example, Adelaida’s fiancé would not let her as far as the doorstep let alone attend the funeral of Bernarda’s second husband (Act I, 135).

The freedom men enjoy without consequences is conveyed symbolically by their access to the outside world, especially the countryside. Adela expresses her frustration clearly when she and her sisters and La Poncia hear the harvesters singing on their way back to work: “Ay, I wish that I could also go out to the fields!” (Act II, 159). Her feelings are underscored by an air of romantic mystery and adventure added by La Poncia: the harvesters come from the mountains and are carefree (“Alegres” Act II, 159), and –adding more spice- some of them had paid an exotic young woman from afar to accompany them to an olive grove.

La Poncia does not elaborate but the implications are clear to the sexually repressed and housebound sisters. They are shocked, but there is envy and frustration in Adela’s observation and Amelia’s reflection: “They [men] are forgiven everything” Act II, 159) and Amelia’s reflection that “To be born a woman is the greatest punishment” Act II. 159).

The treatment of Pepe el Romano in the play is in fact an example of all men’s behaviour. He wants a docile, demure wife (according to Angustias, Act I, 150) while at the same time carrying on an affair. La Ponce gives it a slight twist: “after fifteen days of marriage, a man leaves his bed for the table and then proceeds from the table to the bar and the wife who doesn’t go along with it is left rotting and weeping in a corner” (Act II, 151). Which is the same as saying that men do what they want.

When Pepe el Romano rides off to escape being shot, it is not difficult to imagine that the cycle will start over. As Martirio says after hearing about Adelaida’s father’s scandalous behavior, for which he was not punished: “Men cover for each other regarding things of this kind … these things are repeated” (Act I, 136). So it will likely be with Pepe.

For a summary of Act I, click here; for Acts II and III, click here.

Edition used:
García Lorca, Federico La Casa de Bernarda Alba eds. Josephs, Allen and Caballero, Juan Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra, 1987. (For those who read Spanish, numerals in this post refer to page numbers in the Spanish text.)

Lorca. The House of Bernarda Alba. La Poncia.
For a summary of the plot, click here.

The Alba household is made up entirely of women: Bernarda, her five daughters -Angustias, Magdalena, Amelia, Martirio, Adela-, Bernarda’s mother –María Josefa—and two servants, La Poncia and another called simply Criada (Maid). La Poncia plays a significant role as intermediary between Bernarda and her daughters and the main source of contact between the Alba family and the village where they live.

La Poncia and Bernarda. Like Bernarda, her employer, La Poncia is 60 years old, and for half her life (Act I, 120) has served in the Alba house. But their relationship is tense and antagonistic, owing to Bernarda’s abrasive, domineering character and La Poncia’s dependency on her. La Poncia’s resentment is revealed in the opening moments of the play when she sums up Bernarda’s character as cold, domineering and tyrannical (p 119) towards everyone around her, including –clearly—La Poncia herself. And stage directions further confirm the feelings La Poncia is to convey, e. g. “Siempre con crueldad: always cruelly; Con odio: with hate; con odio envuelto en suavidad: with hate wrapped in mildness” (Act III, 169-70)

She feels hard worked over the years she has served Bernarda, eating her mistress’s left overs, staying up at night whenever Bernarda was unwell, and spying on the neighbours for her (Act I, 120). “One day,” she says to the Criada, “I’ll get fed up … and on that the day I’ll shut myself in a room with her and spit all over her for a whole year” (Act I, 121). She is clearly unhappy, even describing –towards the end of play- the Alba house as “war-ridden,” a place which she would like to escape from (Act III, 189).

Why then does La Poncia remain? Very simply, she depends on Bernarda for her job and importantly her sons are employed by Bernarda to work on her estate (Act I, 120). She is reminded in no uncertain terms by Bernarda that they have no special relationship: “You serve me and I pay you. Nothing more” (Act I, 134). Later during an argument with La Poncia, Bernarda commands her to work and shut up. “That is the duty of all those who are paid” (Act II, 171). La Poncia’s “loyalty,” then, is based on need and not affection.

Predictably, La Poncia loses little opportunity to needle Bernarda, for example reminding her that Magdalena, Amelia, Martirio and Adela are poor compared to their half sister, Angustias (who is the sole inheritor of her father, Act I, 140). It doesn’t seem much, and what La Poncia says is true, but it obviously irks Bernarda who snaps back: “You’ve told me that three times and I’ve chosen not to answer you. … Don’t remind me again” (Act I, 143).

Later (Act II, 168-73), La Poncia and Bernarda exchange strong words after La Poncia senses that all is not as it seems between Angustias and her fiancé, Pepe el Romano, and pointedly asks Bernarda why Martirio would have Angustias’s picture of Pepe in her bed. The argument then becomes more personal. After being provoked by La Poncia to open her eyes (Act II, 169) and accused of not allowing her daughters any freedom (Act II, 169), Bernarda throws La Poncia’s humble origins in her face. At the same time, she accuses La Poncia of wanting to see her and her daughters end up in a brothel which, she insinuates, was where La Poncia’s mother had ended up! At this point, it appears that Bernarda has prevailed, but La Ponce comes back with: “Adela … She is (Pepe) el Romano’s real girlfriend” (Act II, 171). She then adds more fuel to the fire claiming that her oldest son had seen Angustias and Pepe still talking to each other at the window at 4.30 in the morning. (The point is that Angustias has said that Pepe always left her window at 1.00 am, so to whom was he talking at 4.30? The implication is that it was Adela, which La Poncia knows will anger Bernarda.)

