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Reviews______

Louise Ciallella. Quixotic Modernists: Reading Gender inTristana, Trigo, and Martínez Sierra. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell UP, 2007. 308 pp. ISBN: 978-0-8387-5663-8.

This engaging study offers a close reading of three : Benito Pérez Galdós’s Tristana (1892), Felipe Trigo’s Las ingenuas (1901), and María Martínez Sierra’s Tú eres la paz (1906). The title is a bit infelicitous; the author is not claiming that Galdós is a “quixotic modernist,” and, as she comments, Trigo and Martínez Sierra are now rarely read, so that either the titles of their works (alongside Tristana) or the authors’ full names might have been appropriate. An introductory chapter provides important data on literary, social, and political issues that faced writers at the end of the nineteenth cen- tury in Spain. Ciallella sees the status of women and gender issues as a “metaphorical battleground” (16) for the problems of the nation. Because it receives far less attention than other areas of feminism, the commentary on the agenda of conservative feminists (which some might consider an oxymoron) is especially useful. A survey of the role of women in Spanish society must bear in mind the issue of interpellation, the concept that reminds us that we are, to a large degree, products of controlled (and control- ling) environments. Feminism, in short, cannot shake the patriarchy. Among the topics treated in the introduction is Don Quijote and its relation to the novels under scrutiny. Informed in part by Bakhtin, a rather lengthy discussion of Teresa Panza as “a produc- tive working woman within an agrarian household” (25) is interesting, but perhaps less symbolic or intertextually relevant than Ciallella would propose. The introduction does not intend to be comprehensive, but its allusions to fundamental elements of social, literary, and theoretical debates are key to an understanding of fin-de-siglo . The critical core is the thesis that, in the three novels, “women’s bodies and words are inseparable from the Spanish landscape in terms of the texts’ revision of gender and class constructs” (45). Ciallella frames her chapter on Tristanaaround Emilia Pardo Bazán’s well-known critique of the . Pardo Bazán finds the suggestion of a “new ideal” to be promising, but she is not convinced by the execution. Following the path of critics who have cited Cervantine resonances in Galdós, Ciallella sees an ironic reversal of Don Quijote in Tristana, with “a quixotically sympathetic, double-voiced heroine”; a male (or antagonist), Don Lope, who “shows a powerful affinity with the Duchess, through both characters’ applications of proverbs and maxims, and their ostensibly whole yet

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privately decaying bodies”; and a love object, Horacio, who “fluctuates between the in- validated domestic arguments of Teresa Panza… and the Duchess’s chivalric solutions” (95). Using the term nongendered nature, Ciallella signals a radical destabilization of conventional masculinity and femininity in Tristana, while referring to “Tristana’s own masculinization of her creative capacity” and Lope’s “childlike old age at the end of the novel” as “a feminization of middle-class men as a result of their application of inherited controls” (95). Ultimately, she judges Tristanato posit a negative view of both the ángel del hogar archetype and individual feminist attempts to produce change, but the mean- ingful ellipsis at the end of the novel anticipates paradigm shifts that can be gleaned in the novels of Trigo and Martínez Sierra. Tristana is, in many ways, the most significant novel here, because it stands be- tween the literary past (notably, Don Quijote) and the immediate future (modernism). Its intermediary status and its compelling but ironic feminism strike me as stronger than Ciallella acknowledges. Without necessarily meaning to, she would seem to cor- roborate Pardo Bazán’s reading. In his so-called thesis novels, Galdós permits the vic- tory of injustice precisely to foreground injustice, to demonstrate—through — the case for (poetic) justice. In similar fashion, by punishing Tristana for her unrealistic ambitions through illness and by forcing her into a final compromise through marriage, Galdós may not be refuting her lofty goals but applauding them, while placing them within the parameters of social reality. His adherence to reality principles—and to the principles of narrative realism—does not exclude a push for social reform. Tristana is not only a beautiful literary creation but also an idealist in a world that is not ready for her, and that, for me, is the basis of her quixotism, which Galdós has rendered as thoughtful, serious, and precocious. Don Quijote is anachronistic; his ideals lie in the past. Tristana is forward-looking; her ideals project the future of feminism. Galdós’s technique, while rooted in realism and naturalism, never elides the playful self-con- sciousness that he has learned from Cervantes. If Don Quijote comprises the point of departure and Tristana the center of Quix- otic Modernists, the strongest contribution of the book may lie in its recuperative effort, in the analyses of Las ingenuas and Tú eres la paz. For Ciallella, Trigo portrays social matters as sexual matters; that is, he seeks an analogue, or synecdoche, for larger ques- tions of education and liberation by concentrating on feminine sexuality, a practice that angers and confuses some of his readers and critics. Ciallella effectively relates his social preoccupations to his modernist theory on narrative style and technique. She observes in Trigo’s novel a correspondence between subversion of language and sup- port of the opposition to institutional restraints by the ingenuous women of the title. Because women often are silenced in the public domain, Trigo allots substantial space to male characters, who help him to inscribe his social and political—as well as his literary—stance; these men become paradoxical agents of activism. Ciallella concludes that two of Trigo’s basic tenets are “that the messy material body is the object of a private fascination and a public repulsion, and that at the same time it is contradicto- rily an open secret” (170). She accentuates self-consciousness in the articulation of the Volume 28.1 (2008) Reviews 195 story and detects an echo of Galdós’s exposure of violence behind middle-class façades, but she differentiates between the avoidance of female hysteria (and male melancholy) in Tristana and the depiction in Las ingenuas of “a modern man as well as repressed women [who] suffer directly from the ailment” (171). The juxtaposition of theory and praxis is a major strength of this chapter, as is, for me, the poststructuralist flourish of reading women through men. Tú eres la paz was written by a woman, but published under the name of her husband, Gregorio Martínez Sierra. This was a concession to the difficulties of the woman writer, and it gives an odd gender inflection to the narrative. Ciallella sees the novel as exemplary in its blurring of traditional associations of men with the intellect and women with the emotions. She includes a section on María Martínez Sierra’s La tristeza del Quijote (1905)—a commentary to go along with a set of illustrations for the three-hundredth anniversary—which she classifies as “a modernist poetics that spiritu- ally unites the unreasonable figures of the madman, the child, and woman with that of the poet (and the reader)” (181). In Tú eres la paz, Martínez Sierra sets forth an array of female characters whose common denominator is their separation from dominant notions of femininity. The protagonist Ana moves from quixotic woman, marked by her imaginative gifts, to precursor of the feminists who will succeed her, and who will succeed. Ciallella challenges and enlightens the reader. Her theses might have been stron- ger had she stressed the particular manner in which she is defining modernism, and her borrowings from Bakhtinian discourse on occasion obscure rather than clarify her po- sition. Nonetheless, Quixotic Modernistsfills a number of gaps in contemporary literary history, which has forgotten some of the texts that were part of the spirit of their times. For this reason and for its exploration of feminism in transition, the book is worthy of notice.

