Calderón de la Barca. La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream) 1635.

La vida es sueno/ Life is a Dream is Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s most famous play and in the opinion of many the finest in the Spanish language.

It is brilliantly constructed with several themes intertwined: Illusion (dreams)/reality, free will/predestination, the responsibility of monarchs/the art of governing, knowledge or experience/superstition, love/vengeance, honour/dishonour, loyalty/rebellion, justice/vengeance, prudence/ instinct, father/son conflict, order/disorder (for other examples of this, see Fuenteovejuna and El burlador de Sevilla).

ACT I.
The play is set in Poland. It opens with a description of a craggy, inhospitable mountain side close to which can be seen a tower where Segismundo is imprisoned. Night is falling. Rosaura is the first to appear, accompanied by her servant, the gracioso (comic character), Clarín.

Dressed as a man, Rosaura bewails her fate and reproaches her ungovernable horse for having carried her headlong “to the confusing labyrinth of these bare cliffs.” From the tower she hears the groans of Segismundo, whose fate is even worse than hers.

Scene 2, ll. 78-277: Dressed in animal skins, Segismundo is chained and imprisoned and has had no contact with any human being except one man, Clotaldo. Lamenting the loss of his freedom, Segismundo questions why the birds, animals and fish enjoy liberty while he suffers confinement.

When he first sees Rosaura his immediate impulse is to kill her (line 181), but something about her voice stops him. Just when Rosaura is about to tell Segismundo who she is, voices are heard and Clotaldo arrives accompanied by soldiers; all are masked.

Scenes 3-4, ll. 278-474: Clotaldo has Rosaura arrested for discovering the secret of the tower, but when he takes her sword he is shocked to recognise it as one he once possessed. She tells him that she has come to Poland to avenge an affront. Then, in an aside we learn that Clotaldo had previously had a relationship with a noble lady, Violante, but then “left” her. (Later, in Act III, Scene 10, we learn that Clotaldo had actually seduced her under promise of marriage, and abandoned her ll. 2731-59.)

The sword suggests to him that Rosaura is his son. This places Clotaldo in a quandary because the king of Poland, Basilio, has ordered the death of anyone who found out about Segismundo. Clotaldo finally decides to let Basilio know about Rosaura and leave her fate in the king’s hands. [For a detailed analysis of Act I, scenes 1 to 4, click here.]

Scene 5, ll. 475-579: Set in the court of Basilio. Astolfo and Estrella, rivals to inherit the throne of Poland, arrive to solve the inheritance problem. Astolfo suggests that they get married. Estrella, however, hesitates because she knows that Astolfo carries the picture of another woman in a medallion around his neck (we learn later that it is Rosaura’s portrait).

Scene 6, ll. 580-857: Basilio appears with important announcement. In a long speech he explains that he has a son, Segismundo, but that before he was born the stars had warned him that Segismundo would bring chaos to the kingdom and would overthrow his father. In order to prevent this, Basilio had Segismundo locked up in a tower at birth.

Now, thinking that he might have been hasty in his astrological reading, he has decided to bring Segismundo to the court to test him. If Segismundo behaves well he will become king; if he does not he will be drugged and returned to the cave and told that his experience in the court was a dream. This announcement releases Clotaldo from his dilemma over Rosaura, but only briefly.

Scenes 7-8, ll. 858-985: In a conversation between Clotaldo and Rosaura, she reveals that her dishonour was brought about by Astolfo. Clotaldo is puzzled but suddenly understands what she means: she is not -as he had thought- his son, but his daughter. “What a confusing labyrinth this is” (ll. 975-6), he concludes.

ACT II.
Scenes 1-2, ll. 986-1223: Clotaldo explains to Basilio how Segismundo was drugged and brought to the palace. This is followed by a conversation between Clotaldo and Clarín in which we learn that he (Clotaldo) has introduced Rosaura to the court as his niece.

Scenes 3-5, ll. 1224-1439: Segismundo is finally brought to the court, where he behaves abysmally. He insults everyone, including his father, Astolfo and Estrella, and tries to kill Clotaldo. He does manage to kill a servant who angers him by interfering (lines 1430, 1441-42).

Scene 6, ll. 1440-1547: Segismundo accuses Basilio of tyranny and threatens to exact revenge for his loss of liberty and honour (lines 1514-16).

Scenes 7-8, ll. 1548-1693: In the court Segismundo also notices Rosaura, now dressed as a woman named Astrea and serving as lady-in-waiting to Estrella. He feels he has seen her before (lines 1580-81) but isn’t sure. When she tries to leave he stops her, and when she begs him to let her go he threatens to dishonour her. Her cries bring Clotaldo whose death at the hands of Segismundo is prevented only by the arrival of Astolfo.

Scenes 9-10, ll. 1694-1723: Astolfo and Segismundo draw swords, but the fight is interrupted by Basilio. In the presence of the king, no one has the authority to fight. Segismundo is overcome, drugged and returned to the tower.

Scenes 11- 12, ll. 1724-1814: Estrella rebuffs Astolfo’s advances, reminding him that he wore the portrait of another lady (i.e. Rosaura) around his neck when he came to court. Astolfo leaves to get the portrait for Estrella as proof that it no longer means anything to him.

Although annoyed with Astolfo, Estrella makes clear (ll. 1794-98) that she and Astolfo are to marry. Now, alone with Rosaura, Estrella asks her to ask Astolfo to hand the portrait over to her (Rosaura) when he returns, because she (Estrella) is too upset to receive it directly from him. She leaves Rosaura alone to accept the portrait from Astolfo.

Scene 13, ll. 1815-1883: Rosaura is in a quandary. She doesn’t want Estrella to know that it is her portrait that Astolfo was wearing. She also wants to avoid Astolfo because Clotaldo has told her that he will see that her honour is restored (ll. 1860-61).

Scene 14, ll. 1884-1955: Astolfo, who doesn’t know that Rosaura has come to the palace, returns with the portrait. He recognizes Rosaura despite her insistence that she is Astrea, Estrella’s maid. Rosaura tries to grab the portrait from Astolfo and she and Astolfo are struggling for it when Estrella arrives.

Scenes 15-16, 1956-2017: Quickly Rosaura concocts a story that she was looking at a portrait of herself that she carried in her bag and had inadvertently dropped it. Astolfo had then picked it up and refused to give it back to her. Estrella insists that Astolfo give Rosaura the portrait, leaving Astolfo with no portrait to give to her. Alone with Estrella, Astolfo stammers that he can’t give her the portrait, upon which Estrella storms out saying that she doesn’t want it now!

Scenes 17-18, ll. 2018-2147: Segismundo is returned to the cave. When he wakes up chained and dressed in skins again, Clotaldo tells him that everything that happened in the palace was a dream. Segismundo accepts Clotaldo’s explanation, although the one thing that does not seem to have been a dream is falling in love with a woman, i.e. Rosaura.

Scene 19, ll 2148-2187: Famous soliloquy by Segismundo responding to Clotaldo’s advice on the importance of doing good works, even in dreams.

ACT III.
Act III opens with Clarín, Rosaura’s servant, complaining about being locked up in the tower with Segismundo.

Scenes 2-3, 2228-2386: Soldiers arrive who, having heard that they have a prince who has been imprisoned, have rebelled. They do not want a foreign prince and object to the tyrannical conduct of Basilio. They free Segismundo from the tower.

Scene 4, ll 2387-2427: The first person Segismundo meets is Clotaldo whom he is about to kill but is prevented from doing so by the memory of the so-called dream. He fears suddenly waking up again in the tower. Preferring to “do good,” he allows Clotaldo to join Basilio, but the rebellion still goes on.

Scenes 5-7, ll. 2428-2491: Basilio, Astolfo, Estrella and Clotaldo reflect on the discord created by the rebellion, and Basilio recognises that he was responsible: “I myself have destroyed my land” (line 2459).

Scene 8, ll. 2492-2655: Rosaura reminds Clotaldo that he said he would restore her honour. Clotaldo replies that he would have done so but since Astolfo saved him from Segismundo (Act II, scene 8) he cannot now kill Astolfo. His solution is that she retire to a convent! She retorts that since he isn’t her father, he can’t tell her what to do (she still doesn’t know she is his daughter). She now plans to kill Astolfo herself (line 2632). The scene concludes with an angry exchange between Clotaldo and Rosaura over her intention to kill Astolfo.

Scenes 9-10, ll.2656-3015: Segismundo, once more in animal skins, prepares for battle when Rosaura again appears before him, still dressed as a woman but now carrying a sword and dagger. For the first time she explains to Segismundo who she is and why she is seeking his help: Astolfo cannot be allowed to marry Estrella because he had seduced her (Rosaura) under promise of marriage and then abandoned her.

This is a critical moment for Segismundo. He loves and desires Rosaura, and now has the opportunity to satisfy those desires. But by now he has learnt the importance of good works, and his victory over his baser instincts at this moment marks his transition from the violent person he was to a prince -as he now calls himself (l. 2983)- with responsibilities.This conquest over his baser instincts prepares us for his meeting with his father.

Scenes 11-14, ll. 3016-3315: As the stars predicted, he does indeed overthrow his father, but the stars did not foretell that he would pardon his father, raise him up and himself kneel before Basilio (line 3243).

English translations:
Applebaum, Stanley Life is a Dream Toronto 2002 (Applebaum also published a dual language edition Life is a dream/ La vida es sueño in the same year)
Bentley, Eric Life is a Dream and Other Spanish Classics Wisconsin, Milwaukee 5th Printing 1999 (original Bentley publication was 1957)
Edwards, Gwynne Three Plays including Life is a Dream London 1991
Kidd, Michael Life’s a Dream (Prose translation) Boulder 2004
Racz, Gregary J Life is a Dream New York, Toronto, London 2006
Image of Basilio kneeling before Segismundo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_is_a_Dream
Spanish Text used.
Martel, Alpern, Mades Diez comedias del Siglo de Oro 2nd. ed. New York, London 1968. Translations into English are mine.

Guzmán de Alfarache: An Epic Novel?
“Life, misfortunes, isolation, abandonment, poverty are battlefields that have their heroes; obscure heroes, sometimes greater than the illustrious ones.” Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, Book V, Chptr. 1.

Guzmán de Alfarache is no ordinary protagonist. As narrator of his life, he depicts himself as a shady, scheming delinquent, but one whose subsequent conversion and repentance qualify him to offer guidance and salvation to others.

It is the conclusion reached by the Portuguese censor at the beginning of Part II: ”The author rightly calls [his book] Atalaya (Watchtower**) because a watchtower warns sailors and travelers of danger so they can flee from it, [so] this book can forewarn readers of the many evils in the world to avoid and defend themselves from.”

Conversion, here, is not a religious experience as such, but a decision by Guzmán to abandon his errant ways and start being responsible and productive.

Writing from the galley ship to which he has been sentenced, Guzmán offers his life as an “antidote” for the good of others so that they may learn from his mistakes: “At my cost and with my own hardships I uncover dangers and pitfalls so that you do not rush in and harm yourself nor shut yourself in where you cannot find a way out” (2, i, 1 i.e. Part II, Book 1, Chapter 1).

Guzmán: Hero.
Guzmán’s claim to have suffered for others has further implications: he is also moving towards a new definition of hero. This is not the traditional hero “whose deeds were so great that even if they were mortals they seemed to partake of divinity” (Definition of “hero” by Alemán’s contemporary, Sebastián de Covarrubias, in his dictionary, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española 1611).