La Poncia and Bernarda’s Daughters.
Besides being a thorn in Bernarda’s side, La Poncia’s close relationship with Bernarda’s daughters highlights their mother’s coldness to and obsessive control over them. In many ways, La Poncia serves as a surrogate mother. She knows what each daughter thinks, is privy to their bickering and hopes, and can rightly claim that Bernarda, in comparison, is blind to what is going on with her daughters (Act II, 169).

Certainly, conversations between La Poncia and the daughters are much more intimate than anything Bernarda holds with them. La Poncia offers advice (Act II, 155: suggesting Adela wait until Angustias –who is sickly- dies, after which she can marry Pepe), and enlightens them how men behave after marriage (Act II, 151). She recognizes their sexual repression and enjoys titillating them with a very personal description of her first encounter with her husband when he paid court to her at her window: his first words, after half an hour of silence, were: “Come on, let me feel you!” (Act II, 151). It is one of the very few moments of laughter in the play.

Nevertheless, there is in this intimacy a certain ambivalence, if not malice, on the part of La Poncia. In a moment of candour when talking with the Criada at the beginning of the play, she describes all the daughters as “ugly” (Act I, 121). Nor does she defend them or express any affection for them when the Criada labels them all “malas – bad” (Act III, 189), merely replying that they are “women without men. Nothing more” (Act III, 190).

La Poncia is not above enjoying feeding the frustration Bernarda’s daughters feel, shut up in the house. When Adela, Magdalena, Martirio and Amelia all sit down, resigned to their confinement, after hearing the reapers return to the village (Act II, 159), La Poncia extols the freedom of the countryside: “There’s no joy like that of being in the countryside at this time of the year” (Act II,159). She then continues, describing the carefree entrance of a woman entering the village the night before dressed in sequins and dancing to an accordion. Furthermore, she adds that the woman was paid by fifteen men from the village to accompany them to the olive grove! “Can that really be so? “Is that possible!” is the shocked reaction of Amelia and Adela (Act II, 159). And then La Poncia divulges that she had paid for her eldest son to have his first sexual experience, because “men need these things.” All of which reinforces for the sisters their lack of liberty, best summarized by Magdalena: “Even our eyes don’t belong to us” i. e. we aren’t even allowed to see outside.

La Poncia is also not above stirring things up between the sisters, not a difficult task given that they are constantly watching what each other is doing. For example, Act II, 148-49, during a discussion over the time Pepe left Angustias (which was 1.30 am), La Poncia pointedly says that she heard him leave around 4.00 am. She knew that revealing this would trouble Angustias (whom he had left at 1.30) and worry Adela (whose window Pepe visited after leaving Angustias and whom he left at 4.00 am!). Indeed, she and Adela engage in a heated conversation soon after when La Poncia “con intención” (stage directions, i. e. provocatively) reveals that she knows of Adela’s affair with Pepe, and further discloses that she had seen Adela almost nude at her window when Pepe was on his way to see Angustias (Act II, 155). Adela reacts angrily, accusing La Poncia of spying, which prompts La Poncia to warn Adela that she knows enough to cause a scandal. Only the arrival of Angustias (Act II, 156) cuts short the heated exchange.

La Poncia as Intermediary.
At the same time that she serves Bernarda and her daughters, La Poncia is an important link between the family and the outside world. She is in fact their main source of village gossip. One of her tasks is to spy on the neighbours for Bernarda (Act I, 120). It is she who tells the eager Bernarda about Paca la Roseta, a married woman who willingly accompanied the village men on horseback with her breasts exposed while her husband was tied up to a manger (Act I, p 132). And it is La Poncia who divulges to Bernarda the scandal of la Librada’s daughter who had given birth to a child by an unknown father and killed it to cover her shame and left it buried under some stones (Act II 175).

La Poncia’s grievances against Bernarda, her true opinion of the daughters (“ugly”) and her position as intermediary between the family and the village are all introduced in the opening dialogue she has with the Criada. Knowing this, we can observe her behavior within the dynamics of the family, and perhaps recognize that it is as fascinating as that of Bernarda, and is in many ways more subtle. Bernarda character is one-dimensional: she is a bully, determined to control the lives of all those in the house. La Poncia has to navigate her way between her resentment and hate for Bernarda and the need to protect not only her job but also that of her sons. Unlike Bernarda’s daughters, she can go out into the village but like the daughters she is tied to the house, not however by birth but by her economic dependency on Bernarda. She would like to escape: “I would like to cross the sea and leave this war-ridden house” (Act III, 189), but she can’t.

Edition used:
García Lorca, Federico La Casa de Bernarda Alba eds. Josephs, Allen and Caballero, Juan Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra, 1987. (For those who read Spanish, numerals in this post refer to page numbers in the Spanish text.)