Edward H. Friedman Vanderbilt University [email protected]

Stanislav Zimic. Cuentos y episodios del Persiles. De la isla bárbara a una apoteosis del amor humano. Vilagarcía de Arousa: Mirabel, 2005. 280 pp. ISBN: 84-934275-7-8.

Tanto la novela greco-helenística como la novela bizantina propiamente dicha practicaron con profusión el procedimiento que consiste en confiar la narración a uno de los personajes o en interrumpir la trama principal con narraciones episódicas. La importancia que tienen estas narraciones en la formación del género adquiere tales proporciones que sería difícil comprender la novela tal y como la conocemos hoy si 196 Reviews Cervantes

prescindiéramos de su historia. No estamos únicamente ante un fenómeno de oralidad residual encaminado a diversificar el punto de vista, sino que es el resultado de la incor- poración de diversos géneros orales al mundo de la escritura. En la narrativa cervantina, pero muy especialmente en elPersiles , todavía es posible rastrear ese proceso de forma- ción ahondando en la configuración de estos relatos, que responden a las convenciones del género de la novela bizantina, por utilizar la nomenclatura que prefiere Stanislav Zimic. Cuentos y episodios del Persiles. De la isla bárbara a una apoteosis del amor huma- no es un intento de explicar la unidad del Persiles tomando como eje articulador estos relatos. Para explicar esta unidad, Zimic parte de la premisa de que el Persiles es, ante todo, “una historia del amor y matrimonio de Periandro y Auristela, los protagonistas, en continuo e intenso entrecruce con numerosas otras historias de amor” (22). Cada una de estas historias ilustra un caso de amor, unas veces como mera realización literaria otras como auténticas experiencias vitales. El volumen está estructurado en veinte capítulos o apartados en los que se revisa cada uno de estos casos de amor, precedidos de una breve introducción, y seguidos de dos apéndices textuales y el consiguiente aparato crítico. En la introducción Zimic aborda algunos aspectos relacionados con la composición y con el género del Persiles. La composición se realizaría en dos tandas. La primera versión, acaso concebida en los inicios de la actividad literaria de Cervantes, incluiría el material de los dos primeros libros y la conclusión final. El viaje a Roma y la idea de convertir a los protagonistas en peregrinos, esto es, el libro tercero y parte del cuarto, serían un añadido posterior. Algu- nos de los cuentos del Libro III se concibieron de manera independiente quizás, afirma Zimic, “como novelas ejemplares, o hasta como piezas dramáticas y entremeses” (19). La versión definitiva del actualPersiles sería, pues, fruto del acomodo del nuevo material al armazón de la versión primigenia unificándolo todo con un contenido amoroso, propio de la novela bizantina. Y es que para Zimic, el género del Persiles responde al de una novela bizantina, cuya trama principal se entrecruza con otros relatos secundarios que se narran fragmentariamente para completarse o anudarse al final, mediante un com- plejo sistema de referencia interna. Esta complejidad compositiva sería la responsable de la atracción que Cervantes sintió por la temática y la técnica bizantinas durante toda su producción y desde luego “mucho antes de que recibiese también el estímulo de la Philosophía antigua poética del Pinciano (1595)” (17). Temáticamente también se ajusta al género bizantino, que es, ante todo, según Zimic, un catálogo amoroso en el que se entrecruzan no sólo la historia de los protagonistas sino también los casos de amor pro- tagonizados por los personajes secundarios. Estos casos de amor son el vehículo expre- sivo mediante el cual Cervantes profundiza en la interioridad de Periandro y Auristela, que aprenden y maduran su concepto de amor de manera que la anagnórisis física de las novelas bizantinas se convierte en una anagnórisis espiritual. Pero Cervantes, lejos de contenerse en las convenciones del género bizantino, adopta según Zimic, una actitud crítica y reta a los novelistas de la antigüedad explorando todas las posibilidades que le ofrece el género. Este catálogo amoroso se hace patente en los tres casos de amor que se cuentan en Volume 28.1 (2008) Reviews 197 las inmediaciones de la Isla Bárbara. El español Antonio, de imprudente e incontenible condición, redime su arrogancia mediante el amor de la bárbara Ricla, hasta el punto de desear la reconciliación con su contrario. Ésta llegará cuando los peregrinos alcancen Quintanar de la Orden y se materializará en su propia hija, Constanza. Zimic ve en esta historia el triunfo de “la virtud y del buen sentido sobre las maliciosas sensiblerías de la honra vulgar” que jalona el rígido sistema de convenciones sociales del momento (31). No obstante y a propósito del abrazo entre Antonio, el joven, y su tía, seriamente recriminado por un criado, Cervantes nos recuerda que su historia se mueve más en el terreno del deseo que en el de la realidad social. La historia de Rutilio es de muy distinto corte, aunque forjada igualmente en las alas del amor. El maestro de danzar, condenado a la horca por seducir a una alumna, escapa de la prisión con ayuda de una hechicera. Zimic escudriña las fisuras del relato y se pregunta si Rutilio no habrá inven- tado un caso de amor para impresionar a sus oyentes, ávidos de historias sazonadas con los más peregrinos infortunios. En cualquier caso, independientemente de la veracidad del relato, concluye Zimic, no hay por qué escatimar méritos a la destreza narrativa del italiano (37). El tercer caso trata de los trágicos amores del portugués Manuel de Sousa y Leonora. A diferencia de la lectura que responsabiliza cuando no culpa a Leonora del desenlace o la que atribuye el desengaño de Manuel a su propia necedad, Zimic matiza aspectos poco tratados por la crítica, como las hondas motivaciones religiosas que im- pulsan a Leonora a decantarse por el amor espiritual para dar sentido a su existencia, al mismo tiempo que hace hincapié en el sesgo teatral y dramático del episodio (41). Con el arribo a la isla de Golandia llegan nuevos casos de amor a medida que nuevos personajes se incorporen al relato. Transila se rebela contra las bárbaras leyes de una sociedad que se complace en violar a las vírgenes antes del matrimonio. Sus te- mores, subraya Zimic, tienen que ver con una actitud que oscila entre el amor paterno- conyugal y el temor ante la posibilidad de que padre y esposo, en connivencia con las prácticas del ius primæ noctis, fuercen su regreso a la patria. También en las historias de Clodio y Rosamunda entran a formar parte el amor y el destierro. Este último se produce por los caprichos de un monarca antojadizo, que en nombre de la razón de estado atropella a sus súbditos, prescinde de una Rosamunda ya caduca para saciar sus apetitos, y de un maldiciente Clodio cuya locuacidad ha dejado de divertir al monarca. Ambos personajes representan, según Zimic, el desgarro de quien se sabe llena de de- bilidades y de quien es consciente del destino que le está reservado a la crítica cuando incomoda al poder. En la corte del vetusto Policarpo un nuevo elemento viene a añadirse a los casos de amor: los celos. Allí amor y celos permean tanto el discurso mismo, en forma de definiciones, sentencias, admoniciones autoriales u otras fórmulas discursivas, como la psicología de los personajes. La relevancia que adquieren uno y otro propicia, por una parte, los numerosos enredos que dan lugar a lo que Zimic ha dado en llamar los “amo- res entrecruzados” del libro segundo. Por otra, dota al libro II de una cohesión temática que, según Zimic, induce a pensar que acaso fuera compuesto como obra indepen- diente. En esta corte, Periandro cuenta a sus compañeros un extenso relato que Zimic 198 Reviews Cervantes