There is nothing “great” about Guzmán’s “deeds,” unless we redefine “great” and “deeds,” and that is what Alemán does. Guzmán’s “greatness” is defined by his struggle in life, with his main enemy being himself (2, iii, 3). His “deeds” are his daily battle for survival in a hostile, unpredictable world. His conquest now is not an external display of physical valour but rather self-conquest.

This, Guzmán argues, deserves recognition: “If conquest over oneself is considered a great victory, why don’t we earn applause for overcoming our appetites, our rages and resentments? (I, i, 4). He makes a similar observation later, when he observes that man’s “greatest victory is over his passions” (II, iii, 5).

Recognising that overcoming weaknesses leads to self-knowledge, Guzmán urges his readers to achieve this goal: “Let everyone know him/herself” (Que cada uno se conozca a si mismo (I, ii, 5)

So we have a repentant narrator, a pícaro with “tainted” Jewish blood (i.e. a Converso) to boot, advocating self-knowledge and self-victory, and offering his life story so that others might benefit from his errors and achieve those goals.

This radical challenge to traditional heroic virtues is at the same time a challenge to historic generic categories, particularly to the epic, still the most prestigious literary form in the 17th century.

In Part I, Alemán had written a long book containing many elements of the epic: an extensive journey, storms, unexpected meetings, setbacks, triumphs and failures, and digressive stories. It also contains commentaries on politics, religion, economy, medicine, astrology, navigation, human conduct and so on. All attest to the erudition of the author and make up some of the trappings of the epic, but without valiant physical battles or exotic far-away locations.

Even the structure and some imagery recall the epic tradition. Structurally, Guzmán’s life story is a circular journey –from Seville to Rome via Genoa, and then back to Seville via Genoa—and forms a quest.

The story begins with Guzmán’s shady origins, continues with his search for his origins in Genoa before returning once again to his origins. It is a journey towards self-conquest and to self-knowledge. In common with epic tradition and with his situation as a galley slave, Guzmán uses nautical imagery within the journey metaphor. For example, he becomes a sailor setting out in his barquilla (“little boat”), he says to his reader (94), so that “you might pass safely through the dangerous sea on which you are sailing” (II, i, 1), or “At my cost and with my suffering, I uncover the dangers and rocks so that you don’t rush and tear yourself to pieces or run aground” (II, i, 1) etc.

Poética Historia.
Alemán sensed he was writing something different, but didn’t know what to call it. His book is at the same time “elevated” (edification of the reader, moralising etc.) and “low” (a pícaro’s life story) which destabilises the traditional separation between high and low literature. The definition he came up with in his introductory commentary on how to read Part I is poética historia (“poetic history”). Poetry here doesn’t mean a composition written in verse and history isn’t a chronological record of events related to institutions or nations.

To understand what Poetry and History meant in the late 16th century, let’s look for a moment at what Alonso López Pinciano (aka El Pinciano), Spain’s most eminent literary theorist of the day had to say.

In 1596 — just prior to the publication of Part I of Guzmán de Alfarache, 1599— El Pinciano published his Ancient Philosophy of Poetry (Filosofia antigua poética) inspired by Aristotle’s Poetica. In it, El Pinciano confirms that a poem need not be written in verse, and that works written in prose might also be considered poems. He gives as one example Heliodorus’s Byzantine novel The Ethiopic History (a tale of the trials of two lovers, it is also known as Theagenes and Chariclea).

But, as El Pinciano also makes clear, The Ethiopic History is also an epic as too are romances of chivalry (not earlier considered epic); they are as epic as Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey, or Virgil’s Aeneid. These narratives do not touch on every day concerns but with elevated, “poetic” (i.e. universal) truths. The world they portray is aristocratic, and ordinary people scarcely appear at all.

Classical epics tend to deal with the deeds of famous heroes or the destiny of a nation. Deities or supernatural beings may take an interest or intervene in the action. Romances of chivalry deal with the ongoing battle between good and evil, with larger-than-life knights (inspired by their ladies) engaged in combat with their terrifying adversaries. Here, magic, mystery, enchanters play a significant role.

The geographic scope of the action in these narratives is vast and generally exotic, and the time frame is invariably the distant past. Distance, both geographical and chronological, allows for invention and exaggeration (with characters regularly described as “the best” the “most beautiful,” the “cruellest” etc.) and the creation of myth and legend.

Poetry, then, in the Aristotelian sense painted the world as it might be, a fiction, an invented world rather than the real world. This is where history comes in. History dealt with the particular, with the concerns of everyday life, e.g. hunger, shelter, illness, money. It is the world of here and now, of ordinary people making their way through life. Poetry and history, in the Aristotelian sense did not cohabit.

When Alemán called his Guzmán a poética historia, he was in effect formulating a new genre, one that combined both the universal truths of poetry with the particularity of history. It was an invented world, but had all the appearance of a real or historic world. The word used to describe this is verisimilitude, i.e. having the appearance of being true.

In Guzmán de Alfarache, the poetic truths are contained in the sermons, moralising and edification coming from Guzmán, the narrator (e.g. on the dangers of deception or hypocrisy), history is the reality of daily life as experienced by Guzmán, the character.

What Alemán has done through Guzmán’s journey is absorb poetry into history in roughly the same way that Velázquez does in some of his paintings (e.g. The Topers, The Spinners) or Cervantes in Don Quixote. It’s what we might call “demythification,” i.e. bringing the world of myth and legend, the world of superheroes down to earth, to our time and place.

Like epic and romance heroes, Guzmán undertakes a long journey and is engaged in battles, but his battles have nothing to do with the heroic action of the epics or romances of chivalry but rather with survival, whether at the basic level of feeding himself or navigating his way through an unstable world of pretence and deceit.

However, by aligning his lowly protagonist with the prestige of poetry and by setting the action in the historical present and amongst the low born, Alemán is suggesting in effect a new kind of epic. He does not call it an epic work, but he has written a book with many of the ingredients required of an epic except that his “hero” does not fit the mould of traditional heroes and his hero lives in the here and now, and not in the past.

El Pinciano would approve of much of what Alemán was doing, but he would undoubtedly have cast a very jaundiced eye at the claims of a repentant criminal as hero. For El Pinciano, the epic should still deal with “some noble prince” and its temporal framework should be “neither modern nor ancient.” Alemán’s daring originality lies precisely in these two fundamental matters, in asserting that “a humble and lowly topic (or character, i.e. a pícaro) … could be important, serious and great” (II, I, 1) and in setting the action, not in some far away time where anything is possible, but here and now, in a time verifiable by facts, by historia**

In an anecdote in the final chapter of Guzmán, Alemán (II, iii, 9) might be reminding his readers of how his book should be understood. A noble caballero has commissioned the painting of a horse. The painter, leaving it to dry, inadvertently hangs it upside down. Upon arriving at the studio and seeing it like that, the caballero is annoyed because to him it seems that the horse is playing. Only when the artist puts the canvas the proper way up does the caballero recognise his mistake.

The moral is then clearly set out by Guzmán: such are the works of God, the Great Painter that we often don’t see them for what they are. Of course, the horse is also a symbol of nobility, of the traditional epic world. Seeing it upside down is a means of informing us of new ways of looking at or seeing the world. Alemán has painted an upside down picture of the world, an epic of the street, if you like.

Guzmán de Alfarache was enormously popular when it was published. Together with the simultaneously rediscovered Lazarillo de Tormes, it generated a lot of reaction, more than any other novel of the period, including Don Quixote. It seems, however, that what especially appealed to readers were the adventures of Guzmán rather than the moral messages. Alemán’s disapproval with this reading can be seen when he complains (through Guzmán) that Part I was popularly called El Pícaro instead of Watchtower of Human Life (II, I, 6).

However, Alemán would have been delighted with the view of the well-known 17th-century Jesuit scholar, Baltasar Gracián who set the seal of approval in his work of literary criticism Wit and the Art of Ingenuity (Agudeza y arte de ingenio 1648). He not only called Alemán the “best and most classical Spanish [writer]” (Cervantes is not mentioned at all!!), but listed the Guzmán (he used the subtitle Watchtower of Human Life) amongst the most prestigious of literary forms, the “great epics,” the most outstanding examples of which were the Odyssey, the Aeneid and The Ethiopic History.

Following immediately on these illustrious models, Gracian declares: “Although dealing with a lowly topic (or character), Mateo Alemán … author of the Watchtower of Human Life, was so superior in craftsmanship and style, that he contained within Greek inventiveness, Italian eloquence, French erudition and Spanish ingenuity.“

As far as Gracián was concerned, then, Guzmán de Alfarache was an epic work, albeit based on an obscure hero. Alemán’s delight would undoubtedly be even greater if his poética historia was more widely recognised nowadays as an important step towards a new generic voice: the novel.

Sources:
Bjornson, Richard The Picaresque Hero in European Literature Madison, Wisconsin 1977
Blackburn, Alexander The Myth of the Picaro, Chapel Hill 1979.
Cruz, Anne J Discourses of Poverty: Social Reform and the Picaresque Novel in Early Modern Spain;Toronto 1999.
Davis, Barbara N “Epic “aunque de sujeto humilde” –A Structural Analysis of Guzman de Alfarache,” in Mary A Beck et al eds. The Analysis of Hispanic Texts, Vol. 1 New York 1976. Pp. 329-39.
Dunn, Peter Spanish Picaresque Fiction: A New Literary History Ithaca and London 1993
Rico, Francisco ed. La novela picaresca espanola: Lazarillo de Tormes, Guzman de Alfarache Barcelona 1967

Guzmán de Alfarache: From Impure Blood to Hero.
Guzmán de Alfarache is both a pícaro (**rogue, scoundrel) and a Converso (Christian of Jewish descent).

As a boy and young man living by his wits, Guzmán reminds us a lot of Lázaro de Tormes, although Lázaro is not identified as pícaro or Converso. But, unlike Lázaro, who addresses a shadowy VM, Guzmán engages us, his readers, directly from the first moment.

In the style of the great preachers of the period, Guzmán constantly exhorts, criticises, needles, prods, and encourages us, drawing us into his narrative. And what does he want to tell us? Basically that he is a sinner but that we are no better than he is because we all practice deception, hypocrisy, lying, flattery etc.

In addition, he has written his life so that we might avoid the pitfalls he has experienced. This was a presumptuous claim at that time from someone who was no saint, and to come from the mouth of pícaro/ Converso was audacious.

A pícaro and Converso … how does Alemán argue that the life of such an individual could have something of value to offer to his readers? He does so by combining the low-born pícaro with the despised Converso and demonstrating how we are all equal, not in social rank but in substance (i.e. blood in the book’s context).

But it was a very daring step in 16th-century Spain to claim equality of substance for Conversos. Alemán attacks the Converso problem by demonstrating that Conversos, i.e. New Christians, were in fact no different from Old Christians. Why was this important? We know from his life that Alemán was a reformer and sympathised with the plight of the poor. Undoubtedly the fact that Alemán was himself a Converso also had much to do with it.

The Converso Problem: Background.
Why were Conversos so disparaged in Spain in the 16th century? The problem first reared its ugly head mid-way through the 15th century following the conversion of an unprecedented number of Jews to Christianity (for reasons, see Jews and Conversos in 15th-century Spain). This widespread conversion created two kinds of Christians: Old Christians and New Christians (i.e. Conversos).