Lorca. The House of Bernarda Alba. Bernarda’s Daughters.
The Alba household is made up entirely of women, nine in all. Bernarda, five daughters –Angustias, Magdalena, Amelia, Martirio and Adela-, her deranged mother (María Josefa), and two servants, La Poncia and the other called simply Criada (i. e. Maid).

Bernarda rules the household with an iron hand. Her main preoccupation is with family honour, status and appearance. The main danger to family honour, etc. is the men of the village who are studiously refused entry into the house. The problem for Bernarda is that her daughters -unmarried and sexually repressed- are to varying degrees preoccupied with men. She attempts to impose strict control over what they do, hear and see, but the outside world has its way of penetrating the thick walls of the family house, principally through the maid, La Poncia, and the windows to which the daughters run to see and hear what is going on outside and at which they can converse with their suitors (e. g. Angustias with her boyfriend Pepe el Romano, or Adela clandestinely with Pepe).

The daughters are constantly vigilant over what each is doing and their conversation is dominated largely by their unattached condition. Their relationship offers little positive to balance the unhappiness they experience under their mother’s despotic control.

Angustias –half sister to the others- is the only one betrothed (to Pepe el Romano), and is anxious to marry since she is 39 years old. Magdalena (30 years old) is resigned to spinsterhood (Act I, 129), Amelia (27 years old) is ambivalent about whether it is worth having a boyfriend (Act I, 135), and Martirio (24 years old) describes herself as ugly (because of her humpback, Act II, 154) and weak (Act I, 136). Only Adela (20 years old) has a positive -and rebellious—disposition. She is young and is carrying on a secret love affair. Even during the period of mourning following her father’s death, she carries a red and green flowered fan (Act I, 128) and she puts on a green dress (Act I, 138) while her sisters are dressed in black. The trouble is that her clandestine love affair is with Pepe el Romano. To complicate matters further, Martirio also loves Pepe, but she tries to keep her feelings hidden until finally prodded and taunted by Adela to reveal them openly (Act III, 196).

All this leads to an unhealthy and tense relationship between the sisters. Amelia is gossipy but least involved. Magdalena has a mean streak and is especially unpleasant towards Angustias, calling attention to her older sister’s age, her sickly constitution and further suggesting that it would be more appropriate for Pepe to marry Amelia or Adela (Act I, 139-40). Later, she makes it clear that she will not sew for Angustias’s baby should her sister have a child (Act II, 158), and fully supports Adela and Martirio when they tell Angustias to her face that Pepe is only marrying her for her money and land she will inherit from her father (Bernarda’s first husband, Act II, 167).

Martirio is perhaps the most disadvantaged and unfortunate of the sisters as her name suggests (martyr). Sickly (she requires medicine, Act I, 135), burdened by her hunchback (Act II, 153-54), and unlucky in love she has developed an embittered attitude towards others. Not surprising, perhaps. She was betrayed by an admirer, Enrique Humanas, for a wealthier woman (Act I, 137), and is especially frustrated by the knowledge that her love for Pepe el Romano is destined to be unfulfilled because he is not interested in her. Her only compensation is to steal Angustias’s picture of Pepe and hide it in her bed (Act II, 164). When La Poncia finds it following a search ordered by Bernarda, Martirio defends her action, claiming that it was a joke on Angustias (Act II, 166).

He perception of herself as weak and ugly (Act I, 136) weighs upon her. On the one hand she claims to fear men (Act II, 136), but has had an admirer (Enrique Humanas) and is in love with Pepe el Romano. Blaming God (Act I, 136) for her condition, as she does, is a way of rationalising the unlikelihood that she will ever marry and have children. This unlikelihood may also explain her lack of compassion when she supports Bernarda’s call, at the very end of Act II, for the death of La Librada’s daughter, an unmarried mother who has killed her baby out of shame.

Adela, the youngest, maintains a stubborn resistance to her mother’s despotic and obsessive control, and from the beginning shows signs of disregarding social conventions. For example, when she first appears, she is carrying a fan decorated with red and green flowers despite being in mourning (this infuriates Bernarda who hurls the fan to the ground, Act I, 128). Furthermore, she puts on a green dress (Act I,138) to feed the chickens in the yard, a place of forbidden encounters. The colour green is clearly associated by Adela with freedom: “I cannot be shut up like you,” she tells her sisters angrily, “tomorrow I’m going to put on my green dress and go for a walk in the street. I want to go out” (Act I, 142). Spied upon by Martirio and La Poncia, she reacts passionately to their insinuations (Act II, 153, 155) insisting to both that she will do as she wants with her body (Act II, 153-55).

Unlike her sisters, Adela has a romantic streak. She is enchanted by the star-filled sky where e. g. Amelia closes her eyes to avoid seeing the stars and sees only darkness, Martirio dourly comments that anything above the roof is of no interest to her (Act III, 184-85), Magdalens is asleep and Angustias retires for the night since Pepe will not be courting her that evening.

Adela also has a very compassionate attitude towards those women who have broken social mores, opposing her mother and Martirio whose condemnation of La Librada’s unmarried daughter at the very end of Act II is merciless. “Don’t kill her,” Adela cries out, clutching her belly (pregnant or in anticipation of having a child?). To no avail. “Let her pay for what she’s done,” Martirio says, looking at Adela. “Kill her! Kill her,” are Bernarda’s last words as the curtain goes down.