analiza como un acto de amor. Se trataría de una respuesta a la zozobra amorosa que se apodera del corazón de Auristela. Periandro, sugiere Zimic, debió de inventar algunas de las historias que cuenta para convencer a Auristela de su fidelidad y constancia amo- rosa. Así la historia del caballo de Cratilo vendría a ser la confirmación del control de las pasiones que tanto habían angustiado a la celosa Auristela. Pero Zimic también lee el relato de Periandro como una crítica de todo el sistema de referencia interna y de los motivos típicos de la novela bizantina, es decir, de la prolijidad de sus descripciones, de las fastidiosas interrupciones que despistan al más atento lector, de las falsas muertes, que Cervantes convierte en verdaderas, o del carácter llorón del héroe, que tanto per- turbaba al espíritu clásico de Amyot, el primer traductor de las Etiópicas a una lengua romance. Esta sección, publicada como artículo en los años setenta, ha resistido bien el paso del tiempo y, dejando algunas matizaciones aparte, continúa siendo una aguda aproximación a la relación de Cervantes con el género de la novela greco-bizantina. No obstante, aunque a partir del Libro II la novela discurre por otros derroteros, pueden rastrearse algunas deudas con la técnica de la novela bizantina. Como respues- ta, también crítica, a la profusión de narraciones intercaladas e interrupciones tan fre- cuentes en el género bizantino, los dos últimos libros del Persiles hacen uso y abuso de los relatos intercalados hasta el punto de ejercer una fuerza centrífuga sobre la fábula llegando casi a diluirla. Zimic supone que buena parte del material de los dos últimos libros fue concebido de manera independiente, a modo de novelas ejemplares o piezas teatrales. La historia de Feliciana de la Voz se configura, para Zimic, como una novela corta en armonía con el conjunto de la obra, precisamente por su sesgo bizantino. El relato de Feliciana pretende los mismos efectos dramáticos y de que la acción principal a través de una trama tejida sobre la honra de una familia que no duda en echar mano de la sangre para limpiarla. Las estancias de amor que Feliciana canta y las que deja por escrito serían el contrapunto de la actitud irracional y precipitada de sus intransigentes parientes respaldados por un rígido convencionalismo social. Junto a la novela corta, el entremés es el otro gran ingrediente discursivo del libro III. El episodio de los falsos cautivos responde, para Zimic, a los rasgos fundamentales presentes en otros entremeses cervantinos, por lo que supone que fue concebido como entremés an- tes de entrar a formar parte de la novela. En el mismo sentido interpreta el episodio de Isabela Castrucha, llegando a sugerir, para el hipotético entremés, el título de La aman- te endemoniada. También el episodio de Croriano y Ruperta lo lee en clave dramática, aunque en esta ocasión lo conecta con las técnicas del teatro clásico. Una variante de los casos de amor es aquella que incluye el matrimonio. En el episodio de Ambrosia Agustina, no convencen a Zimic las explicaciones que Contarino da de su negativa a la consumación del matrimonio y se pregunta si no renunciaría para utilizarla como cinturón de castidad, y así asegurarse la fidelidad de Ambrosia Agustina durante su ausencia (167). De la misma manera que la Ambrosia Agustina es una de- fensora a ultranza del matrimonio, el tahúr que se apuesta la vida para conseguir veinte monedas y así alimentar a su familia supone una conmovedora defensa de los valores familiares. Volume 28.1 (2008) Reviews 199

Todos estos casos de amor alcanzan su cenit en Roma. Allí Auristela sufre una cri- sis existencial que en un primer momento intentará resolver a lo divino pero que, luego, llevada de un temple más sosegado, rectificará, al comprender que el amor humano no sólo es compatible con el divino sino que aquel es su representación en la tierra. Esta crisis no viene dada por la experiencia de la protagonista en Roma, ciudad que para Zimic en modo alguno constituye un ejemplo de santidad sino un escenario que evoca en los personajes las más peregrinas emociones. Por el contrario, son las experiencias vividas tras un largo periplo las que forjan y modifican la comprensión del mundo de la protagonista (200). Gracias a ellas Periandro y Auristela adquieren una dimensión in- terior más profunda que los aleja de los acartonados personajes de la novela bizantina. A modo de “despedida” cierra estos casos de amor un breve comentario sobre la dedi- catoria al conde de Lemos, donde Cervantes expresa su gratitud no sólo al estudiante pardal y a su benefactor sino también a todos sus lectores. En Cuentos y episodios del Persiles, Stanislav Zimic se propone demostrar la uni- dad de la novela desde unos presupuestos temáticos y en buena medida consigue su propósito. Pero esté propósito tiene su lado débil al no terminar de encajar con su idea de que el Persiles sea una obra hecha de materiales de aluvión. En cualquier caso estamos ante una lectura generosa con el lector, con sugerentes interpretaciones que, sin duda, hará reflexionar a los estudiosos delPersiles .