Much of the pressure for conversion had come from the Old Christians (particularly commoners), who resented the power and influence enjoyed by many Jews as, for example, administrators to the crown and numerous noble families, tax collectors, lawyers, scribes, physicians, translators, emissaries, merchants, traders, shopkeepers, financiers.

Ironically, however, what conversion did was confirm New Christians in the positions they (or their Jewish predecessors) had enjoyed. It also provided access to three important social positions previously unavailable to them as Jews: to the church (and religious orders), to public office and -through marriage- to Christian nobility.

Increased resentment amongst Old Christians soon fuelled accusations about the sincerity of Converso conversions. Allegations were made that Conversos still practised Judaism in secret (and some did), that they were enemies of the Church, and were conspiring to kill Old Christians. They were also accused of seizing control of key offices with the aim of destroying Christian society from within. Following a major rebellion in Toledo in 1449, a statute was issued aimed at denying all Conversos or their descendants access to public office.

It was the first clear articulation that blood and race and not religion were the principal features distinguishing those living in Spanish society. (The same criterion would be applied also to converted Muslims –Moriscos.) Purity of blood, —limpieza de sangre— here appears for the first time. The statute expressed the deep felt sentiments of commoners in Toledo but quickly it became a national obsession as restrictions for those with Jewish lineage become widespread.

As a result, thousands of Conversos (including nobility) did everything possible to hide their family history. A notable example is Sta. Teresa de Avila, one of the most esteemed Catholic saints, who studiously avoided any reference to her Jewish blood in her autobiography. Conversos commonly resorted to concocting false lineages, bribing Old Christians to give false testimony and vouch for them; Alemán too had availed himself of false testimony!

Alemán’s Arguments for Equality.
How does Alemán argue against this ugly social blight of limpieza? Basically, he does so by pointing out the false conclusions we draw from external appearances or social rank: internally, there is no fundamental difference between people.

One simple way was to have Guzmán do what we know thousands of others did in 16th-century Spain: appropriate a noble name of Visigothic origin as a means of confirming a long historic lineage “untainted” by Jewish blood. You see, we don’t know the narrator’s real name; Guzmán is what he decides to call himself when he leaves home “in order not to be known, I didn’t take my father’s name but … my mother’s” (1, i, 2 **).

The name had actually been chosen by his grandmother, a prostitute, who didn’t know who had impregnated her and told Guzmán’s mother she had selected the name Guzmán because she believed she had had sex with a prominent member of that family.

Of course, the Grandmother’s explanation is a satirical detail but the reality is that the appropriation of a noble name was often done. So, if there were so many Guzmáns -or Mendozas, Pachecos etc.- wandering around, what was to distinguish between the real and the false, between the old and the new, and of course, between an old Guzmán and a new Guzmán, or an Old Christian and a New Christian?

Another and more significant method was to establish certain general principles that implied equality without in any way deviating from Christian orthodoxy: to say, e.g. that we are all sinners, “we all lie” (2, i, 7), “we all deceive” (2, i, 3), “we are all a pile of dust” (2, i, 7), and so on. The text is full of such sermonising generalisations which point to our common human condition. Such generalisations are all inclusive: All of us.

The implications were considerable: what then was to distinguish between a pícaro and a noble if we all lie, deceive etc.? It should not surprise us if a pícaro should get drunk and become “the laughing stock of the town and ridiculed by everyone,” but what about those “who believe themselves to be someone, the nobles, the powerful, those who should abstain should do so (i.e. get drunk etc.!” (1, ii, 7)? How often do we find references in Golden Age literature to drunken nobles or nobles being public objects of laughter or scorn?

But that is not all. It is understandable that the poor should rob, but there are also “upstanding thieves (ladrones de bien…) those who wear decorative velvet trappings… and festoon their walls with brocades and cover their floors with gold and Turkish silk…. They live on their reputation and are upheld by their power and favoured by flattery; their power frees them from the gallows … and the galleys were not made for them except for them to command” (2, i, 7). The powerful, then, are still thieves and drunkards and basically no different from or better than a powerless pícaro/Converso.

A third argument, and the most compelling, looks at the source of our human condition. It is here where Converso question is most directly addressed. Where does our human condition come from? Well, the Bible teaches us that we are all children of Adam and Eve. Nothing could be more orthodox: “we are all men and all of us … sin in Adam” (2, iii,1). We all sin because “the first father was disloyal, the first mother a liar; the first son a thief and murderer” (1, iii, 1).

In other words, then, the “sin” or “stain” to use a more appropriate word in the 16th- and 17th-century context, does not proceed from our immediate parents or grandparents etc. but goes all the way back to Adam and Eve. We all, Christians and Conversos, then have the same blood, and since we all have the same blood, how -it may then be inferred- can one talk about “purity of blood” “limpieza de sangre“? “Look brother,’ says Guzmán talking at one point of how we all put on an act, “you are what I am, and we are all one” (1, ii, 10). From the time of Adam, “Everything has been, is and will be the same.”

But Alemán wasn’t satisfied with claiming only equality in substance (i.e. blood) for his protagonist. He seems to suggest something more: that the disparaged pícaro-Converso‘s life-story also qualified Guzmán to be viewed as a hero.

Guzmán as Hero?
Mateo Alemán’s contention -that the pícaro-Converso protagonist of his fictional autobiography was in no way inferior in substance to those socially superior- was a radical challenge to accepted social norms in 16th-century Spain. Guzmán readily admits his lowly status of pícaro, but as he reminds us, “clothes do not make the monk” (I, ii, 3,). And then, recalling a sermon he had heard a “learned Augustinian” preach, he makes a startling assertion: the sermon “dealt with everyone … from the most powerful prince to someone as vile as me (1, ii, 3). “Heavens -I began to think- he’s talking about me and I am a someone: I can be listened to! ?Well, what light can I provide and how can there be light in a man of such low and scorned status? Yes, my friend, I replied to myself, he’s talking about you and talking to you, for you too are a member of this mystical body, equal to all in substance although not in rank” (i, ii, 3).

This is a bold claim from a pícaro-Converso. But if we are the same, if we are all children of Adam and Eve, there is nothing theologically objectionable in this. And, as Guzmán cleverly reminds us, this is something that he heard a “learned Augustinian” preach, a man presumably of unimpeachable orthodoxy. Clearly, Guzmán is not talking about rank, but something more fundamental in the Spanish context: substance… blood, and with it dignity. If we are all equal in blood, then a pícaro/ Converso is not only equal to Old Christians, he can also have something valuable to say. Indeed, “even in pícaros there is virtue, and this can be a light for you” (I, ii,3).

What is Guzmán’s virtue? What light can he offer? Is it his repentance, announced at the end of the book? Is it his desire that all men be saved through his story? Is it the virtue of painting life as it is, or setting himself up as a sacrificial example of what not to do for the good of others?

This is not so far-fetched; it may be something that Alemán himself dared suggest only at the beginning of Part II, following the resounding success of Part I. It is interesting that in his Prologue to the Discreet Reader in Part I, Alemán seems a little unsure of the reception of his protagonist and is almost apologetic when he addresses the reader: “Whatever you find not serious or agreeable, it’s because the theme of this book is about a pícaro.

By the beginning of Part II, however, the tone is bolder: “The theme is humble and lowly. The beginning was small; what I intend to deal with, if you chew it over … could be important, serious and great (2, i, 1). But how could the life of a pícaro-Converso, a cheat, a liar, a pimp, be “important, serious and great”? Clearly not as a model to imitate, but from a repentant sinner’s point of view, it can serve as an example of what to avoid. And so it is with Guzmán. Of course he is not the first sinner to have repented and preached against all those sins that he knows at firsthand. The great example is St Augustine’s Confessions. Indeed, in the very important first chapter of Part II, Guzmán appropriates the word confesión (2, i, 1) to emphasise the orientation of his life journey (which he has earlier called a pilgrimage) And what is the purpose of this confession? It is, as he underlines, to save others, “so that you do not imitate me; rather that knowing my errors you will correct yours. If you see me fallen because of my bad ways, behave so that you will come to hate what tripped me up, don’t step where you saw me slip and let my fall serve as a warning. For you are a mortal being just like me and probably neither stronger nor cleverer” (2, i, 1). “I absorb the beatings from which you draw the lessons” (2, i, 1). Others, then, may learn from Guzmán’s mistakes, which in fact take on a sacrificial quality: “At my cost and with my own hardships I uncover dangers and pitfalls so that you do not rush in and harm yourself nor shut yourself in where you cannot find a way out” (2, i, 1).

So on top of equality in substance (i.e. blood) now we have a commoner of the lowest order, a pícaro-Converso, offering his life as an antidote (atriaca 2, i, 1) for the good of others.

Guzmán’s claims are bold, challenging, and letting us know that we are all bad makes us feel uncomfortable. As he observes; “I am speaking the truth and that is bitter for you to take” (2, i, 1). And he is right. It is easy to see the sins of others without seeing our own failings. But what is startling here is that this is a pícaro-Converso making these claims and not a preacher! By doing so, Guzmán sets himself up as the hero of his tale, one who through his conversion and redemption recognises what he was and what he now believes himself to be: an example so that others might be saved.
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By setting Guzmán up as a hero, Alemán is treading new ground. Heroes traditionally belonged to nobility, engaged in valiant exploits, often embroidered with magic or supernatural beings, and usually set in the past. Alemán offers us a contemporary, low-born repentant sinner living very much in a real world. Heroes normally were the subjects of epic poems. Could Alemán be claiming his work was an epic tale?

Sources:
Aronson-Freidman, Amy & Kaplan, Gregory Marginal Voices: Studies in Converso Literature of Medieval and Golden Age Spain Leiden, Netherlands 2012.
Bjornson, Richard The Picaresque Hero in European Literature Madison, Wisconsin 1977
Blackburn, Alexander The Myth of the Picaro, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 1979.
Cruz, Anne J Discourses of Poverty: Social Reform and the Picaresque Novel in Early Modern SpainToronto 1999.
Johnson, Carroll “Defining the Picaresque: Authority and the Subject in Guzmán de Alfarache,” in The Picaresque: Tradition and Displacement ed. Giancarlo Maiorino Minneapolis 1996 pp. 159-82.
Rico, Francisco ed. La novela picaresca española: Lazarillo de Tormes, Guzmán de Alfarache Barcelona 1967

Guzmán de Alfarache (Part I 1599, Part II 1604). Author, Mateo Alemán (1547-1614?).

Background.
Few people read Guzmán de Alfarache nowadays and even fewer have heard of it. Nevertheless, it was an immediate success and best seller in its day, more so than Don Quixote (Part I 1605, Part II 1615).

Twenty-two editions of Guzmán, Part I (1599) were published before Part II appeared (1604) and six editions of the latter appeared within three years. Translations into French, English and Italian quickly followed. Part I into French in 1600, and the two parts in 1619-20. Part I appeared in Italy in 1606 and Part II in 1615. In England, both parts were printed in 1622-23.

Like Don Quixote, Guzmán de Alfarache is a long and complex work set in the late-16th early-17th century and incorporating all levels of society. There the similarity ends. Guzmán is a fictional autobiography, narrated by a pícaro-converso**, whose adventures are interspersed with heavy doses of moralising, sermonising and reflections on the social, political and economic conditions in Spain at that time.

Guzmán is commonly linked with the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes (published 1554) and Francisco de Quevedo’s El Buscón (published 1626, although likely written before 1604) as one of the three iconic texts giving birth to picaresque fiction.