The most contentious sisterly relationship is that between Adela and Martirio. Both are in love with Pepe, with their rivalry eventually erupting into verbal taunts on Adela’s part and Martirio’s suppressed anger finding an outlet in her dramatic confession that she too loves Pepe (Act III, 195). She rejects Adela’s impulsive attempt to embrace her out of compassion, which then prompts Adela to react emphatically, claiming that Pepe is hers. She then further goads her sister saying that she has experienced the taste of Pepe’s mouth (Act III, 195) and that she is his even if the whole village is against her.

When Martirio attempts to stop Adela responding to a whistle from outside (presumably Pepe), they end up fighting and only stop when Bernarda enters after Martirio has called out for her. Bernarda’s advances furiously on Adela after Martirio points out the straw on Adela’s petticoat. Adela then confronts her mother in her most decisive act of rebellion: She grabs Bernarda’s cane (a symbol of Bernarda’s authority) and snaps it in two, at the same time ordering her mother not to take another step and finishing “No one but Pepe can order me around” (Act III, 197). Adela’s final act of self determination and expression of freedom is to hang herself. But that decision is precipitated by Martirio’s malicious statement that Bernarda has killed Pepe, when in fact he escaped. When questioned by Magdalena as to why she had said that Pepe was dead, Martirio’s reply reveals the depth of hate that she feels for her younger sister: “Because of her! I would have poured a river of blood over her head” (Act III, 198).

Edition used:
García Lorca, Federico La Casa de Bernarda Alba eds. Josephs, Allen and Caballero, Juan Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra, 1987. (For those who read Spanish, numerals in this post refer to page numbers in the Spanish text.)

Lorca. The House of Bernarda Alba. Bernarda.
The Alba household is made up entirely of women, nine in all. Bernarda, five daughters –Angustias, Magdalena, Amelia, Martirio and Adela-, her deranged mother (MarÍa Josefa), and two servants, La Poncia and the other called simply Criada (i. e. Maid). In this page, we’ll look at the role of Bernarda, the unbending matriarch who rules the household with an iron hand. [For a summary of the play, see Act I, Acts II and III. For the role of the house, click here.]

Bernarda.
Bernarda Alba is a strong-willed, sixty-year old matriarch belonging to a comfortably-off rural bourgeoisie. She has money to buy furniture for Angustias’s projected marriage, she owns productive land and has “the best flock in the region” (Act III, 179). But she is very tight-fisted, refusing to allow the Criada to give away any of her recently deceased husband’s old clothes: “Nothing. Not even a button” (Act I, 134).

Bernarda rules the household with an iron hand. She demands total obedience from the minute she first appears to the last moment in the play. Her first word is a command: “Silence!” It is also the last she utters as the curtain goes down to end the play.

Bernarda’s actions are determined by her obsession with family honour, the importance attached to appearances and to the status or esteem her family enjoys in the village. What her daughters think is immaterial, what she demands is a “plausible veneer and family harmony” (Act III, 182) and her daughters’ only “right” is that of obedience (Act II, 173).

Bernard’s attachment to the importance of honour and status is based on class consciousness. The poor she dismisses as “animals” (Act I, 123), and she assumes a decidedly superior attitude where the men of the village are concerned. None of them is good enough for her daughters: “The men here don’t belong to their class. Do you want me to hand them over to any labourer?” she asks La Poncia (Act I, 134). Later, again talking to La Poncia, she is adamant that Enrique Humanas was not welcome to court Martirio: “My blood will not be mixed with that of the Humanas as long as I live. His father was a farmhand” (Act II, 170). She admits, in fact, to having actively intervened, sending Enrique a message not to turn up at the window, a place authorised by custom for safe conversations between a lady and her admirer (Act II, 169). But no man is allowed to enter the house, not even those who have attended her second husband’s funeral service (whereas several women mourners are present Act I, 125).

Bernarda’s demand of total obedience allows no room for forgiveness and no room for disagreement, as she make clear when she supports Prudencias’s husband’s refusal to forgive his daughter: “He’s done the right thing … A daughter who disobeys stops being a daughter and becomes an enemy” (Act II, 178).

Predictably, a breach of social norms is unacceptable to Bernarda whether within her family or beyond. For example, her reaction to La Librada’s daughter at the end of Act II leaves no room for doubt. The unmarried (and unnamed) daughter had killed her baby out of shame and, her transgression having been discovered, she was being dragged out of the village to be killed (Act II, 175). Adela feels sympathy, but Bernarda is in full agreement with the accepted punishment, and Act II ends with Bernarda shouting: “Kill her! Kill her!” (Act II, 176).

Impropriety committed by her daughters is regularly met with anger: e. g. she throws the green and red fan Adela gives her to the ground as inappropriate since she is in mourning (Act I, 128), and roughly removes Angustias’s make-up for a similar reason (Act I, 144). She even resorts to physical violence, accusing Angustias of lying and then striking her (Act I, 131). Later (Act II, 165), she hits Martirio for having stolen Angustias’s picture of Pepe el Romano, and at the end of the play she grabs a shotgun and shoots at Pepe (she misses and he escapes!).

