Bethany Marie Gilliam Dissertation
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The Monstrous Guide to Madrid: The Grotesque Mode in the Novels of the Villa y Corte (1599-1657) DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Bethany Marie Gilliam Graduate Program in Spanish and Portuguese The Ohio State University 2014 Dissertation Committee: Professor Elizabeth B. Davis, Advisor Professor Jonathan Burgoyne Professor Emeritus Donald Larson Copyright by Bethany Marie Gilliam 2014 Abstract This dissertation examines the relationship between the literary grotesque mode and the growing pains of Madrid during the first century of its status as Villa y Corte, capital of the Spanish empire. The six novels analyzed in this study – Guzmán de Alfarache (1599, 1604), El Buscón (1626), Guía y avisos de forasteros (1620), Las harpías en Madrid (1633), El diablo cojuelo (1641) and El Criticón (1651, 1653, 1657) – are significant because their authors employ the grotesque mode to show their perspectives on the changes that they witnessed in Madrid. The central goal of this project is to examine the continued presence of the grotesque mode in these novels and how the use of this mode was motivated by the historical crisis that took place during the years following Philip II’s decision to move the court to Madrid. In this vein, Philip Thomson recognizes that moments of change are particularly conducive to the use of the grotesque in art and literature. Using studies on the grotesque by Thomson, Wolfgang Kayser, Henryk Ziomek, James Iffland and Paul Ilie, this dissertation will present a definition of the grotesque mode as it applies to a carefully chosen grouping of seventeenth-century Spanish novels. This definition is based on three pillars. The first is the tension produced by the combination of the comic and a “sphere of negativity,” the term that Iffland utilizes to signify something that is incompatible with the comic. The second is the grotesque conceit, an exaggeration or distortion of the conceit as formulated by Baltasar Gracián. The third pillar of the ii grotesque mode is distortion of characters and their actions, which is accomplished through a variety of means. In the selected novels, the most frequent device used to distort the subject is zoomorphism, or the combination of elements of the human, plant and vegetative spheres to describe a single object. The first chapter of this study examines the grotesque picaresque images in Guzmán de Alfarache. Using Mikhail Bakhtin’s “material bodily concept” as a methodological framework, it demonstrates the increasing connection between the grotesque mode in literature and urban spaces. Chapter Two examines El Buscón and utilizes Bakhtin’s theory of the chronotope to examine how the grotesque mode is used in the narrative creation of two new chronotopes in the court city: the “road to Madrid” and the “streets of Madrid.” Chapter Three analyzes the use of the grotesque mode in the immigrant stories included in the courtly novels Guía y avisos de forasteros and Las harpías en Madrid. In these novels, a darker side of Madrid emerges from the shadows of the “land of opportunity” of Madrid, where grotesque descriptions of the upper social classes, while lacking in the picaresque novel, abound. Chapter Four concludes this study with a discussion of how the grotesque mode is used to describe the fight for survival that the inhabitants of Madrid experience in El diablo cojuelo and El Criticón. In this chapter, I propose that Gracián consciously produces a true grotesque aesthetic in El Criticón. In both of these novels, the city of Madrid itself is filled with abnormal, even monstrous, images that show that the Villa y iii Corte suffered immensely during its growth towards a city worthy of housing the court of the Spanish empire. iv To Brenda Gilliam. For everything, thank you. v Acknowledgments I would sincerely like to thank the following people: • The individuals of the Fulbright Program and the Comisión Fulbright, whose support allowed me to research this dissertation topic in the Biblioteca Nacional Española, the Archivo Histórico Nacional, and the Archivo de la Villa de Madrid. • My advisor, Dr. Elizabeth Davis; without her dedication, advice, and push to succeed in the face of unforeseen setbacks, this dissertation would have remained unfinished. Your caring words helped me to feel pride in myself and in my work. • My professors and colleagues in at The Ohio State University, especially Professors Elizabeth Davis, Jonathan Burgoyne, Donald Larson, Geoffrey Parker, and Stephen Summerhill. Thank you for your interest in my professional development and your positive influences on my dissertation project. • Bud and Brenda Gilliam, Matthew Gilliam, and Jennifer Sanchez-Huerta, who never stopped encouraging me to write this dissertation despite the thousands of miles of distance that it put between us. “Thank you” isn’t enough to show my gratitude. • My husband Jorge Declara García, who taught me to love. Thank you for your unconditional patience. vi Vita 2002 ..............................................................Lord Botetourt High School 2006 ...............................................................B.A. Spanish, Roanoke College 2008............................................................... M.A. Peninsular Spanish Literature, The Ohio State University 2011 ..............................................................ABD in Iberian Literatures and Cultures, The Ohio State University Publications Gilliam, Bethany. “Review.” Rev. of El teatro del Siglo de Oro: Edición e interpretación, by Alberto Blecua, Ignacio Arrellano and Guillermo Serés. The Sixteenth Century Journal 42.2 (2011): 630. Fields of Study Major Field: Spanish and Portuguese vii List of Abbreviations Used in Notes AGS = Archivo General de Simancas AHN = Archivo Histório Nacional AVM = Archivo de la Villa de Madrid BNE = Biblioteca Nacional Española f.(f.) = folio(s) viii Table of Contents Abstract................................................................................................................................ii Dedication............................................................................................................................v Acknowledgments..............................................................................................................vi Vita....................................................................................................................................vii List of Abbreviations Used in Notes................................................................................viii Introduction: Introduction to the Grotesque Mode in the Novel of Seventeenth-Century Madrid..................................................................................................................................1 Chapter One. The Journey to Madrid in Guzmán de Alfarache: The Development of the Grotesque Picaresque.........................................................................................................27 Chapter Two. Mapping Madrid in El Buscón: The Grotesque Narration of the Chronotopes of the Court City...........................................................................................65 Chapter Three. Immigrant Stories in the Maremágnum of Madrid: Guía y avisos de forasteros que vienen a la Corte and Las harpías en Madrid.........................................108 Chapter Four. Monstrous Madrid: The Development of the Grotesque Aesthetic in El diablo cojuelo and El Criticón.........................................................................................155 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................206 Bibliography....................................................................................................................212 ix Introduction to the Grotesque Mode in the Novel of Seventeenth-Century Madrid In June 1561, Philip II changed forever the fate of Madrid by proclaiming the city as the new, permanent home of the previously itinerant court. David Ringrose studied the installment of the royal family and its entourage in the Alcázar, a military fortress hastily converted into a royal palace for the occasion. Yet even the title that he gives to a section of his work, “Sólo Madrid es Corte,” suggests the ambivalent reputation of the new court city. The small town at once gained international importance as the hub of what was arguably the most powerful European empire; there was no confusion about the very claim that only Madrid was court brought with it a privileged status that immediately made the city rival other economically-stronger cities with a prouder lineage and more established history, such as Seville, Toledo and Valladolid. However, as Ringrose points out, the phrase “Sólo Madrid es Corte” was soon used in a mocking way, pointing out that Madrid was nothing but the court. With relatively little history – much of which was dominated by the Moors, century-long enemies of the Spanish Crown – and a small, uncultured population, some stated that the only bragging rights to which Madrid was 1 entitled was its prized status as court city. Clearly, Philip II and his successors had a long road to travel to create a prosperous urban Madrid worthy of its title. The physical and social evolutions of seventeenth-century Madrid are expressed not only in scholarly monographs that look back on Madrid’s history