However, it is the single most influential text in establishing the fundamental paradigms by which picaresque fiction is measured. It also has an important place in the development of the modern novel. Several of the texts published in the years following Guzmán’s publication (especially Part I) are responses to (e.g. Juan Martí’s sequel to Guzmán, Part I, 1602, or Vicente Espinel’s Marcos de Obregón, 1618) or reactions against the claims of social advancement in the text (e.g. López de Ubeda’s La pícara Justina, 1605, or Quevedo’s Buscón).

While Lazarillo de Tormes is marked by its compactness, Guzmán is notable for its long, rambling, digressive structure in which anecdotes, fables, short stories, sermons, moral commentaries, exhortations to the reader are intertwined with the narrator’s tale about his life.

Guzmán, the first narrator to identify himself as a pícaro, voluntarily sets out from Seville at a young age (a little more than 12). He abandons his mother and a relatively comfortable life as a spoiled child to undertake a pilgrimage to see the world and find out something about his father’s family in Genoa.

So begins a long, circular journey through Spain and Italy before he returns finally to Seville. (His travels take him from Seville to Madrid, and then to Toledo, Almagro, Genoa, Rome, Siena, Florence, Bologna, Milan, back to Genoa, and then Barcelona, Zaragoza, Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, and finally Seville.)

Along the way, he meets hundreds of people, from beggars to cardinals of the church and ambassadors. His employment ranges from kitchen servant to page in the cardinal’s household and fool in the ambassador’s court. He deceives and is deceived. He makes money, takes on a servant and loses both. He becomes a brilliant student (so he tells us!) in Alcalá, but shortly after becomes his wife’s pimp to make ends meet.

He is in constant pursuit of security, money, and social advancement, employing unscrupulous means rather than gainful work. He finally ends up a galley slave at sea serving His Majesty, but only after undergoing a conversion from sinner to repentant, which allows him to pen his life as a warning to others.

Some Interpretations.
That the book had a didactic purpose should not surprise us in an age when the Horatian formula of edification and enjoyment was commonplace. Alemán himself cautions us - -“discreet” readers- not to enjoy the picaresque tales of Guzmán’s life at the expense of the edification, a matter underlined by the subtitle to the book: Atalaya de la vida humana (“The Watchtower of Human Life“).

Some have interpreted the combination of picaresque adventures and the heavy doses of moralising, sermonising, (the verb oír -“to hear “- is used frequently) and philosophising on human conduct as a defence of Catholic orthodoxy and teachings about original sin, free will, grace and individual responsibility.

This Counter Reformation viewpoint has been refuted in favour of another in which Catholicism is attacked by a cynical Converso, which explains, for many, the disillusioned tone of the book.

Others downplay the Converso thesis in favour of a wider interpretation based the social and economic conditions of Spain at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries. For instance, Guzmán has been viewed as an embodiment of the frustrated merchant, or merchant in the making, and as an attack on Genoese control of Spanish trade and financing.

It has also been argued that Guzmán attempts to climb the social ladder by acquiring “symbolic capital,” i.e. knowledge of how the game of social interaction is played. To achieve this Guzmán must make use of whatever resources he possesses to accumulate favours to climb that social ladder. Each favour earned forms part of his own caudal, his source of capital/ wealth, whether through his cleverness, his service, or his manipulations etc.

In addition to a commentary on social and economic problems, Guzmán de Alfarache has also been interpreted as a critique on the treatment of the poor. The book is full of comments and observations that conform to the numerous discourses penned at this time by the many arbitristas (writers of treatises expressing their concern at the state of the country) dealing with the ills of the country.

Indeed, Alemán was a close friend of one such writer, Cristóbal Pérez de Herrera, physician, economist and soldier, and author of Del amparo y reformación de los fingidos vagabundos (Regarding the Help and Reform of False Vagrants 1595), and Discurso del amparo de los legítimos pobres y reducción de los fingidos (A Treatise on Help for the Legitimately Poor and the Reduction of False Ones 1598). Therefore, in addressing these economic and social problems Alemán was treading a well-travelled path.

Alemán’s affinity to arbitrista opinions were likely based on his own experiences. Son of a physician, he had studied medicine at the University of Alcalá, but gave up his studies to enter the world of business for which he does not appear to have any talent, ending up on more than one occasion in a debtor’s prison. An application to emigrate with his family to America was denied in 1582, but shortly after (1583) he landed a job as a visiting magistrate (juez de comisión real) in the province of Badajoz where the conditions of convicts in a local prison so angered him that he imprisoned the jailer.

Ten years later he was given a special commission to investigate the conditions of workers -mostly prisoners- in the mercury mines of Almadén (Córdoba) run by the powerful German financial/ banker family, the Fuggers. His report on the deprivation of food, clothing and medicine, and of physical abuse was too forthright for the authorities and was shelved, and he was dismissed. His personal circumstances were precarious; poor investments, for example, obliged him to sell the rights to his book.

Separated from his wife and living with another woman, he made his way to Lisbon (where Part II of the Guzmán was published in 1604). Four years later, he successfully petitioned to be allowed to emigrate to Mexico, where he published a book on Spanish orthography. After 1615, he disappears from view.
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All the interpretations above are persuasive readings of the text, and they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Individually they see the book as a damning expose of certain of Spain’s ills, whether social or economic; together these interpretations offer a vast picture of a corrupt, ineffective, sterile society obsessed by the idea personal advancement at whatever cost and with no concern for the national good.

Perhaps no one has more succinctly summarised the book than Alemán’s contemporary, Luis de Valdés, in a foreword to Part II in praise of Part I. After remarking on the fame that Alemán has achieved and the elegance of his style, he concludes that the book can serve as a brake to the evildoers, a spur to the good, schooling for the learned, and as entertainment for those who are not learned; in general it is a source of political, ethical and economical lessons… However, a caveat: we do not know who Luis de Valdés was, and the name is possibly a pseudonym for Alemán himself, in which case they may offer a clue as to how Alemán wanted his work to be read.
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In the very brief summary of Alemán’s life above, one detail has been omitted. Alemán came from a Converso background. Why bring this up? Because Guzmán de Alfarache also proposes something truly radical, something that could only come from the pen of someone disillusioned by a society that preached the Christian gospel but did not live by it. Someone who was, furthermore, a Christian **but whose blood condemned him from the start.

Choosing a pícaro allowed him to address the problems of poverty and economic stagnation, choosing a Converso allowed him to tackle a particularly controversial social cancer in Spain: limpieza de sangre or purity of blood.

Sources:
Bjornson, Richard The Picaresque Hero in European Literature Madison, Wisconsin 1977
Blackburn, Alexander The Myth of the Picaro Chapel Hill: North Carolina 1979
Cruz, Anne J Discourses of Poverty: Social Reform and the Picaresque Novel in Early Modern SpainToronto 1999.
Ruan, Felipe Picaro and Cortesano: Identity and the Forms of Capital in Early Modern Spanish Picaresque Narrative and Courtesy Literature: Lanham, Maryland, and Plymouth, UK 2011

Luis de Góngora (1561-1627): Sonnet clxvi: Mientras por competir… 1582.

1. Mientras por competir con tu cabello,oro
bruñido al sol relumbra en vano;
mientras con menosprecio en medio el llano
mira tu blanca frente el lilio bello;
5. Mientras a cada labio, por cogello,
siguen más ojos que al clavel temprano;
y mientras triunfa con desdén Lozano
del luciente cristal tu gentil cuello:
9. Goza cuello, cabello, labio y frente,
antes que lo que fue en tu edad dorada
oro, lilio, clavel, cristal luciente,
12. No sólo en plata o viola troncada
se vuelva, mas tu y ello juntamente
en tierra, en humo, en polvo, en sombra, en nada.

Prose Translation:
While burnished gold gleams in vain in the sun to compete with your hair;/ while in the middle of the plain your white brow gazes on the fair lily with disdain;/ while more eyes follow each lip to kiss them [each lip] than follow the early carnation;/ and while your slender neck triumphs over gleaming crystal with self-assured scorn: enjoy your neck, hair, lips and brow, before what was in your golden youth, gold, lily, carnation, gleaming crystal not only turns to silver or to drooping violet but you and all of it together [turn] into earth, smoke, dust, shadow, nothing.

Commentary.
This poem is a sonnet, i.e. 14 hendecasyllabic lines (i.e. 11 syllables each line). It has two quatrains, (each quatrain contains four lines), and two tercets (each made up of three lines). Sometimes we talk of the two quatrains together as an octave, and the two tercets together as a sestet. The rhyme scheme is ABBA, ABBA, CDC, DCD.

The source is classical: the Carpe diem (“Enjoy the day”) of Horace, and the Collige, virgo, rosas (“Gather, maiden, the roses”) from Ausonius. We can see how Garcilaso de la Vega handled the topic in his En tanto que de rosa y de azucena… and it is this poem that Góngora had in mind when he penned Mientras por competir…

The thematic similarity invites us to compare both sonnets in what we call intertextuality. Garcilaso’s sonnet is the “pre”text or implied text for Góngora and the context within which he writes his own sonnet. This raises the question: to what degree does Góngora imitate Garcilaso and in what way is he different?

One of the features of Renaissance poetry was imitation, and the poet’s “originality” was measured by his ability to select good models for inspiration. No tengo por buen poeta al que no imita los excelentes antiguos, (“I don’t consider anyone who does not imitate the excellent ancients to be a good poet”), said Francisco Sánchez de las Brozas (better known as El Brocense), the first to write a commentary on Garcilaso’s poetry (1574).

El Brocense’s commentary was recognition of Garcilaso’s stature as a model worthy to be imitated, equal to the great Latin and Italian poets (e.g. Virgil, Horace, Petrarch). In another commentary, published in 1580, the Andalusian poet, Fernando de Herrera, goes a step further, urging poets not only to choose good models but also to aspire to surpass them in the pursuit of poetic excellence.

It was in this vein of imitating and striving to exceed what Garcilaso had written in En tanto que… that Góngora wrote his sonnet. He does this in two ways: 1) in his treatment of the theme, and 2) in his handling of the imagery and rhetoric that he employs.

Theme: Time and beauty.
In Garcilaso’s sonnet, the lady’s beauty is compared to that of nature (“rose,” “lily,” “gold”) and her youthful qualities evoked by metaphors of “fruit” and “spring” (lines 9-10). There is a blending of nature and feminine beauty, with each equal to the other.

Góngora, on the other hand, emphasises the superiority of the lady’s beauty over that of nature (lines 1-8). We read that burnished gold can’t “compete” with the lady’s hair (lines 1-2); her white brow “looks down” on the lily (lines 3-4); “more” eyes are fixed on her lips than on the carnation (lines 5-6; and her neck “triumphs” over the gleaming crystal (lines 7-8). As a result, Góngora’s lady appears more vibrant, and her beauty more intense and colourful, more in keeping with baroque aesthetics of marked contrasts..

Time is a constant in both sonnets, its destructive force becoming more evident with the ladies’ loss of beauty. Indeed, in the last six lines of Garcilaso’s sonnet, the poem becomes progressively more a meditation on time itself, and the lady -the “you” whom the poet (or poetic voice) addresses- disappears completely in the second tercet (lines 12-14).