Her control over her daughters is rarely challenged. Martirio does react furiously when her mother strikes her and Angustias grabs her mother at the same time (Act II, 166), but this is an isolated moment. The most defiant challenge is that of Adela, her youngest daughter, when she seizes her mother’s cane (a symbol of Bernarda’s authority) and breaks it in two, saying at the same time “This is what I do with the cane of this domineering woman. Don’t take another step. No one but Pepe can tell me what to do.” (Act III, 197). Shortly after, Adela hangs herself, believing that her lover, Pepe el Romano (i. e. Angustias’s betrothed!), has been shot dead by her mother. Her suicide is perhaps her greatest act of rebellion, her most profound expression of independence.

Of course, Adela’s suicide is scandalous. Not only does it suggest something shameful, it also goes against the Catholic Church’s dictum that suicide is a mortal sin. It is ironic that Bernarda is now desperate to contain any possible rumour that Adela has dishonoured the Alba household (which indeed is what Angustias has just accused her of, Act III, 197). Bernarda’s insistence –for public consumption! — that Adela “died a virgin” (Act III, 199) is much more important than grieving for her dead daughter: “I want no tears … Do you hear me. Silence, I said. Silence!”

Bernarda’s pride and aggressive personality ensure a profound dislike from all who know her. No one has a kind word to say about her, not even La Poncia who has served her for 30 years (Act I, 120). She is, according to La Poncia “Bossy! Domineering! … A tyrant to all around her” (Act I, 119). Her dead husband’s family “hate her” (Act I, 120). Two of the mourners at the wake, following the funeral service, mutter to each other: “She’s bad … worse than bad… She’s got a tongue like a knife” (Act I, 125).

However, Bernarda’s domineering character is at the same time her weakness. It leads her to be blindly sure of herself, of her control over her daughters and of her actions. “I know perfectly well what I’m doing,” she says, responding to La Poncia’s reproach immediately after violently removing Angustias’s make up (Act I, 144). “Open your eyes … you’re blind,” La Poncia advises Bernarda before surprising Bernarda with the news that Adela is Pepe el Romano’s real girlfriend (Act II, 169). Later, she tells Bernarda: “Don’t be so sure of yourself,” (Act III, 187) when Bernarda confidently declares that her vigilance controls everything. But La Poncia immediately responds: “No one can keep watch on what goes on inside a person” (Act III, 187). Bernarda is confident she knows her daughters and can control them, but in fact she knows them less well than does La Poncia. Her confidence is a blindness that eventually leads to fatal consequences: the suicide of Adela.

Although Bernarda’s daughters are victims of her obsessive obedience to the demands of the honour code and of protecting her status, Bernarda herself is also, ironically, a victim of those demands. Unfortunately, so determined is she to control her daughters’ lives that she does not see that she is blind to women’s lack of freedom, including her own. All the women in the play, to a greater or lesser degree, are prisoners of social pressures which define their role in life. For example, Pepe el Romano wants “a good, demure woman” (Act II, 150); disobedience leads to unhappiness or punishment.

Instead of channeling her iron will to rejecting society’s demands, Bernarda has been co-opted to imprison her daughters in her house until they are married. Honour, social status and appearance are her guiding principles; they are the “winners.”

Edition used:
García Lorca, Federico La Casa de Bernarda Alba eds. Josephs, Allen and Caballero, Juan Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra,1987. (For those who read Spanish, numerals in this post refer to page numbers in the Spanish text.)

 

The House of Bernarda Alba. The House.

Where the subtitle A Drama about Women in the Villages of Spain, generalises the action: women, village and Spain, the title proper —The House of Bernarda Alba-restricts the action to the Bernarda’s house in an unidentified village in Andalusia, and the women to Bernarda’s family and her servants.

Although the village is unnamed, there are numerous details that anchor the action to a realistic setting: e. g. the servant, La Poncia, first appears eating bread and chorizo, there are comments about the heat, a beggar asks for alms, there’s plenty of gossip about village scandals, dogs bark in the background, there is the kicking sound of a horse’s hooves, and there are popular songs sung by the reapers (Act II, 160-1).

The house.
The house is central to the action. Physically, we know from the stage directions that the living room is extremely white (“blanquísima”) with unrealistic paintings of nymphs and legendary kings (Act I) hanging on the walls, not uncommon in Andalusian village houses. The walls are thick, to protect against the summer heat, again common in Andalusia.

Bernarda’s house, however, is no ordinary house. Notably, it is governed by a strong-willed woman whose prime concern is her and her family’s honour and status in the village, issues traditionally the concern of men (as seen, for example, in Spanish Golden Age Drama e. g. El Burlador de Sevilla, Fuenteovejuna). The house’s function, then, is to serve as a physical barrier to protect the family’s honour.

The house is Bernarda’s domain, but for her daughters and maids it is an enclosed and inhospitable space where they are expected to submit to her in all matters. For Angustias it is “hell,” (Act II, 148), La Poncia describes it as a “convent,” (Act II, 158), a “house at war,” (alluding to the tensions between sisters, and mother and daughters, Act III, 189), and accuses Bernarda of shutting her daughters up in a “closet” (Act III, 187). Adela —the most rebellious of the daughters- sees the house as a “prison” (Act III, 197). Magdalena describes their living room as “dark” (Act I, 129) despite the fact that the stage instructions emphasise the whiteness of the interior.