Isabel Lozano-Renieblas Dartmouth College [email protected]

Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quijote de la Mancha. Edición de Castilla-La Mancha. Al cuidado de Francisco Rico. Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha. Empresa Pública Don Quijote de la Mancha, 2005. CI + 1243 pp. Rico, Francisco. El texto del “Quijote”: Preliminares a una ecdótica del Siglo de Oro. Valladolid: Centro para la Edición de los Clásicos Es- panoles, Universidad de Valladolid, 2005. 566 pp.

The edition ofDon Quijote by a large team of Cervantes scholars and coordinated by Francisco Rico that was first published in 1998, and in a slightly revised version in 2004, has been universally praised and is often considered the closest thing we have to a ‘definitive’ edition of Cervantes’ novel. The edition under consideration here, published by the Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha (C-LM), reproduces that text of the nov- el, thus putting into the hands of readers an inexpensive, expertly annotated edition, but without all the extensive critical paraphernalia and bibliography of the exhaustively annotated edition for scholars. This is the second such edition to be made available, 200 Reviews Cervantes

as the same text of the novel (pagination identical) was also published in 2005 by the Real Academia Española. The RAE version was made available early in the year and enjoyed enormous success, selling well over a million copies. The C-LM edition did not appear for over a year and has had far less success. But if the text of the novel is identical in these two editions, the introductory and scholarly apparatus is not. The introductory material of the RAE edition begins with a ‘Presentación’ by Rico and is followed by essays by Mario Vargas Llosa, Francisco Ayala, and Martín de Riquer, and ends with a ‘Nota al texto’ by Rico. The C-LM edition also be- gins with a ‘Presentación’ by Rico (different from the RAE one) and is followed only by a ‘Prólogo’ by Rico and the same ‘Nota al texto’ as the other edition. The material following the text of the novel is completely different in the two editions. The RAE edition gives us a symposium on ‘La lengua de Cervantes y el Quijote’ with essays by five different scholars; this is followed by a ‘Glosario.’ In place of this, the C-LM edition ends with a lengthy set of supplementary material all prepared by Rico. First there is a series of ‘Anexos’ consist- ing of a summary biography of Cervantes, comments on language and style of the novel, and a very brief critical bibliography. Next comes a set of illustrations (also used in the original 1998 edition) and a lengthy set of ‘Indices’ dealing with proverbs, phrases, themes and characters, writers and works cited in the novel, and historical names, and a list of the words annotated. Finally, there is a summary. Which of these two editions is best? Depends on your preference. The superb text—the reason for the books’ existence—is exactly the same in both editions. So from this point of view they are exactly equal. The preliminary material in the RAE edition provides a nice little anthology of commentary on the novel, which may give it somewhat of a more popular appeal. On the other hand, the C-LM edition is Francis- co Rico’s presentation from start to finish. Its lengthy preliminary commentary is more coherent and consistent, one great scholar’s vision of the novel. The collection of essays on language and style in the RAE edition is very nice, covering the topic from a variety of points of view. The C-LM edition’s appendices and indices are more workman-like but are far more useful for the reader who wants to locate a specific word or phrase in the novel. Both editions are, in short, superb. It is simply a shame that the C-LM edi- tion did not appear sooner in order to give buyers another option. Francisco Rico’s El texto del “Quijote” is a masterful (and sometimes polemical) presentation of a series of topics related to the writing and publication of Cervantes’ novel. The book is divided into two parts, each of which consists of six chapters. Those of the longer first part are all new essays, and as such will be described at more length here, while those of the second part are reprints of articles published previously (mostly in journals such as Bulletin Hispanique and Hispanic Review; see pp. 503-4). The of bringing all of these important essays together in a single volume is one that will be appreciated by Cervantes scholars. Rico’s aim is to reconstruct the process of writing and printing a book in Cervantes’ time and the contexts in which these acts were carried out. I will not attempt to make a detailed commentary on each of the chapters in the book because of the richness of analysis and presentation of technical details; rather, I Volume 28.1 (2008) Reviews 201 will simply list the main subjects considered in each of the chapters. The first part of the book, “Notas al uso,” begins with an introduction titled “El fan- tasma de la ‘pinceps,’” and consists of a review of the history of editions of Don Quijote, noting important editions, editorial procedures, etc., and anticipating some of the issues to be discussed in subsequent chapters. Rico’s position is that the first printed edition should not be fetishized, and that subsequent printings, previous editors’ decisions, and other factors should also be taken into consideration. Chapter I, “Cómo se hacía un libro en el Siglo de Oro,” describes the process of printing a book, placing emphasis, among other things, on the fact that the printers worked from a clean copy made by an amanuense, a sort of professional scribe, rather than the original author’s manuscript. Chapters II and III, “Del borrador a la censura” and “’Por Juan de la Cuesta,’” continue and develop further the material presented in the first chapter. Here Rico presents a detailed discussion of the role of the author’s borrador (manuscript) and the scribe’s original (clean copy used by the printers), the relationship between publisher Francisco de Robles and printer Juan de la Cuesta, authorial revisions, differences between Rico’s own understandings of the process of publication and those of other modern editors and textual specialists (especially Robert M. Flores), the role of censorship prior to printing, and many of the minutia of the text such as punctuation, spelling, minor (and some more major) changes introduced in later editions, and much more. Chapter IV, “Márgenes del error,” deals with the very large number of errors—both in the text and in the table of contents—in the early editions of Cervantes’ novel, especially in the first printing of 1605. Finally, chapters V and VI, “El asno de Sancho (1604, 1605, 1608)” and “Las huellas del rucio: cuestiones de principio,” deal exhaustively with what is probably the most complicated and controversial issue of the theft and recovery of Sancho’s ass. The second part, “Excursos,” also consists of six chapters: 1) “Componedores y grafías en el Quijote de 1604”, 2) “Don Quijote, Madrid, 1604, en prensa”, 3) “El primer pliego del Quijote”, 4) “El título del Quijote”, 5) “’Quexana’ y las ‘conjeturas verisímiles’”, and 6) “A pie de imprentas. Páginas y noticias de Cervantes viejo”. These are all superb essays and they complement beautifully those of the first part of the book. The book ends with an “Índice de láminas,” an extensive and very useful “Bibliografía citada,” a list of “Lugares del Quijote en las ediciones del Instituto Cervantes (QC),” an “Índice de nombres,” and an “Índice de términos y conceptos.” All of these great indexing tools can be of great value to the scholar using the book in their research and are a welcome inclusion. The material presented inEl texto del “Quijote” is often very detailed and technical. This is not a book for the general reader of the novel, but a valuable reconstruction of a time, place, and process for literary scholars and historians. Every Cervantista will either want to have it or make sure it is acquired by the local research library.