Such is not the case in Góngora’s sonnet. The lady (the “you”) remains integral to the end, where the effects of time on her reach their logical conclusion: time consumes her and everything (tú y ello) leaving behind only “earth,” “smoke,” “dust,” “shadow” and “nothingness” (line 14).

Garcilaso takes us no further than old age; Góngora carries us to extinction. Where Garcilaso projects us into the future in the second tercet (marchitará, mudará), Góngora avoids the future tense, creating thereby a much more intense way of conveying the urgency of the appeal to the lady to enjoy her youth while she can. This dramatic jump from beauty to decay/extinction, life’s pleasures to death, appearance to reality belongs to the baroque sensibility of illusion and disillusion, and is a characteristic of the great literature at the turn of the 17th century.

Imagery and Rhetoric:
The structure of Góngora’s sonnet parallels that of Garcilaso’s: the anaphoric conjunctions of time (en tanto que in Garcilaso, mientras in Góngora), the appeal to enjoy youthful days, followed by another conjunction of time (antes que in both poems) which then leads us to the conclusion. But that’s where the similarity ends. Garcilaso’s conclusion is a resigned recognition of the changes wrought by time: you’ll grow old; Góngora’s ending is much more hard hitting: you’re going to end up as nothing!

The two-fold function of the anaphora, i.e. the repeated conjunction of time, is similar in both poems: it creates suspense as we await the main verb, and it is a constant unifying harmoniously the ladies’ hair, brow, eyes, lips and neck into an impressionistic, beautiful image.

The structure of Góngora’s sonnet, however, is more highly-crafted and complex. For example, the use of anaphora is more prolonged with mientras being used four times while Garcilaso uses en tanto que twice and an abbreviated form que once. This increased repetition of the anaphora (in lines 1, 3, 5, 7) intensifies our expectation and underlines, more than in Garcilaso’s sonnet, time’s omnipresence.

Associated with each use of mientras and following in regular order from top down are: “hair,” “brow,” “lips” and “neck.” The point here is the logical order (something not followed by Garcilaso: “brow,” “eyes,” “hair,” “neck”), which increases the feeling of harmony and, by extension, beauty.

Two further devices add to the sensation of harmony: 1. each body part is evoked over two lines (couplets) and 2. each has a corresponding element drawn from nature: “hair/gold”, “brow/lily,” “lip/carnation,” and “neck/crystal.” So, by the end of the octet (lines 1-8), we have a harmonious image of feminine beauty, enclosed in a structural symmetry of four parallel and counterbalancing couplets, each beginning with mientras.

Then we finally come to what appears to be the main verb and its message: “enjoy” (goza line 9). But we have scarcely absorbed that exhortation when we are quickly whisked forward by another conjunction of time, “before,” (antes que). The same is used by Garcilaso, but in Góngora’s sonnet it is more emphatically placed at the beginning of the line. Where does this last conjunction of time lead us to? To the sobering truth that we all face decay and extinction (line 14).

The first tercet (lines 9-11) is very clever, condensing within its three lines the body parts and their corresponding natural elements, extended over the octet. The enumeration of previously mentioned elements into one line (as in lines 9 and 11 here) is called correlation or recapitulation and was a device much favoured by baroque writers usually to convey order/ symmetry.

But Góngora overturns that principle here, because the symmetrical correspondence of lines 1 to 8 is ruptured in two ways. First, the lady’s beauty is no longer evoked in an orderly fashion from “hair” to “neck,” but is now “neck,” “hair,” “lip” and “brow,” i.e. the image is no longer harmonious, but fractured like a Picasso face. Second, although the natural elements correlated in line 11 do follow their order in the octet, they no longer correspond to the parts enumerated in line 9.

This now asymmetrical image prepares us for old age (second tercet), metaphorically depicted as “silver” and “drooping violet.” But as the “Not only” (No sólo) at the beginning of line 9 suggests, there is more to come. By now Garcilaso has arrived at the main message (“you’ll grow old”), but Góngora carries the suspense right to the last line, and what a line it is! It looks longer than all the other lines, but thanks to synalepha** it is in fact a hendecasyllable like the others. Thus: e(1)n ti ͜(2)erra, ͜(3) en hu(4)mo, ͜(5) en po(6)lvo, ͜(7) en so(8)mbra, ͜(9) en na(10)d(11)a.

The enumeration of five colourless nouns underlines the dark world of decay that leads to nothingness. And the preponderance of labial consonants “m”, “p”, “v”, “b”, and the soft intervocalic “d” which combined with several open vowels, evokes superbly the sensation of tomblike silence. Finally, the repetition of the preposition en, with each of the five nouns, echoes along the line like a spade tamping the earth covering the grave.

What started off as a call to a young woman to enjoy her youth (carpe diem) ends as a “menacing Baroque memento mori” (“remember you must die“) (Gaylord 223).

How do Garcilaso and Góngora’s sonnets compare? Both are excellent poems, but Góngora’s holds together better. The focus is on the “you” and time together throughout the poem; in Garcilaso’s sonnet, the poetic voice strays from the “you” in the final tercet to finish with a semi-philosophical meditation on time.

Structurally Mientras por competir … is denser, with a remarkable display of symmetry, order and harmony which underline the beauty of the lady. That symmetry collapses with the advent of old age, and regular anaphora, parallel couplets, and correlation give way in the last line to enumeration, which leads us inexorably to nothingness.

Like Garcilaso’s sonnet, Góngora’s is not a love poem but a poetic exercise applied to a common theme. It was a daring proposition to compete with Garcilaso, the great Spanish model, all the more so if we consider that Góngora was only 21 when he wrote his version. It was a measure of his brilliance that he was able to pull it off.

Sources.
Rivers, Elias ed Renaissance and Baroque Poetry of Spain Prospect Heights Illinois 1988 (With English prose translations of the poems.)
Gaylord, Mary Malcolm “The Making of Baroque Poetry” in The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature, ed. David T Gies Cambridge 2009, pp. 222-37
Jones, R. O. Poems of Góngora Cambridge 1966
Wardropper, Bruce Spanish Poetry of the Golden Age New York 1971
Image of Góngora from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_de_G%C3%B3ngora

Garcilaso de la Vega: Sonnet 23

1. En tanto que de rosa y de azucena
se muestra la color en vuestro gesto,
y que vuestro mirar ardiente, honesto,
enciende al corazón y lo refrena;
5. y en tanto que el cabello, que en la vena
del oro se escogió, con vuelo presto,
por el hermoso cuello blanco, enhiesto,
el viento mueve, esparce y desordena:
9. coged de vuestra alegre primavera
el dulce fruto, antes que el tiempo airado
cubra de nieve la hermosa cumbre.
12. Marchitará la rosa el viento helado,
todo lo mudará la edad ligera
por no hacer mudanza en su costumbre.

Prose Translation.
As long as the colour of roses and lilies can be seen on your face, and (as long as) your ardent, chaste eyes inflame my heart and restrain it; and as long your hair –singled out from veins of gold—is blown, scattered and disarranged by the wind over your beautiful, white and slender neck: gather the sweet fruit of your joyful spring before angry time covers with snow your beautiful crown (i.e. your hair turns white with age). The cold wind will wither the rose, swift time will change everything so as not to change its usual custom.

Commentary.
The form of the poem is a sonnet, made up of 14 lines, each of which is a hendecasyllable (i.e. 11 syllables each line). Its structure is that of two quatrains, (i.e. each quatrain contains four lines), and two tercets (each made up of three lines). Sometimes we talk of the two quatrains together as an octave, and the two tercets together as a sestet. The rhyme scheme is ABBA, ABBA, CDE, DCE.

Sonnet 23, one of Garcilaso’s most famous poems, is an appeal to a young lady to enjoy the fruit of her youth before fleeting time destroys it. The source of the theme is classical: the Carpe diem (“Enjoy the day”) of Horace, and the Collige, virgo, rosas (“Gather, maiden, the roses”) from Ausonius.

The differences between this poem and, for example, Sonnet 1 are immediate: here there is an abundance of adjectives (twelve, plus two adjectival phrases: de rosa y (de) azucena, line 1), plenty of colour, no wordplay (except mudará mudanza lines 13, 14), and fewer verbs. In other words, the native tradition does not intrude; on the contrary, the poem’s Petrarchan imagery, keen awareness of time, classical sources and structural sophistication are characteristics of the Renaissance world.

Unlike Sonnet 1, where the lady’s cruelty is invoked and time is static -as the me paro (“I stop”) of line 1 suggests-, Sonnet 23 is structured around the inexorable passage of time and the lady’s inevitable loss of beauty.

The argument is superbly presented through structural devices, the principal being anaphora (repetition at the beginning of a line). The anaphora here is a conjunction of time at the very opening of the poem: En tanto que (“As long as”), repeated in abbreviated form que (line 3) and again en tanto que (line 5).

What is the effect of the anaphora here? It creates tension or expectancy as we await the main verb. We want to know where all the references to the lady’s beauty are leading us to. Finally, in line 9 we get to what appears to be the main verb and its attendant message coged… (“gather the sweet fruit of your joyful spring”). But no, it is quickly replaced by another message as we are carried forward by another conjunction of time: antes que (“before”) and thrown into the future with the future verb tenses: Marchitará (“will wither”) and mudará (“will change”).

The advice to enjoy the fruit of youth is, then, only a partial message which is completed in the last tercet (three lines)… fleeting time will wither the rose etc. The overall message is, in fact, a warning about the relentlessness of time, and the anaphora is instrumental in conveying that message.

But that isn’t all the anaphora en tanto que does in the two quatrains. The quatrains convey an impressionistic image of the lady’s beauty following very much the Petrarchan/ Renaissance ideal: rosy cheeks, pale brow, chaste eyes, golden hair, and white slender neck. What the anaphora does here is unite these different parts of the face: it is the one common element bringing together the different attributes of the face and contributes thereby to the harmonious beauty of the lady.

Now let’s look at the anaphora in relation to one of the features of this sonnet mentioned above: the numerous adjectives. Adjectives not only provide descriptive qualities to nouns but also slow the sensation of movement. One of the outstanding effects of the six adjectives (ardiente, honesto, presto, hermoso, blanco, enhiesto) and two adjectival phrases (de rosa, de azucena) in the two quatrains is to slow down the insistent passage of time as conveyed through the repeated conjunction of time.

There is a struggle going on: the conjunctions of time carry us forward, the adjectives slow us down. As long as youth’s beauty and colour are there, we may ignore the passage of time, but it is there even in youth, and the anaphora shows that it cannot be stopped. Indeed, once we get to the tercets (i.e. lines 9-11, and 12-14), the pace speeds up. There is almost a desperate note to the exhortation coged… and we soon learn why. As soon as the lady is urged to enjoy the fruits of her youth, another conjunction of time (antes que) catapults us to the metaphor of old age: the lady’s “crown covered by snow”.

Everything suddenly turns cold (nieve- “snow,” helado- “frozen”) and there are fewer adjectives to rein in the relentlessness of time. The single rosa (line 12) reminds us briefly of that past beauty but it is now covered by snow. By the last two lines every vestige of that beauty has disappeared and only indifferent time remains, its negative, dulling effect brilliantly evoked by the labial consonants “m” “v” “b” “p” and the soft intervocalic “d” (helado, todo, mudará, edad, mudanza). The vitality and vibrancy of youth have gone to be replaced by a mute colourless world.