This bleak view of the house is reinforced by the sounds of life and freedom coming from the outside: the songs of the reapers, the barking of dogs, the whistling of Pepe el Romano, the kicking of the horse etc. But contact with that world is severely restricted by Bernarda.

News of the outside world enters the house primarily via La Poncia, who brings the latest gossip or scandal, e. g. Paca la Roseta, a willing sexual participant with one of the village men while her husband was tied up to a manger (Act I, 132), or the daughter of a local widow who had given birth to a child by an unknown father and killed it to cover her shame and left it buried under some stones (Act II, 175).

The other principal source of access to the outside is the window, more so than the door. [Although it is only mentioned in passing (Act II, 149, 150), readers should remember that street-level windows in Andalusia are regularly protected by a “reja” -wrought-iron grille—and that it was customary for courting couples to communicate though the “reja” and so maintain proper decorum.] It is to the window that the women rush when Pepe el Romano or the reapers are passing by (Act I, 142, Act II, 161), and it is via the grille that Angustias and Pepe converse (and Pepe and Adela clandestinely). Outside conversations can also be overheard (Act I, 132) through the grille, much to Bernarda’s consternation if they touch on delicate issues, e. g. Paca la Roseta’s scandalous behaviour overheard by Angustias (Act I, 133) .

However, the window/ grill because of its proximity to the outside world is dangerous for Bernarda. She fears, for example, that neighbours will see her demented mother (Act I, 130) and it is there that Adela appears almost nude so that Pepe can see her (Act II, 155), and where La Poncia’s husband wanted to fondle her when he came to her window for the first time (Act II, 151). However, at the same time that the window gives the women a channel to the outside world, the grille also prevents them exiting or restricts their suitors contact with them. At the window, they are so near to freedom but yet, frustratingly, so far.

Immediately outside the house but part of the property is the yard (“corral”), a place of erotic encounters condemned by social norms. It is from there that Adela returns with her hair disheveled (Act II, 193) and her petticoat covered in straw (Act III, 197) after meeting Pepe. It is there, too, that Bernarda’s second husband lifted the Criada’s petticoat (Act I, 123), and it is there that the stud stallion will mate with Bernarda’s fillies (Act III, 178).

Since the house is vital for the protection of family honour, Bernarda does not welcome men inside, not even those who attended her husband’s funeral. They were welcome to lemonade, but “I don’t want them to pass through here” she tells La Poncia (Act I, 125). And no man appears at all on stage (i. e. in the house)!

Edition used:
García Lorca, Federico La Casa de Bernarda Alba eds. Josephs, Allen and Caballero, Juan Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra, 1987. (For those who read Spanish, the numerals in brackets refer to page numbers in the Spanish text.)

El Buscón. The Converso Angle.
The central narrative of El Buscón is straightforward enough: the protagonist, Pablos, chronicles his life from his childhood years in Segovia to his time among students in Alcalá, his experiences in Madrid and Toledo, and finally to his criminal activity in Seville, prior to his departure for America.

Along the way, he meets students, innkeepers, merchants, beggars, drunkards, hidalgos (minor nobles), Conversos, Moriscos (Muslim converts to Christianity and their descendants), soldiers, ridiculous poets, card playing hermits, absurd armchair politician/economists, false cripples, cutthroats, thieves, swindlers, prostitutes, coquettish nuns, actors etc. This array of Spain’s lower classes is subjected to a steady dose of Quevedo’s satire and ridicule.

There are some details about both Pablos and Quevedo that might help our understanding of the book. Pablos is the son of repellent parents who aspires to better himself through education and the practice of virtue.

But, important for the story, Pablos is a Converso -an individual tainted with Jewish blood and therefore unclean to cristianos viejos (Old Christians). Furthermore, he was born in Segovia a town noted for its influential Converso community.

The importance attached to purity of blood (limpieza de sangre) in Spain in the 16^th and 17^th centuries cannot be underestimated. It was a national obsession, penetrating every level of society, and creating a social divide between cristianos viejos and cristianos nuevos (New Christians, i. e. Conversos and Moriscos). Still, despite social obstacles, many Conversos had acquired considerable administrative and economic power, e. g. Segovia was said to be run by Conversos. Many also entered the church and some even married into nobility.

Quevedo was an aristocrat and cristiano viejo, and for him and many others, Conversos and upstart commoners were a threat to traditional social hierarchy, often hiding their lowly or unclean background by appropriating a Christian or noble name –e.g. Guzmán (as in the case of another Converso pícaro, Guzmán de Alfarache), Mendoza.

Pablos’s descent into thieving, swindling etc. and his failure to ascend the social ladder is Quevedo’s response to that threat to social stability. Pablos’s departure from Segovia is an attempt to escape his birth and go to places where he is not known and therefore begin anew; the different names he adopts have a similar aim of covering his past. But Quevedo could not allow Pablos to transform himself into a gentleman and so pursues him relentlessly. Indeed, we might say that Quevedo is Pablos’s greatest enemy because he does not allow Pablos his own voice.