Howard Mancing Purdue University [email protected] 202 Reviews Cervantes

John Beusterien.An Eye on Race. Perspectives from Theater in Imperial Spain. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 2006. 228pp. ISBN: 0-8387-5614-X.

The strength of ideology derives from the way it becomes “common sense,” through tales told and confirmed by observation of reality, endorsed by institutions of power, and performed by the people in them as well. Because those who constitute the margins and the center of power are not very different from each other, it is im- portant to maintain the distinction between them if the system is to be perpetuated. The otherness that lies beneath the skin, invisible, needs circumstances or stories to bring it to light, whereas otherness manifested in the color of the skin needs no such account for the difference to be evident. The literary or dramatic stereotypes of Jewish characters—distinguished by blood—or Black characters—distinguished by skin— are manifestations of ideological structures produced by the culture. While the reader does not necessarily applaud these structures, he or she will profit from an understand- ing of the point of view from which they are written and performed, which is what John Beusterien has set about to do in An Eye on Race, an informative and provocative con- sideration of the impact of racism on those who invent and perpetuate it. Beusterien’s controlling central , the eye, is a good choice to consider how reputation and race are social constructs, dependent entirely on one’s standing in the eyes of others, for whom one continuously performs one’s story. Current subaltern studies posit that race and ethnicity are culturally rehearsed and performed. Physical characteristics are “merely external, representational graph- ics without meaning or signifiers that signify nothing more than themselves.” Identity consists of “the performance into imaginary being of something which has no existence outside of the repetition of the traits. It is their comparison with similar traits and their contrasting with dissimilar ones that generates the false sense that an identity precedes and generates the differences. The belief that physical traits refer to or express an ethnic interiority, an identity or substance of genetic being that provides the external traits with meaning, is one of the last remaining uncriticized ideologies.”1 Indeed, the inventions and ideologies of race developed early and held fast throughout medieval Europe. In the eyes of medieval Europeans, the cultural practices of the followers of certain religious traditions were transferred to biological markers of difference. Because one’s religion might or might not be immediately evident, because one might be able to conveniently assimilate or mimic the dominant religious practices, this “invisibility” is the source of anxiety, and the only way to make this invisibility visible is to bring to the surface the essence of the difference: the blood. Based on pre- vailing constructions of medical theories, the learned and the interested constructed elaborate physical signs of distinction that illustrated the of the sins of the

1 Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan, “English Without Shadows. Literature on a World Scale,” in : An Anthology, ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 851-55, at 855 n.1. Volume 28.1 (2008) Reviews 203

Jews, particularly their peculiar smell and their circumcision, but also male menstrua- tion, a symptom of blood superstition prevalent among both Jews and Christians. (This phenomenon, possibly related to the affliction of hemorrhoids, had the effect of bend- ing the gender of Jews, adding an additional negative element of effeminacy, with the concomitant implications of lack of control and instability.) Throughout Europe, the fundamental difference between Christians and Jews re- sided in the primary question of purity of Christian blood, or limpieza de sangre. The importance of blood is central to the construction of Christian identity, as manifested in the transubstantiation of the blood of Christ during mass, a miracle that recalls the sacrifice of the paschal lamb at Passover to save the first-born Jews. The guilt of the Jews in connection with the death of Christ became the proto-narrative, the blood libel: they spilled Christ’s blood because of their own tainted blood. And the chief identify- ing mark of distinction of the Jews revolves around their own attitude towards it, in circumcision and menstruation. In contrast, Whites did not construct such elaborate cultural and socio-religious to distinguish themselves from Blacks, simply because their difference, their otherness, is easily visible and needs no explanation or presupposition to be appreci- ated. Nonetheless, for Beusterien, racism toward Blacks—American racism—could not have developed as it did without the context of its precedent, Continental racism towards the Jew, and it is texts that can create the very reality that they appear to de- scribe. Works of literature, in this case theatre, can promote beliefs and assumptions regarding Others: here Jews and Blacks. Beusterien argues that one type of racism was necessary to create the cultural preconditions for the other. The discursive construc- tion, or narrativized vision, of the Jew creates a pattern of representation of the Black, whose difference is visually so conspicuous as to obviate the need for a narrative, and is thus a denarrativized vision. What concerns Beusterien is how the White constructs the Black presence or persona (and concomitant matters of class, sexual permissive- ness, repression and power) and uses this fabricated presence in the theatre; the rep- resentation of these constructs in theatre allows us to appreciate the particular and peculiar formulations of the Black in the eye of White Spain. Beusterien discusses vari- ous plays where the implications of racial purity are evident to those in tune with the ethos of the day, when honor and racial purity were one and the same. Many scholars have seen a connection between the Golden Age twin obsessions, honor and limpieza de sangre. However, as Américo Castro had long ago remarked inDe la edad conflictiva, purity of blood is not a particularly compelling plot for dramatization, whereas honor conflicts are intrinsically dramatic. Beusterien explores this relationship or concern for honor and limpieza de sangre in plays dealing with Jews and Blacks. His extensively researched and documented study offers thoughtful and probing analyses of these con- cepts through varying critical lenses, from Lacanian to subaltern studies. In Chapter 1, “The White’s Eye,” Beusterien defines the White’s eye as a logical combination of narrativized and denarrativized vision, speculating that this is the basis of understanding modernity, and that the examination of these “ocular processes” and 204 Reviews Cervantes