Finally, a comment about enjambement or run-on line. The sonnet starts and ends with full enjambement, i.e. there is no syntactical pause (e.g. comma, semi-colon) so that both lines 1-2 and 13-14 read as one sentence/ statement. Enjambement can produce different effects. Here, it complements the anaphora in creating a sensation of non-stop movement, i.e. of the steady passage of time. There is enjambement also in lines 5-6-7, but there are also five commas in the quatrain that slow down the movement to allow us to contemplate the lady’s hair carried by the wind. Lines 9-10-11 have two more enjambements as the speed picks up again (some editions do not have a comma after fruto so that the whole tercet reads as a non-stop statement, which of course emphasises even more the rapid passage of time). The final enjambement, lines 13-14, complements perfectly the thematic message of the inexorable passage of time. Nothing stops it!

This sonnet is not love poem, but rather a meditation on time and its effects. The choice of feminine beauty as a means to convey time’s power is universally recognised and the topic long standing. We all grow old and, as the saying goes, “time waits for no man … or woman.”

For another treatment of the theme, inspired by Garcilaso’s poem, see Góngora’s Mientras por competir con tu cabello.

Sources.
Rivers, Elias ed Renaissance and Baroque Poetry of Spain Prospect Heights Illinois Waveland Press 1988 (With English prose translations of the poems.)
Wardropper, Bruce Spanish Poetry of the Golden Age New York, Meredith Corporation, 1971

Garcilaso de la Vega: Sonnet 1

1. Cuando me paro a contemplar mi estado,
y a ver los pasos por do me ha traído,
hallo según por do anduve perdido,
que a mayor mal pudiera haber llegado;
5. mas cuando del camino estó olvidado
a tanto mal no sé por do he venido;
sé que me acabo, y más he yo sentido
ver acabar conmigo mi cuidado.
9. Yo acabaré, que me entregué sin arte
a quien sabrá perderme y acabarme
si ella quisiera, y aun sabrá querello;
12. que pues mi voluntad puede matarme,
la suya, que no es tanto de mi parte,
pudiendo, ?qué hará sino hacello?

Prose Translation.
When I stop to consider my state, and see the steps along which I have been brought, I find -considering the road where I got lost- I could well have come to greater misfortune. But when I forget about the road, I don’t know how I’ve come to so much misfortune; I know that I am dying and I regret all the more seeing my suffering end along with me. I shall die, for I surrendered myself naively to the one who can ruin me and destroy me if she wished, and she can so wish; for if my love can kill me, her love –which doesn’t favour me—since it can kill me, isn’t that what it will do (i.e. by not loving me, she will kill me)?

Commentary.
Sonnet 1 tells us how the poetic “I” suffers because of unrequited love. The sonnet begins with an image of life as a road -taken from Petrarch—which is sustained for the first five lines. As the “I” looks back, the past doesn’t look so bad compared with the present or future.

The present is full of suffering and the future looks hopeless since he will die of unrequited love. Still, he does not want to die, because death will end the suffering that gives meaning to his life. In other words, there is joy in suffering, a popular concept in 15th-century Spanish cancionero love lyrics.

In the two quatrains, Garcilaso has skilfully created tension because we don’t yet know what has brought about the suffering. Paradoxically we move our eyes over the words but conceptually we are at a standstill because the main verb that controls the poem from line 1 is “stop” (me paro). It is by stopping that the “I” is able to take measure of his present suffering, which he ascribes finally -in line 11- to an unattainable lady: “she” (ella). She will cause his death without any remorse because she does not love him. The closing question adds a final resigned note, because there is no doubt about the answer: she will be the cause of his death.

The poem captures well the rejection and frustration the “I” feels. It is remarkably devoid of imagery, except for the opening metaphor of the road. Even here, the road is barren and empty with no adjective to give it colour or warmth.

In fact, one of the most striking features of this sonnet is the complete lack of adjectives and preponderance of verbs (18 conjugated verbs alone!). Once we get past the road metaphor, we run into constant wordplay, repetition, and impersonal pronouns to refer to the lady (a quien, ella, la suya). What is the effect of all this? It gives the impression of coldness and captures well the isolation of the “I” … there is nothing to comfort him in his suffering.

Where it falls short is that we get no depth of feeling, no insight into the “I’s” suffering. Why is that? Well, it’s the product of the constant wordplay and the abstract nature of the verbs used. Look at them: sé (lines 5, 6), me acabo, acabar, acabaré, acabarme (lines 7, 8, 9, 10), sabrá (lines 10, 11), quisiere, querello (line 11), puede, pudiendo (lines 12, 14), hará, hacerlo (line 14). (This kind of wordplay, i.e. variation of the same root word, in this case acabar, saber, querer, poder, hacer is known technically as polyptoton.)

A particularly interesting feature of Sonnet 1 is the break between the opening metaphor of the road, and the wordplay, abstraction and lack of imagery that prevail in the rest of the poem. They reflect two different traditions: the Italianate or Petrarchan/Renaissance –the road metaphor—and the conventional language of cancionero love lyrics.

In this sonnet, Italianate and cancionero features come face to face, but do not fuse. The opening road metaphor is sustained for the first five lines, but then disappears entirely to be replaced by cancionero wordplay.

The break is artfully introduced by mas cuando del camino estó olvidado (“but when I forget about the road”), because the “I” does indeed “forget” about the road in the rest of the poem as he enters the anguished world of the unrequited lover. It’s cleverly done, but in the rest of the sonnet the wordplay overshadows the anguish of the lover.

Sonnet 1 shows that the cancionero language was capable of being adapted to the Italian hendecasyllable (11-syllable line). What Garcilaso did in his later poetry was enrich Spanish poetry with new vocabulary, and Italianate and classical imagery (e.g. mythological, pastoral, Petrarchan), infused at the same time with philosophical ideas then current in Italy.

For comparison and a display of Garcilaso’s poetic maturity, read one of his most famous sonnets, En tanto que de rosa y azucena (Sonnet 23).

Sources.
Rivers, Elias ed Renaissance and Baroque Poetry of Spain Prospect Heights Illinois Waveland Press 1988 (With English prose translations of the poems.)
Wardropper, Bruce Spanish Poetry of the Golden Age New York, Meredith Corporation, 1971

Garcilaso de la Vega was born in the city of Toledo to an aristocratic family. His long and illustrious pedigree included the 15th-century poet-soldier, the Marqués de Santillana, and the poet-historian Fernán Pérez de Guzmán. From an early age, Garcilaso received a humanistic education in court circles, learning Latin, Greek, French and Italian, and mastering several musical instruments.

As a second son, Garcilaso was ineligible to inherit his father’s estate and so took up the expected course for young men in his situation: a military career. In 1520 he was named Contino (“Imperial Guard”). The following year he fought for the king, Charles I (Carlos I, later V of the Holy Roman Empire) against the rebellious comuneros (“commoners”) of Toledo. In 1523, he was named a Knight of the prestigious Order of Santiago.

As a soldier, Garcilaso travelled extensively fighting in the king’s service in Germany, Italy, North Africa, and France. He also suffered the king’s displeasure in 1531 when he witnessed the clandestine betrothal of his nephew to the wealthy heiress of the powerful Alburquerque family. He was punished by being sent into exile, first to an island in the river Danube and later to Naples. He served the Spanish viceroy to Naples, don Pedro de Toledo, for a period before returning to the king’s good graces.

Garcilaso died fighting for Charles in Nice (France) on October 14, 1536, twenty-five days after sustaining serious injuries in a skirmish near the town of Frejus. He was buried in Nice, but two years later his widow had his remains moved to Toledo and interred in the Church of San Pedro Mártir.

Garcilaso was married in 1525 to Elena de Zúñiga –a lady-in-waiting at the court- but he also had other romantic attachments. His first love was Guiomar Carrillo, from a noble family in Toledo, by whom he had an illegitimate son, Lorenzo, in 1520-21.

His marriage to doña Elena was likely one of convenience rather than love. It produced five children. In 1526, during the wedding of Charles V to the Portuguese princess, Isabel, Garcilaso met Isabel Freire, one of the princess’s ladies-in-waiting. For a long time Isabel Freire was believed to be the inspiration for many of Garcilaso’s love poems, but that view is now largely discarded.

It seems likely, too, that between 1527 and 1529 Garcilaso had an affair with a lady named Elvira from Extremadura. This can be deduced from a will made by Garcilaso in 1529 which, besides recognising his illegitimate son, Lorenzo, also alludes to the possibility that Elvira may have had a child by him.

Poet, musician, linguist and soldier, Garcilaso was the epitome of the Renaissance man as described by his Italian contemporary, Baldassare Castiglione, in his famous manual for courtiers, Il Cortegiano, (The Courtier) published in 1528.

Garcilaso was widely admired in literary circles in Naples, and corresponded with Pietro Bembo the Venetian scholar, literary theorist and the arbiter of literary taste at the time. He counted as intimate friend another soldier-poet, the Catalan Joan Boscà (in most manuals called by his Castilian equivalent, Juan Boscán).

The Arrival of Italianate Poetry in Spain and Garcilaso’s Early Fame.
The birth of Italianate poetry in Spain can be traced to a fortunate meeting of Boscán with the Venetian ambassador, poet and classical scholar, Andrea Navagero. It took place in the Generalife Gardens in the Alhambra Palace of Granada, in June of 1526 following the celebrations of the marriage of Charles V with Isabel of Portugal (in Seville).

We know from Boscán himself that Navagero encouraged him to write sonnets and other Italian stanza forms, the composition of which he admits was difficult at first. He acknowledges that he was encouraged, too, by Garcilaso, who also decided to try his hand at the new style.

Of the two, Garcilaso was the superior poet, and it is he who normally (and perhaps a little unfairly) receives the accolades for being the first Spaniard to write in the “Italian style.”

Garcilaso’s fame rests on a relatively small poetic output, the major theme of which is love: 40 sonnets, 3 eclogues, 5 canciones, 2 elegies (one to Boscán), an epistle in blank verse to Boscán, all using Italian verse forms and metres, and 8 short coplas in the traditional Castilian metre.

Garcilaso’s poetry was published in 1543, seven years after his death. It was Boscán –Garcilaso’s literary executor— who prepared Garcilaso’s poems for publication, together with his own, but he died suddenly in 1542. Fortunately Boscán’s widow took over the task, bringing out in a single volume in 1543 the works of both men. Their success was immediate and far reaching, although there were some detractors who opposed their Italianate innovations.

The poetry of Boscán and Garcilaso continued to be printed together until 1569, when Garcilaso’s verse first appeared by itself.

By now Garcilaso was held in such high esteem that two annotated editions of his poetry appeared within a few years of each other. The first was in 1574 by Francisco Sánchez, a professor of Rhetoric at the University of Salamanca; the second was in 1580 by Fernando de Herrera, a major poet and leading cultural figure from Seville. Like the great classical and Italian writers –e.g. Virgil, Horace, Petrarch—Garcilaso had become a model to be imitated and emulated.

Sources:
Dent-Young, John transl. Selected Poems of Garcilaso de la Vega Chicago 2009
Grossman, Edith The Golden Age: Poems of the Spanish Renaissance. W.W. Norton Bilingual edition 2006
McCaw, John and Spinnenweber, Kathleen eds. Anthology of Spanish Golden Age Poetry European Masterpieces 2007
Rivers, Elias ed. Renaissance and Baroque Poetry of Spain Prospect Heights Illinois 1988 (With English prose translations of the poems.)
Walters, Gareth The Cambridge Introduction to Spanish Poetry: Spain and Spanish America, Cambridge 2002
Wardropper, Bruce Spanish Poetry of the Golden Age New York 1971
www.garcilaso.org Useful web site in Spanish.
Image of cover of first edition of Boscán’s and Garcilaso’s poetry from http://www.garcilaso.org/ See under Imágenes: Portada de ediciones.

