The New Christian Desengaño and Diaspora Identities of Antonio Enríquez Gómez
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LONGING FOR JUSTICE: THE NEW CHRISTIAN DESENGAÑO AND DIASPORA IDENTITIES OF ANTONIO ENRÍQUEZ GÓMEZ DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Matthew David Warshawsky, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2002 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Elizabeth B. Davis, Adviser Professor Rebecca Haidt ________________________ Adviser Professor Donald Larson Department of Spanish and Portuguese ABSTRACT This dissertation studies the dream narratives and accompanying interpolated semipicaresque stories of Antonio Enríquez Gómez in order to understand the satirizing aims of an exiled Spanish New Christian author. In El siglo pitagórico y vida de don Gregorio Guadaña, La torre de Babilonia, and La inquisición de Lucifer y visita de todos los diablos, Enríquez Gómez addresses corruption and deceit in the dominant ideology. Using allegorical settings whose satirical characteristics reflect the seventeenth century, Enríquez Gómez calls for the reform of greed, false appearances, and pride. The dissertation explores how, within the framework of Judeo-Christian teachings, the author challenges the social order of places such as a fictionalized Babylon and an infernal Inquisition that in varying degrees are metaphors for Spain. The dissertation also argues that the New Christian perspective of Enríquez Gómez’s works differentiates them from similar texts of his contemporary, Francisco de Quevedo, by substituting converso dissillusionment for the “stock” Golden Age type. This perspective is evident in Enríquez Gómez’s criticism of the Spanish Inquisition; in a definition of original sin that reflects a converso’s exile, longing, and rootlessness; and in the assertion of the superiority of virtuous deeds to ethnicity. Aided by theories of the moveable positionality of speakers and of the impermanence of human subjects, the ii dissertation shows how mobile narrators in the texts oppose injustice and hypocrisy from multiple spaces. Enríquez Gómez does not write as a Judaizer, and satirizes most bitterly New Christians who inform against each other. The reforms his speakers suggest would have benefited society in general, without regard to ethnicity. As well, the narrative voices of the author’s dream and picaresque fiction offer insight into the mind of a writer determined to fight the immorality that he felt caused his social and economic marginalization. His praise for virtuous conduct in government, the professions, and individual relations and his criticism of the absence of such conduct confirm his awareness of widespread social degradation. Our greater knowledge of his works can validate the contribution to Golden Age literature of a New Christian author who expresses an important but understudied component of Spanish culture. iii For Theresa, Sienna, and Jacob, with love and thanks iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank Glen Dille, Constance Rose, Michael McGaha, Nechama Kramer-Hellinx, Heliodoro Cordente, and Kenneth Brown, all of whom sent me copies of their publications and were kind enough to correspond with me at length via telephone and electronic and surface mail about the complex nature of Antonio Enríquez Gómez. I am also grateful to Señor Cordente for a guided tour of the part of Cuenca where Enríquez Gómez’s family lived. Although I never spoke with her, I also wish to thank Teresa de Santos Borreguero. Her edition of La torre de Babilonia, especially its meticulous notes, has been an invaluable aid to my comprehension of this difficult text. I also thank my dissertation committee in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at The Ohio State University: Elizabeth B. Davis (my adviser), Donald Larson, and Rebecca Haidt. Professor Larson helped guide my thinking about the complex social position of New Christians during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Professor Haidt was very excited by this topic and made many useful suggestions, including that of the dissertation’s title. I owe a very special debt of gratitude to Professor Davis for her support of this project and of my progress as a student of the Spanish Golden Age, as well as for the many hourse she spent reading and commenting on draft versions and helping me strengthen the final outcome. v I am grateful to my parents, David and Elizabeth Warshawsky, to my wife, Theresa Burks, to my children, Sienna and Jacob, and to all the members of my family in Cleveland, Oregon, Arizona, and Washington, D.C., for their encouragement, love, and help with the computer. Theresa was very enthusiastic about the dissertation during all stages of its composition, and kept me calm during moments of stress. My research in Madrid and Cuenca was supported by a grant from the Tinker Foundation and a fellowship from the Program for the Enhancement of Graduate Studies for Research/Archival Work Abroad at The Ohio State University. vi VITA August 26, 1969. Born - Cleveland, Ohio 1998. M.A., Spanish Literature and Culture The Ohio State University 1996 - 2001. Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, The Ohio State University 2002 . Lecturer in Spanish, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Portland State University 2002 - 2003. Visiting Assistant Professor of Spanish, Department of English and Foreign Languages, University of Portland FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Spanish and Portuguese Spanish literature and culture (classical and modern) Minor Field: Medieval and Renaissance Studies vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract . ii Dedication . iv Acknowledgments . .v Vita . vii Chapters: 1. Introduction . .1 2. The Despair and Hope of the Wandering Soul of El siglo pitagórico . .71 3. The Satirical Caballero of the Vida de don Gregorio Guadaña . 130 4. Beyond Linguistic Confusion: The Chaos of La torre de Babilonia . .169 5. Fictionalized Historical Characters in La torre de Babilonia . 232 6. Resistance to the Spanish Inquisition in La Inquisición de Lucifer y visita de todos los diablos . .259 7. Conclusion . .306 Bibliography . 320 viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Antonio Enríquez Gómez was a peripatetic Spanish cloth merchant and writer of the seventeenth century whose tumultuous life well illustrates the perilous and sad reality of Spaniards of Jewish descent forced to live as Christians. Unable to pay off creditors and disillusioned by the treatment his father and uncle had received from the Inquisition for practicing Jewish rites, this converso, or New Christian, spent appoximately 14 years as an exile in the French cities of Bordeaux and Rouen. There, amidst communities of other Spanish and Portuguese New Christian exiles, he articulated his criticisms of a society whose unethical value system had led in part to his self-imposed banishment. Two of the genres Enríquez Gómez chose as his means of expression were the dream narrative and reworkings of the picaresque novel, both of which were at the height of their popularity as satirical forms during the 1640s, the period of his exile. The dissertation’s study of the satirizing and reforming aims of three dreams and two inserted semipicaresque novels 1 written by Enríquez Gómez in France will show how his worldview is neither completely Jewish nor Christian, but combines teachings of both faiths. Before proceeding to a discussion of the works themselves, it will be helpful to describe the historical and biographical context that influenced their composition. Thus the Introduction commences with an explanation of the living conditions of New Christians in 1600s Spain and then outlines the multifaceted nature of Enríquez Gómez’s life. Brief descriptions of the texts and their significance follow the sections outlining the living conditions of both New Christians and the author himself. The next part of the Introduction mentions the characteristics of dream fiction and picaresque narrative in order to show how these genres are appropriate means of satire. Subsequently, a discussion of several Spanish New Christian writers previous to and contemporary with Enríquez Gómez situates his work within the rich field of converso-authored literary texts. Finally, the introductory chapter concludes with a statement of the theoretical framework to be used in the dissertation. This moment is also opportune for presenting to the reader the structure of the body of the dissertation. Chapters 2 treats the journey and observations of the wandering soul in the first dream, El siglo pitagórico y vida de don Gregorio Guadaña. Chapter 3 studies the adventures of Gregorio Guadaña himself in his semipicaresque autobiography, which is inserted into El siglo pitagórico. Chapter 4 explains injustices perceived by the narrator of 2 the second dream text, La torre de Babilonia, as well as the pessimism occasioned by his inability to correct them. Chapter 5 examines the perspectives of other voices in this work besides that of the narrator, including Marcos de Villena in the interpolated story “The Marquis of the Bottle,” and Heraclitus and Democritus in the spirited debate that closes the dream. Chapter 6 studies Enríquez Gómez’s protest of certain practices of the Spanish Inquisition in the third dream, La inquisición de Lucifer. The chapter also includes a comparison between the protest of this work and that of another text of the author’s exile period, La política angélica. Jews and Conversos in Moorish and Christian Spain A summary of the Jewish presence in Spain in the years before the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 can prepare the reader to better understand the distinct cultural identity and living conditions of New Christians in the years after that infamous event. The Hebrew word for the area that encompasses Spain is Sepharad; Jews are supposed to have lived in the Iberian Peninsula as early as the sixth century BCE, which is the latest date estimated for the writing of the Old Testament book of Obadiah. In his prophesy foretelling the triumph of Jacob and his line over the Edomites of Esau (Edom was another name for Esau), Obadiah declares how the Israelites, scattered as they are, will assert their power over Edom.