visions in modernity are best carried out through theater. He discusses Quevedo’s views (in La hora de todos) on the economic aspects of race as they relate to modernity, es- pecially how the blood-based racism of anti-Semitism combines with the anti-African racist discourse central to the slave trade. Chapter 2, “Blood Displays: Seeing the Jew,” deals with how the invisibility of religious difference becomes externalized through a narrative based on the show of blood (blood display). Beusterien presents a Lacanian analysis of Calderón’s El medico de su honra to explicate the Continental model of rac- ism, as well as several Lope plays (El niño inocente de La Guardia, Auto sacramental de la circuncisión y sangría de Cristo) dealing with the themes of blood libel and circumci- sion. In Chapter 3, “Skin Displays: Seeing the Black,” Beusterien discusses and analyzes a series of plays with Black characters (among others, Juan Latino, El negro valiente en Flandes, and several Black saint plays) through the lens of the “White’s eye” that sees the display of black skin as a sign of inferiority, but one that is the essential engine for the imperial/colonial economic enterprise. In Chapter 4, Beusterien brings the discussion of the White’s eye to a head by exploring how Cervantes contests the previously studied models of race and celebrates a subaltern aesthetic as he discards both racial paradigms in one of his most popular entremeses, “El retablo de las maravillas.” Beusterien maintains that in the “Retablo,” Cervantes parodies and mimics the dominating discourses of racism in imperial Spain. Some ideas are more compelling and convincing than others. Beusterien’s discussion of skin color as a significant component of the Spanish honor code will undoubtedly raise the hackles of some, who might react with resistance to claims that the “Retablo” is not simply about Continental racism, about limpieza de sangre, but also about American racism, about skin color: “In the character of the Governor, who sees the performance because of the fear of exposing his negra honrilla, Cervantes makes his about the Spanish eye on race in the sense that honor simultaneously connects honor to the ex- plicitly stated fear of a past religious stain but also to the unstated presence of anegra” (156). Suggesting a literal interpretation of the line from Lazarillo—“la negra que lla- man la honra”—Beusterien suggests that the transformation of the adjective “negra” into a noun makes the word “more explicitly racial,” while at the same time recognizing “a tradition of puns and associations between the figurative idea and the literal dra- matic character of the negra” (156). Beusterein refers the skeptical reader to Cervantes’ prologue to the entremeses, in which he enumerates Cervantes’ references to the plays of Lope de Rueda and the latter’s performances as a negra whose attempts to whiten herself mock the Spanish obsession with honor and appearances. Beusterein points out the obsession with skin color visible in the Retablo’s female characters and concludes that Cervantes’ response to “contemporary drama’s visualization of skin color” results in a “challenge to dramatic convention and vision” (156). Not all readers will be convinced that Cervantes’ use of the phrase negra honrilla is an invocation of the stock comic character of the Negra, also associated with dance: “Cervantes associates this adjective negra with the discourse of Afro-Hispanic differ- ence, most especially the role of denarrativized vision in drama” (142). More specifically, Volume 28.1 (2008) Reviews 205

Beusterien claims that “Cervantes intentionally invokes the noun negra” (143) through the dance of the chacona performed by the nephew and in so doing “he criticizes White drama and its appropriation of Africanness in his burlesque of the character of the nephew dancing the chacona.” (164). Through the inclusion of the dance, the negra is “present, but not present” suggesting that Whiteness is “revealed and foreclosed in this European musical context” (165). Compelling points for Beusterein’s case, for this read- er, include the fact that the African-inspired dance is performed with an invisible Jew- ish woman, thus providing both denarrativized and narrativized forms of racism at the same time while “upend[ing] race and gender hierarchies” (165), such as Juana Macha and Juan Castrado. Despite the skepticism with which some readers will react to Beusterien’s argu- ment of the connection between the adjectivenegra” “ and the broader historical context of Afro-Hispanic difference, his discussion is illuminating. He posits that “the negra in the comedia is a stock type characterized as a base sexualized object. Her skin color is sexual ” (146). Yet, evidently, she is represented onstage as “anti-female,” often played by a male. Her dangerous darkness contrasts with the exotic whiteness of the Jewish female, and each represents colonial desire and religious desire, respectively. (For this reader, a sign of a perhaps over-eager application of this is Beusterien’s assumption that the character Jacinta (“una esclava herrada”) in El médico is a Black slave and not Moorish.) That said, Beusterien’s An Eye on Race provokes readers to take another look at these texts, some well known and others more obscure. His meticulously documented review of traditional notions, placed side by side with his own provocative new inter- pretations, is certainly a notable contribution to Hispanic and Cervantine studies.

Susan Paun de García Denison University [email protected]

José Ángel Ascunce Arrieta. El Quijote como tragedia y la tragedia de don Quijote. Kassel: Reichenberger, 2005. 295 pp. ISBN 3-935004-98-2.

Caveat lector. Do not base your selection of this work solely on the title, for if you anticipate a book-length study on tragedy in Don Quixote, you will be disappointed. A quick glance at the table of contents reveals the misleading nature of the title. Yes, As- cunce Arrieta’s study does examine tragedy in the first, and only the first, of four chap- ters, but what dominates is a 120-page examination of narrative voices in Don Quixote. The introduction further confirms the text’s eclectic nature—a hodgepodge of previous essays, “trabajos nacidos en contextos diferentes y con finalidades distintas” (x). The first chapter, “La tragedia de don Quijote y el Quijote como tragedia,” pro- 206 Reviews Cervantes