Spanish verse from the sixteenth century on owes Garcilaso de la Vega and his Catalan friend Juan Boscán (Joan Boscà in Catalan) an enormous literary debt. They adopted Italian verse forms that introduced not only new metres to Spanish poetry but also the humanistic spirit of both the Italian and classical models they imitated. Garcilaso was the superior poet and it is he who receives most attention, although it was Boscán who first experimented with the new forms.

Although Boscán and Garcilaso successfully introduced several new stanza patterns from Italy, their biggest hurdles were the Italian metres and in particular the stress pattern.

The most widely used line in traditional Spanish verse consisted of eight syllables (the octosyllable), with a stress regularly on the 7th syllable. Less popular but part of the national tradition was the six-lined verse (hexasyllable), with a stress on the 5th syllable.

The most widely used Italian metres, on the other hand, were the 11-syllable line (hendecasyllable) and the 7-syllable line (heptasyllable). The hendecasyllable always had a fixed stress on the 10th syllable and secondary stresses generally on the 2nd and 6th or 4th, 6th and/or 8th. The heptasyllable had a fixed accent on the 6th. The challenge lay in adapting the Spanish metre (sometimes called a galloping metre) to the Italian, which rarely stressed the 5th or 7th syllable.

Changing from the octosyllable to the hendecasyllable may not appear much, but it meant overthrowing a tradition of centuries and adopting a radically new rhythm. This is what Garcilaso was able to do, and he was soon imitated by all subsequent Golden Age poets.

Nevertheless, native metres were not abandoned and remained vigorous throughout the Golden Age. Later major poets, for example, Luis de Góngora, Lope de Vega and Francisco de Quevedo moved easily from one to the other.

What Garcilaso did with his successful experiment was to demonstrate the flexibility of the Spanish language and produce a poetry that was much more supple, melodic, and harmonious than lyrics written in the native tradition.

The new poetry, besides being capable of capturing a wide variety of human emotions, vastly enriched the horizons of Spanish Golden Age poetry… and drama (which was overwhelmingly written in verse).

Forms introduced by Boscán and Garcilaso.
1. Octava Rima or Octava Real: stanza of 8 lines, each line being a hendecasyllable. The rhyming scheme alternates in the first six lines and ends with a rhyming couplet: ABABABCC. Later it became the main type of verse used in narrative poems, including the epic.
2. Tercet (terceto, Italian terza rima): 3-line hendecasyllable with an interlocking rhyme: ABA BCB, CDC etc. That is, the second line of the first tercet becomes the first line of the second tercet, and the second line of the second tercet in turn becomes the first line of the third tercet and so on. It closes with a quatrain (4 lines). The preferred form for epistolary poems.
3. Canción (Italian Canzone): Stanza with a combination of hendecasyllables and heptasyllables. The arrangement and length of the first stanza are those followed by subsequent stanzas, although the last is usually about half the length. The stanza length normally ranges between 10 and 20 lines.
4. Free Verse: Hendecasyllables without rhyme.
5. Lira: a stanza of 5 lines, with a combination of hendecasyllables and heptasyllables, aBabB (lower case = heptasyllable, upper case = hendecasyllable). The name lira comes from a poem by Garcilaso, but it is really a form taken from the Italian poet Bernardo Tasso, whom Garcilaso knew in Naples. Tasso sought to reproduce the metres of the classical poet, Horace. Garcilaso wrote only one lira, but it was the favourite stanza form of Fray Luis de León and San Juan de la Cruz (St John of the Cross).
6. Sonnet: the most famous poetic form of all those imported from Italy. The sonnet consists of fourteen lines, all hendecasyllables. In Spain the sonnet follows the Petrarchan model and is made up of an octave (or two quatrains) and a sestet (or two tercets).

The octet generally rhymes ABBA/ABBA; the sestet is more variable, but mostly is CDC/DCD or CDE/CDE. A note to keep in mind here: Garcilaso was not the first Spaniard to attempt the sonnet. Iñigo López de Mendoza, the Marqués de Santillana (1398-1458) had already written 42 sonnets al itálico modo.

Garcilaso’s successful adoption of Italian metres and stanza forms is only part of the revolution. Equally important was his ability to capture the humanistic spirit of his Italian and classical models, for example Petrarch and Sannazaro, and Virgil, Horace and Ovid.

He also participated in the energetic discussions on language and philosophy current in Italy and Spain at the time: e.g. Pietro Bembo’s ideas on language and philosophy, the Neo-Platonism espoused by Marsilio Ficino, Leone Ebreo and Bembo, and the cultured activities of the courtier as explained by Baldassare Castiglione. These ideas are distilled through his verse, blending with imagery -e.g. mythological, pastoral, love-borrowed from the major Italian and classical poets.

All of these cultural innovations, however, depended for their impact on the genius of Garcilaso. After all, Boscán was undertaking the same experiments but without reaching the heights of his friend. Garcilaso had that innate talent of knowing how to “select and how to put words together” (escoger y saber juntar las palabras, to paraphrase a contemporary of his, Ambrosio de Morales, 1546), which in the last analysis is the secret of all great writers.

Sources:
Grossman, Edith The Golden Age: Poems of the Spanish Renaissance. W.W. Norton Bilingual edition 2006
McCaw, John and Spinnenweber, Kathleen eds. Anthology of Spanish Golden Age Poetry European Masterpieces 2007
Rivers, Elias ed Renaissance and Baroque Poetry of Spain Prospect Heights Illinois Waveland Press 1988 (With English prose translations of the poems.)
Walters, Gareth The Cambridge Introduction to Spanish Poetry: Spain and Spanish America, Cambridge 2002
Wardropper, Bruce Spanish Poetry of the Golden Age New York, Meredith Corporation, 1971
www.garcilaso.org Useful web site in Spanish

Fuenteovejuna: The Sheepwell.
Introduction: Fuenteovejuna is one of the best known Spanish Golden Age plays, and its author, Lope de Vega, the most popular and influential dramatist of the period. Prodigiously talented, Lope’s output was vast, encompassing prose and verse as well as drama.

His major contribution was to fix the norms for the Golden Age comedia (i.e. drama) in both structure and thematic variety. Plays were divided into three acts and written in verse. The classical unities of time and place were disregarded although that of action was retained.

The plot that carried the action was frequently supported by a relevant comic or serious subplot, and a comic character (the gracioso) was often present. Lope overturned classical decorum by mixing comic and tragic elements, and having both nobles (even royalty) and peasants appearing on the stage at the same time.

Thematically, Lope drew inspiration from a wide variety of sources: e.g. history, classical mythology, the Bible, lives of saints, Italian literature. However, two themes he worked with particular success were amorous cloak and dagger intrigues (comedias de capa y espada) and honour conflicts, especially between the peasantry and nobility.

Fuenteovejuna is an historical play, based on an uprising in the village of Fuenteovejuna (North West of Córdoba) in 1476. It was composed probably between 1612 and 1614. The action of the play takes place in 1476, but with implications not just for the audience of the 17th century but for all ages: good governance, loyalty, justice, the meaning of honour, trust, true love, sacrifice. Is nobility restricted only to social rank?

The main plot centres on the relationship between the noble, Fernán Gómez de Guzmán, Comendador (Knight Commander) of the Order of Calatrava**, and the villagers of Fuenteovejuna; the subplot addresses the relationship between the Comendador and the Catholic Monarchs. In both, the Comendador creates disorder. For order and harmony to return, the Comendador must either recognise his error or be destroyed. (See El burlador de Sevilla for another creator of disorder, Don Juan.)

**Order of Calatrava.

One of three major religious-military orders (the others were Santiago and Alcántara) founded in Castile in the 12th century to counter the threat posed by the Almohads, Muslim forces who arrived from Morocco in 1145. The Moorish castle of Calatrava (South East of Ciudad Real) was taken by the Christians in 1147 and then defended initially by Templar knights. When these withdrew, they were replaced by Castilian knights and monks to defend the area. These formed their own order in 1158, which was officially approved by the Pope in 1164. By the 15th century, the three orders had become very powerful, owning immense estates, towns and fortresses, and were seen as a threat to royal authority.

Political Background: It is 1476. The Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, are embroiled in a dynastic war for the throne of Spain with the Portuguese king, Afonso V and his young Castilian wife Juana –Isabella’s niece- following the death of Henry IV of Castile (1474). The Portuguese were supported by disaffected Castilian nobles (who had opposed the marriage of Isabella to Ferdinand, who was from Aragón), and many towns and villages under the control of the nobles.

ACT I.
Scene 1 (ll. 1-172): The play opens in Almagro (a town between Madrid and Seville).

The Comendador of Calatrava, Fernán Gómez de Guzmán, has just arrived and is offended that the young Maestre (Grand Master) of Calatrava, Rodrigo Téllez Girón, has not been present to greet him. Fernán Gómez views this as a lack of courtesy that he is owed as Rodrigo’s elder. The Comendador’s servants attribute Rodrigo’s oversight to his youth; Rodrigo says that he was unaware of the Comendador’s arrival.

After apologising (ll. 61-2) Rodrigo asks about the war, the background to which is then given by Fernán Gómez (ll. 69-140). At the same time, he urges the Rodrigo to gather his troops and attack the nearby town of Ciudad Real, which supports the Catholic Monarchs. The Comendador argues that by such action, Rodrigo would acquire fame worthy of his illustrious predecessors. The young Maestre agrees.

Scene 2 (ll. 173-634). This long scene takes us to Fuenteovejuna, a village under the control of the Order of Calatrava (whose representative in the village is Fernán Gómez).

The scene opens with a conversation between Laurencia and Pascuala about the disagreeable behaviour of the Comendador. He is a womaniser and has been pursuing Laurencia for a month (l. 199).

What Laurencia seeks is a peaceful life in the country (which she describes in lyrical terms (ll. 217-40), and not be the subject of men’s deceptions. Pascuala agrees, adding that once men’s desires have been satisfied they lose interest. Both conclude that no man is to be trusted (l. 273).

Lines 275-444: At this moment, Laurencia and Pascuala are joined by Mengo, Barrildo and Frondoso. Frondoso addresses Laurencia and Pascuala as damas (ladies), a courtly term inappropriate for two village girls. This gives rise to a discussion of the differences between country and town/court life**, with emphasis on the flattery and double standards practised in the latter (ll. 292-347).

**The praise of country life and scorn for courtly
life (alabanza de aldea y menosprecio de corte)
was a popular topic in Golden Age literature.

This leads in turn to an equally unlikely discussion among peasants: a philosophic commentary on the nature of love (ll. 366-444). Barrildo and Frondoso argue that love is harmony and love for others, while Mengo asserts that love is self-interest. Laurencia agrees with Mengo.

The discussion ends inconclusively with the arrival of the Comendador’s servant, Flores. He brings news (ll. 455-528) of the conquest of Ciudad Real by the Comendador and the Maestre. The latter –ornately dressed like Fernán Gómez- has distinguished himself and generously shared the booty with the Comendador and others. Music then announces the arrival of the triumphant Comendador (ll. 529-44).