To deal with Pablo’s pretensions, Quevedo subjects him to a variety of humiliating experiences: e. g. beatings, falls from horses, a volley of phlegm, being covered in feces etc. As long as Pablos remains within his social sphere he prospers financially (e. g. he makes good money as a beggar or actor), but when he aspires to marry above his station he is brought down to earth, literally (he falls off the horse he is riding when parading in front of his lady’s house, Book III, chptr 7). Socially, then, Pablos is a nobody surviving in a world of nobodies, condemned by his heritage.

But Pablos is not the only Converso in El Buscón. Indeed, there are several, but one is especially interesting: Don Diego Coronel, Pablos’s boyhood friend and master at the University of Alcalá. The Coronels in fact existed historically and were an example of a wealthy Jewish family that had been ennobled, in this case by none other than Queen Isabella, when converting to Christianity in 1492. In Segovia, the Coronels were a powerful dynasty, but for a cristiano viejo such as Quevedo, ennobled Conversos were symptomatic of the subversive and unacceptable changes and the weakening of traditional social order that he saw around him.

However, with the influential Coronels Quevedo had to be more discreet in his attack. Outwardly Don Diego has the airs of a gentleman: well dressed, carries a sword, rides a horse and has servants. But his friendship with the son of a thief and prostitute would have been so unlikely in reality that Quevedo’s aim was surely to “contaminate” Don Diego and ridicule the family name by association. It was Quevedo’s way of reminding the Coronels that they were in fact unclean despite their social status in Segovia. Their nobility was purchased and money was contrary to aristocratic ethos.

There are many other instances where the Coronel name is ridiculed. Don Diego’s early education is in a local school run by a Converso, the licenciado Cabra (Master Goat, Book I, chptr. 3), a ludicrous figure who subjects his students to all kinds of humiliation. Don Diego and Pablos suffer the indignity of an enema, so badly applied to Don Diego that it shoots up all over him.

Later the Coronel name is debased when it is appropriated by a student who claims to be a relative of Don Diego when the latter and Pablos stop at an inn en route to Alcalá. For a lark, the student defecates in a merchant’s saddlebag, a degrading action totally inconsistent with nobility.

Don Diego and Pablos part company in Book I, chapter 7, but meet again in Book III, chapter 7, precisely when Pablos is courting a young noble lady, Doña Ana, who happens to be Don Diego’s cousin. In the same way that Pablos’s past constantly catches up with him, so too is the reader reminded of the past association of Don Diego with a low-born scoundrel. What Quevedo is saying, in effect, is that there is no escaping one’s blood or in Don Diego’s case, he cannot dissociate himself from his debased Jewish bloodline. “That worthless pícaro” i. e. Pablos is there to remind him, and behind Pablos is Quevedo himself.

For an introduction to El Buscón and the use of language click here; for a summary of each book, click Book I, Book II, Book III.

Sources:
Alpert, Michael (transl.) Two Spanish Picaresque Novels: Lazarillo de Tormes, The Swindler (El Buscón) Penguin Classics, 1969
Frye, David ed. & transl. Lazarillo de Tormes and The Grifter (El Buscón) Indianapolis/ Cambridge 2015
Bjornson, Richard The Picaresque Hero in European Fiction Madison 1977
Dunn, Peter Spanish Picaresque Fiction: A New Literary History Ithaca 1993
Kamen, Henry The Spanish Inquisition: An Historical Revision London 1998
Rey Hazas, Antonio ed. Historia de la vida del buscón Madrid 1983

El Buscón. Introduction.
Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas (1580-1645) was one of the most brilliant and original writers of Spain’s Golden Age. A man of encyclopedic learning, he was the author of a wide range of prose and poetical works which combine moral, ethical, political and philosophical reflections with satirical observations on life. His concerns ranged from Spain’s political and moral decay (which led to a disillusioned vision of his country) to a more universal preoccupation with time, love, immortality, moral responsibility, human conduct etc.

His best known work now is probably the picaresque narrative, El Buscón (The Swindler, written ca. 1604-08, pub. 1626). This, together with the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes (pub. 1554) and Mateo Alemán’s Guzmán de Alfarache (Part I, 1599, Part II, 1604), is one of the three canonical picaresque novels.

Interestingly, for reasons unknown, Quevedo never sought to publish El Buscón, and even denied authorship. Numerous copies circulated until it was finally published in 1626, but without Quevedo’s permission. It was an immediate success in Spain and soon caught on in other European countries.

The central narrative is straightforward enough: the protagonist, Pablos, chronicles his life from his childhood years in Segovia to his time among students in Alcalá, his experiences in Madrid and Toledo, and finally to his criminal activity in Seville, prior to his departure for America.

Along the way, he meets students, innkeepers, merchants, beggars, drunkards, hidalgos (minor nobles), Conversos (converted Jews and their descendants), Moriscos (Muslim converts to Christianity and their descendants), soldiers, ridiculous poets, card playing hermits, absurd armchair politician/economists, false cripples, cutthroats, thieves, swindlers, prostitutes, coquettish nuns, actors etc. This array of Spain’s lower classes is subjected to a steady dose of Quevedo’s satire and ridicule.