vides the obvious inspiration for the collection’s title. The initial premise of the essay is valid—Don Quixote is more than just parody, entering, also, into the realm of tragedy. However, the manner in which Ascunce Arrieta arrives at this conclusion is suspect. Reaching beyond the scope of textual evidence, he speculates about Alonso Quijano’s life, both past and present, along with his road to dementia, concluding that the me- diocrity of the hidalgo’s monotonous daily existence pushes him into his locura. The books of chivalry provide his escape because the hidalgo “vive la trágica uniformidad de una existencia sin alicientes ni expectativas” (18). The fictional reading material provides the two key elements missing from his life: love and . However, Alonso Quijano’s demented state is not so clear-cut, for the knight does demonstrate moments of lucid- ity. For example, Don Quixote accepts Sancho’s advice to abscond to the Sierra Morena to stay under the radar of the Santa Hermandad. This lucidity, according to Ascunce Arrieta, provides the key to our tragedy. This reenactment of the chivalric tales al- lows a cuerdo Alonso Quijano to recapture the love and action not experienced during his younger years. The true tragedy is the realization that time cannot be reversed. Therefore, when Don Quixote is defeated and must return to his mundane existence as Alonso Quijano, he has to die to prevent a return to his former boring self. The idea of presenting the work as tragedy is intriguing, but I with the process of characterizing thehidalgo . For example, even though we are told that Alonso Quijano and Don Quixote are two separate entities, the author tries to recreate the former’s life via the knight’s adventures. The author concludes that Alonso Quijano had never ventured beyond his small village when, after a day of traveling, Don Quix- ote must search for a place to rest. If the knight were familiar with the area, he would not have to search. At another point, Ascunce Arrieta concludes that Alonso Quijano is autodidactic. The idea of the hidalgo dying in order to avoid returning to his for- mer monotonous life negates the historical context of the work—the accepted theory that Don Quixote had to die at the end to prevent any further spurious sequels. Such scrutiny of a character, where the author goes beyond the scope of the text to create a psychological profile, seems untoward at this late date. In the second chapter, Ascunce Arrieta continues with the character analysis, fo- cusing his attention on the knight’s squire in “Sancho Panza: el héroe posible de la aven- tura quijotesca.” Unlike the first essay, this one seems more soundly rooted in textual evidence, that is, until we reach the conclusion. After a lengthy examination of heroes and heroism, we study Sancho’s path toward becoming a true . His transformation has a monetary beginning. While Don Quixote goes off to search for what is missing in his life, love and action, Sancho follows as he seeks food and money. Sancho ac- companies Don Quixote in search of material gain. The prospect of a salary motivates him, and even when he does obtain his riches in the Sierra Morena, he still continues on with the knight, monetarily gaining along the way. However, Sancho’s requests for a fixed salary are continually denied, and yet he stays with the knight. According to As- cunce Arrieta, this working relationship has become a friendship, a friendship that now motivates Sancho to stay with Don Quixote. In the end, Sancho comes away from this Volume 28.1 (2008) Reviews 207 relationship with more than he first anticipated. He gains both money and a friend. Therefore, he is the true winner in these adventures, making him a true hero. Moving beyond character analysis, the third chapter, “LasNovelas ejemplares en el Quijote y el Quijote como novela ejemplar,” studies the composition of Cervantes’ mas- terpiece. As the title indicates, the chapter is divided into two distinct parts. The first analyzes the influence of the Novelas ejemplares on the Quixote. The author provides a detailed summary and analysis of “El celoso extremeño” to exemplify his working definition of a novela ejemplar—a “narración breve de composición ternaria con un fin moralizador” (123). The tertiary structure includes the initial presentation of a case, the development of said case, and a moralizing conclusion. He then shows how this tertiary structure appears in “El curioso impertinente.” While I doubt that any critic would ever refute the classification of this interpolated tale as a novela ejemplar, Ascunce Arrieta’s examination does leave us with a structural model that could prove useful to teaching the Novelas ejemplares to undergraduates. Reminiscent of Luis Murillo’s and Menéndez Pidal’s search for an ur-Quijote, Ascunce Arrieta embarks on a similar quest with his third chapter, the goal being to isolate a Don Quixote in form. He contends that the knight’s first outing, his primera salida encompassing the first six chapters and part of the seventh, is what we can call the first Don Quixote written as a novella. The length corresponds with that of Cervantes’ other and the plot exposes the obligatory tertiary structure. The case in this instance is Don Quixote’s madness. The knight’s adventures provide the development of said madness, all of which concludes in the infamous escrutinio. Again, the author provides a nice synthesis of a well-discussed topic. The fourth chapter, “Los puntos de vista en el Quijote o el narrador paradójico,” dominates the work, with over one-third of the book dedicated to the delineation of narrative voices. The initial presentation can be perplexing, for Ascunce Arrieta con- tinually assigns different names to narrative entities as the complexity of the diegetic plane increases. If one can keep the titles straight, his final proposal provides yet an- other incisive study of narrative voices. As with many before him, the author takes the end of I, 8 as his point of depar- ture. One reads:

Pero está el daño de todo esto que en este punto y término deja pendiente el autor desta historia esta batalla, disculpándose que no halló más escrito destas hazañas de don Quijote de las que deja referidas. Bien es verdad que el segundo autor desta obra no quiso creer que tan curiosa historia estuviese entregada a las leyes del olvido, ni que hubiesen sido tan poco curiosos los ingenios de la Mancha, que no tuviesen en sus archivos o en sus escritorios algunos papeles que deste famoso caballero tratasen, y así, con esta imaginación, no se desesperó de hallar el fin desta apacible historia, el cual, siéndole el cielo favorable, le halló del modo que se con- tará en la segunda parte. 208 Reviews Cervantes