Lines 545- 634: The villagers, headed by the village elders, Juan Rojo and Esteban greet their lord warmly, with praise and gifts, and confirmation of their loyalty to him.

The Comendador dismisses them curtly (l. 589), and immediately addresses Laurencia and Pascuala. He quickly makes his intentions clear, telling them to accompany him. Laurencia demurs and Pascuala objects, upon which Flores explains that Fernán Gómez wants to show them what he has brought from the war (a variation of “come and see my etchings”!!).

Laurencia and Pascuala resist. Ortuño, the Comendador’s other servant, suggests that the two women are part of the gifts their master had received when he arrived. “Isn’t he satisfied with the flesh he has already received?” asks Laurencia (alluding to the various meats offered to the Comendador). “Yours is what he wants,”replies Ortuño, whereupon Laurencia and Pascuala leave.

Scene 3 (ll. 635-722): takes us to Medina del Campo where Ferdinand and Isabella are lodged. Two councillors have arrived from Ciudad Real seeking their help. They explain how the town was overcome by the Maestre, although they make it clear that without the advice and help of the Comendador (ll. 679-82), Rodrigo would not have been able to take it. Isabella urges immediate intervention, seconded by Fernando who orders reinforcements to accompany the two councillors back to Ciudad Real.

Scene 4 (ll. 723-860): we return to the countryside near Fuenteovejuna. Frondoso and Laurencia are alone. He confesses his love for her and she concedes that she has some feeling for him (ll. 773-74). Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of the Comendador who is out hunting. Laurencia tells Frondoso to hide, which he does.

Using hunting imagery, Fernán Gómez accosts Laurencia, informing her that other village women have been very willing to accept his advances (ll. 799-804). Laurencia rejects him angrily, upon which the Comendador puts down his cross bow and attacks her. At this point, Frondoso breaks out from his hiding place, seizes the bow and threatens the Comendador. After ensuring that Laurencia has left, Frondoso departs with the bow, leaving the Comendador swearing vengeance.

ACT II.
Scene 1 (ll. 861-1138): The act opens in Fuenteovejuna where, after concern over the harvest and brief criticisms of astrologers and the printing press (which has allowed poor writers to be published), the topic turns to the deplorable behaviour of the Comendador. “Was there anyone so cruel and lecherous?” asks one peasant. “I’d like to see him hung from that olive tree” (ll. 939-40).

At this moment, Fernán Gómez appears, and a disagreement soon ensues between him and Esteban, the village mayor and Laurencia’s father. The Comendador compares Laurencia to a “hare” he is hunting, which offends Esteban and the other villagers with him. A village councillor (regidor) dares to point out that it is not right for the Comendador to deprive them of their honor (ll. 986-88).

Fernán Gómez can scarcely believe the villagers’ claim to honour and is amazed that they see his treatment of them as dishonorable. In his opinion, peasants simply do not have honour. They insist that they do. “You have honour?” he asks, and sarcastically adds “What knights of Calatrava [you are]!” (ll. 989-90). In towns, he adds, there are married men who are happy to see their wives receive visitors. Esteban replies “Not here [they don’t]” (ll.1005-07). With this, the Comendador rudely dismisses the villagers.

Lines 1025-1138. Left alone with Flores and Ortuño, Fernán Gómez can hardly contain his anger: “Do these think they are my equals?” (l. 1029). “The world’s coming to an end, Flores,” he adds (l. 1050), before reviewing with Flores and Ortuño a list of his conquests. Following this, he cynically concludes that those women who surrender themselves quickly are those least respected.

The arrival of a messenger (ll. 1105-38) interrupts the conversation. Fernán Gómez is needed in Ciudad Real, which is under attack from the forces of the Catholic Monarchs.

Scene 2 (ll. 1139-1278): Mengo, Laurencia and Pascuala appear. Their conversation centres on the Comendador, whom they describe as a “cruel devil” (l. 1145), “bloodthirsty animal” (l. 1150), “tiger’” (l. 1186). A fleeing Jacinta confirms their views of Fernán Gómez. She is being pursued by the Comendador’s servants who have been ordered to carry her off to Ciudad Real.

Fearful, Laurencia and Pascuala flee, leaving Jacinta with Mengo, who tries to defend her. For his trouble, Mengo is thrashed, and Jacinta is dragged off as part of the “baggage” (l. 1271) for the Comendador’s army. For Fernán Gómez, Mengo is beneath contempt, an ignoble individual from a vil lugar (“despicable place” l. 1221).

However, by his willingness to defend Jacinta, Mengo has behaved honorably, and has also disproved his earlier thesis that the world is governed by self-interest. He has sacrificed his own safety in his defence of Jacinta.

Scene 3 (ll. 1279-1450): We move to Esteban’s house in Fuenteovejuna. The violence of the preceding scene now gives way to one of harmony, underlined by Frondoso and Laurencia’s mutual declaration of love. Seeing her father (Esteban) approach, Laurencia hides while Frondoso asks Esteban for her hand.

Esteban is accompanied by a councillor, both lamenting the Comendador’s “excesses” (demasías l. 1324) and Jacinta’s kidnapping. After noticing Frondoso, Esteban and the councillor hear Frondoso’s request to marry Laurencia. After a little banter in which Esteban teases Laurencia (who has reappeared) (ll. 1410-22), everything is set for Frondoso and Laurencia’s marriage.

Scene 4 (ll. 1451-73): Near Ciudad Real. Things have gone badly for the Comendador and the Maestre. Ferdinand and Isabella’s troops have retaken the city. Fernán Gómez accepts no responsibility for the revolt against the Catholic Monarchs, pointedly saying to the young Rodrigo: “Your plans, Girón, have come to nothing” (l. 1458).

Scene 5 (ll. 1474-1653: Back to Fuenteovejuna. Preparations are made for the marriage. When Mengo mentions the Comendador, Barrildo cuts him off, not wanting to be reminded of that “murderous barbarian/ who deprives everyone of honour” (ll. 1487-8).

In the midst of the revelry, Fernán Gómez and his servants suddenly appear, casting a shadow over the celebration. The Comendador immediately orders Frondoso to be tied up (l. 1582; for having earlier threatened him with his own cross bow, end of Act I) and orders him to be sent to prison (ll. 1589-90). He rejects Pascuala’s plea to forgive Frondoso (ll. 1595-6), whom he accuses of treason for having rebelled against the Grand Master, Rodrigo, and against him.

Fernán Gómez’s accusation is cynical: he does not recognise that he himself has rebelled against his natural lords, the Catholic Monarchs and has urged the inexperienced Maestre to do the same. The Comendador has rebelled with no more reason than political opportunism, whereas Frondoso’s revolt against him was morally justified.

Fernán Gómez underlines his cynicism exclaiming “What loyal subjects [you people of Fuenteovejuna are]!” (l. 1607), when he himself has been disloyal to the Catholic Monarchs. Esteban reminds him that there are rulers in Castile who will bring order where discord has been sown, and they will not allow men –who are powerful just because they wear a powerful cross (i.e. in this case the cross of Calatrava)— to go unpunished (ll. 1622-32).

The act ends with two further excesses: the Comendador strikes Esteban with his (Esteban’s) staff of office and orders Laurencia to be taken away.

ACT III:
Scene 1 (ll. 1654-1849): In Fuenteovejuna. The villagers gather to see what can be done about the Comendador. Various solutions are suggested: appealing to Ferdinand and Isabella, abandoning the village, or seeking vengeance by killing the tyrants (i.e. the Comendador and his men). The discussion is interrupted by the arrival of a dishevelled Laurencia, who launches into a tirade (ll. 1725-95) against the village men.

She accuses them of being cowards, chickens, half-men, sheep, hares, pansies, for allowing her to have been kidnapped by the Comendador. Such accusation quickly move the men to action against Fernán Gómez, while at the same time they make clear that they are not rebelling against the Catholic Monarchs: “Long live our señores (i.e. Ferdinand and Isabella)/ Death to treacherous tyrants” (ll. 1815-16). As the men leave, they are followed by the women who have organised themselves into a militia.

Scene 2 (ll. 1850-1921): The villagers break into the Comendador’s house. Stunned (“The people against me!”), Fernán Gómez frees Frondoso and asks him to intercede with the villagers, but it is too late. Against shouts of “Long live Ferdinand and Isabella, and death/ to traitors” (ll.1867-8), the Comendador cries out, “I am your lord” (l. 1887). “The Catholic Monarchs/ are our lords” (ll. 1887-88) is the collective reply by the men. As they attack, they are joined by the women so that both men and women are implicated in the assassination.

Fernán Gómez’s servants, Flores and Ortuño flee, chased by the women and Mengo (who identifies Flores as the one who had whipped him mercilessly earlier (Act II, Scene 2). Laurencia urges the women on, and the scene ends with cries of “Fuenteovejuna, and long live King Ferdinand” (l. 1921).

Scene 3 (ll. 1922-2029): In Toro (East of Zamora, on the River Duero) where the Catholic Monarchs are assured that Ciudad Real is theirs. Flores arrives seeking justice! It is a biased account according to which Fernán Gómez was attacked by his vassals “with little cause” (l. 1969). After killing the Comendador “with a thousand cruel stabs” (l. 1981), the men of the village threw him out of a window whereupon the women then set upon him. The king acts immediately (ll. 2016-29), sending a judge to Fuenteovejuna to investigate and punish the guilty.

Scene 4 (ll. 2030-2125): Back in Fuenteovejuna, the peasants celebrate with the Comendador’s head stuck on a lance while musicians and others in the village emphasise their loyalty to the Catholic Monarchs. Following Esteban’s caution that Ferdinand and Isabella will want to find out who killed the Comendador, the villagers prepare their defence. They agree that the response must be that Fuenteovejuna did it collectively.

Scene 5 (ll. 2126-61): A brief scene in Almagro. The young Maestre has just heard of the Comendador’s death and gives orders for 500 men to go to Fuenteovejuna and destroy it. However, a soldier advises him to calm down and not anger the king any further. The soldier further suggests that the Maestre go to the king and plead his case, advice which Rodrigo accepts.

Scene 6 (ll. 2162-2291): Back in Fuenteovejuna. After a brief scene between Frondoso and Laurencia (he rejects her suggestion that he run away), the judge arrives. During interrogation and torture (even of women and children), the only reply he can get is the collective “Fuenteovejuna [did it], sir” (ll. 2209, 2216, 2230, 2237), and Mengo’s “Sir, Fuenteovejunica [did it]” (l. 2251). Collective action and collective responsibility.

Scene 7 (ll. 2292-2455): With the Catholic Monarchs in Tordesillas (East of Toro). The Maestre appears to plead his case: he was young, he was deceived, he was ill-advised. Begging the monarchs’ pardon, he offers his service to fight in Granada where Ferdinand and Isabella are heading next. His offer is accepted and he is forgiven.

Finally, the peasants of Fuenteovejuna arrive, and Esteban, Frondoso and Mengo present their defence and ask for forgiveness. The king accepts their reasoning and, since the crime committed against the villagers was serious, they are pardoned.

Translation.
Bentley, Eric Life is a Dream and other Spanish Classics (includes Fuenteovejuna (The Sheepwell) and El Burlador de Sevillla (The Trickster of Seville) New York 1985.

Spanish Text used.
Martel, Alpern, Mades Diez comedias del Siglo de Oro 2nd. ed. New York, London 1968. Translations into English are mine.