Interpretations vary widely. Is it a bitter satire of Spanish life, a psychological study of moral and spiritual decay, a commentary on the meaningless of life without virtue or moral compass, a game of masks, a sustained attack on Conversos? Or is it no more than a funny book, an exercise in verbal wit with no cohesive structure and no edifying purpose? It is this last aspect that we will look at briefly in this page.

Language.
El Buscón does not always make for easy reading for two reasons:

1. It is a narrative with numerous scenes in which individuals, especially Pablos the narrator, are beaten, humiliated, degraded, satirised, caricaturised. It is a funny book, but the humour is corrosive and the laughter provoked is cruel, unrelenting and dehumanising. For 17^th-century readers, humour built around bodily functions might not appear objectionable, but modern sensibilities probably find scenes in which, for example, Pablos is subjected to a barrage of phlegm or covered with excrement sordid and unpleasant.

2. Quevedo was an outstanding stylist and a master with words. Indeed, for some critics El Buscón is primarily an exercise in linguistic ingenuity. For readers and translators, El Buscón is a linguistic labyrinth and challenge. The text abounds in elaborate puns, word play, conceits (metaphors) aimed at producing surprise and wonder in readers and awaken their admiration for the author’s “ingenio” (“cleverness”) and “agudeza” (‘wit” “subtlety”) qualities much appreciated in the Baroque culture of the 17^th century. Such ingenuity falls under the rubric of conceptismo, a major literary development of the Baroque.

To take just one example, from Book I, Chapter 2: the skinny horse with protruding bones that Pablos rides in a carnival parade. Its haunches are monkey-like and its neck longer than a camel’s. Then playing on the similarity between “caballo” (horse) and “caballete” (ridge), Quevedo stretches the comparison: the horse’s back is so bony that it looks like a roof ridge (“caballete de tejado”: “tejado” = roof). From bones it’s a small step to skeleton, which Quevedo then associates with the well-known symbol of the messenger of death for humans: a skeleton carrying a scythe.

Quevedo then transforms that conceit saying that if Pablos’s skeletal horse had a scythe, together with its bones it would be the perfect symbol for the messenger of death in the horse world. Finally, it has so many bare patches on its skin that if it had a zipper it would be a walking jewelry chest (such chests were often covered by or lined with animal hide)! By the time we have finished with this description, the horse has disappeared as horse under the weight of succeeding images and been reduced to a comical caricature.

A further difficulty to understanding the text, and particularly for modern readers, is the underworld slang, puns and “in references” that pepper the text. For example, in Book I, chapter 2, pupil at Pablos’s first school calls Pablos’s father a “gato” (cat, but in underworld slang, a sneak thief); another claims to have thrown “berenjenas” (eggplants) at his mother when she was an “obispa” (a bishop, but here alluding to headwear worn by witches in an Inquisitorial parade). Why the reference to eggplants? They were associated with Converso or Morisco cooking. In the last chapter, Pablos addresses the reader, and lists some of the slang used by cheats: e.g. “Dar muerte” (to kill) means taking all the victim’s money, a “revesa” (a reverse) is to cheat on one’s playing partner (266), “blanco” (white) is a gullible victim. And so on.

Aggression, both verbal and physical, is a constant in El Buscón, and in many ways reflects the personality of Quevedo himself. His prickly character saw him caught up in numerous lawsuits. His acerbic wit won him powerful friends and vicious enemies both in the royal court and in literary circles. He was taunted constantly for his short-sightedness and malformed feet but was more than capable of defending himself both verbally and physically. He was an excellent fencer, defeating a fencing master in a duel (he mocks the master’s book on fencing in El buscón (Book II, chapter 1).

On another occasion, he had to flee Madrid following a duel in which he killed his opponent. He threw himself energetically into an ongoing, vitriolic verbal battle with the poet Luis de Góngora whom he accused of gambling, being a poor priest (Góngora had taken minor orders in 1586, and was ordained priest in 1617), and writing absurdly obscure poetry. He virulently satirised Góngora figure, especially his prominent nose which was popularly viewed as typical of Jews and Conversos (Góngora was a Converso). Quevedo was arrested and imprisoned twice in matters involving court intrigue. He died in his estate south east of Ciudad Real in 1645, two years after being released from his second term in prison.

For a summary of El Buscón, click Book I, Book II, Book III.

Sources:
Alpert, Michael (transl.) Two Spanish Picaresque Novels: Lazarillo de Tormes, The Swindler (El Buscón) Penguin Classics, 1969
Frye, David ed. & transl. Lazarillo de Tormes and The Grifter (El Buscón) Indianapolis/ Cambridge 2015
Bjornson, Richard The Picaresque Hero in European Fiction Madison 1977
Dunn, Peter Spanish Picaresque Fiction: A New Literary History Ithaca 1993
Kamen, Henry The Spanish Inquisition: An Historical Revision London 1998
Rey Hazas, Antonio ed. Historia de la vida del buscón Madrid 1983
Image of Quevedo: Atribuido a Juan van der Hamen - [2], Dominio público, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27702609