This interruption introduces two distinct voices: that of the first eight chapters, the primer autor, and the introduction of the second author, thesegundo autor. The first is a historian figure whose composition terminates when the second author emerges with the previously cited passage. The second author functions as an extradiegetic nar- rator who filters the first author’s manuscript and interrupts the text when deemed necessary. This second author is an investigator, inserting comments about what other authors have written about the knight and his adventures. However, attributions to this second author in the first eight chapters seem arbitrary. The first line of the work, “En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme” (I, 1), is attributed to him because supposedly only he uses a first-person construction and references to other authors of Don Quixote’s tale belong to him since he poses as an investigative figure. The shuffling of titles commences with the introduction of Cide Hamete Benen- geli and the morisco translator in I, 9. Cide Hamete becomes known as the first author while the translator becomes the second author. The author previously identified as segundo autor now shifts to the third author, and his voice represented in the text is the narrador presentador. Cide Hamete pens the original manuscript that is translated and commented upon by the morisco. Thenarrador presentador filters both versions, insert- ing his opinions throughout the course of the text. Ascunce Arrieta’s dissection of the diegetic plane does provide a unique view- point, but it concerns me that the majority of these ideas are presented as his own. There definitely seems to be some influence from pioneers in the field. He does tip his hat to José Manuel Martín Morán, but any acknowledgment of James A. Parr is glar- ingly absent. The bibliography does indicate that two works were consulted, but no reference is ever made. Ascunce Arrieta’s ideas are reminiscent of Parr’s studies. The depiction of the first author as a historian figure and the idea that the extradiegetic narrator, Ascunce Arrieta’s narrador presentador, an omniscient and omnipresent figure who functions as an editor, editing Cide Hamete’s manuscript as he goes along are just two examples of Parr’s influence. Other key figures remain absent from this study, most notably, José María Paz Gago. But, as the author notes, this may just be my personal quibble since “como sucede con la casi totalidad de temas que ofrece el Quijote [sic], el lector se queda siempre con cierto grado de insatisfacción por no hallar en estos traba- jos todo lo que busca o, por lo menos, todo lo que espera encontrar” (162). After a detailed analysis of the various diegetic levels, we are entertained with a detailed analysis of the three narrative figures: Cide Hamete, the translator, and the narrador presentador. The most surprising assertion deals with Cide Hamete’s faith. After discrediting the Moor as a historian and a philosopher, Ascunce Arrieta attacks his faith, proclaiming that Cide Hamete was not a good Muslim either. The lengthiest part of the chapter enumerates the various hats this narrador presentador dons. He is characterized as a narrador despistado, impertinente, mentiroso, burlón, arrepentido, cre- ador, and paradójico. The depiction of this extradiegetic narrator as a narrador creador is where Ascunce Arrieta sets himself apart from other narratological studies. In his Volume 28.1 (2008) Reviews 209 model, this narrator is more than just a voice; he is the true creator of the text, proven by the last lines of Don Quixote: “Para mí sola nació don Quijote, y yo para él; él supo obrar y yo escribir; solos los dos somos para en uno” (II, 74). The feminine form “sola” is a reference the narrator’s pluma. Cide Hamete Benengeli provides the original manu- script that the narrador presentador appropriates and rewrites, infiltrating the text at every turn. The ideas presented by Ascunce Arrieta’s collection of essays are thought-provok- ing and meticulously supported through textual evidence; however, there are two areas in need of attention: a more relevant title and better editing. Titles should accurately reflect the content of a work. In this instance, critics interested in narrative voices might completely overlook the text because, at first glance, the book focuses on tragedy, and those desiring a book-length work on tragedy are sure to be disappointed. Secondly, er- rors abound, beginning with the title. The title on the cover does not correspond with that on the title page, La tragedia de don Quijote y el Quijote como tragedia; a simple reversal, but an error nonetheless. After discovering that the publisher advertises the work with the cover’s title, I assume that is the work’s true title. Limited mostly to the footnotes, the errors become increasingly distracting as the text progresses. Italics ap- pear haphazardly and at times they are completely absent. In one footnote, for example, close to twenty works are enumerated with not a single citation italicized (78). The author fluctuates with the capitalization of Don Quixote’s name. Spanish would dic- tate a lower-case letter, “don Quixote,” but Ascunce Arrieta flip-flops between the two. Unfortunately, the accumulation of errors distract from an otherwise worthy study.

Shannon M. Polchow University of South Carolina Upstate [email protected]

El Quijote hoy: La riqueza de su recepción. Eds. Klaus-Dieter Ertler and Alejandro Rodríguez Díaz. Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert, 2007. 290 pp. ISBN: 978 84-8489-300-4.

El Quijote hoy is another collection of essays derived from a conference celebrat- ing the fourth centenary, and it illustrates some of the challenges of giving a fresh as- sessment of Cervantes’ contemporary relevance. There are essays that use Cervantes to make pronouncements on current sociopolitical issues: one is a four-page effort titled “Cervantes contra Huntington,” with no citations from Cervantes, and no bibliography save a footnote reference to Foreign Policy; another observes parallels between scenes in Don Quijote and Kathy Acker’s Don Quixote, whose protagonist has an abortion “… because I refused normalcy which is the capitulation to social control” (258). Others re- 210 Reviews Cervantes

assert the novel’s famous complexity and intertextuality, some with a postmodern and materialist hue. Added to the mix are three papers dealing withDon Quijote translation and criticism in Slovenian, one on its reception in Hungary, two tracing influence in Teutonic literature (Joseph Roth and Wilhelm Muster), and one pointing out quixotic themes in modern Peninsular . The collection is somewhat uneven and idiosyn- cratic, with several entries apparently still in their conference-paper format of five to eight pages. In the opening essay, “Parámetros de lectura y parámetros de recepción en elQui - jote,” Antonio Gómez Moriana stresses the importance of a sophisticated understanding of allusion and evocation: “El elemento dotado de este poder evocador que atribuyo a la alusión funciona en el texto por tanto como un elemento anafórico; no en sentido trans- frástico, sino en sentido transtextual ya que no remite a elementos catafóricos al interior del texto mismo, sino a un patrimonio cultural común al autor y al lector” (18). Having set his parameters of interpretation, Gómez Moriana argues that the library episode (I, 6) contains allusions to the Inquisition, and that Don Quijote’s confrontation with the Toledan Merchants (I, 4), representing a confrontation between bourgeois and feudal mentalities, is best understood in light of the Communist Manifesto (28-30). Ángel Repáraz suggests a number of “links” between Don Quijote and some German writers (e.g., Hoffmann, Schiller, Mann) as a function ofrizoma , which purportedly allows for a more disordered, non-hierarchical notion of reception and influence (105-13). Klaus- Dieter Ertler cites Luhmann’s “systems theory” to similar effect, and urges us to think of ourselves as consumers approaching the “supermarket” of Don Quijote, each taking and making use of what we want. According to Ertler, this helps us grasp the complex- ity of Cervantes’ literary system—although he recognizes the limits of his inquiry: “Lo que no podemos describir aquí, pero que tendría una gran importancia también para el análisis de la configuración sistemática en su totalidad, sería la plasmación de otros sistemas sociales por la novela, es decir –a parte [sic] del sistema literario—el sistema económico, jurídico, y religioso” (120). Although scholars have long been dealing with such contexts, it probably cannot hurt to stress once again the importance of carefully defining one’s hermeneutic circle. “La recepción del Quijote en Hungría” (Csaba Csuday, 185-95), “Las traducciones de Don Quijote al esloveno” (Jasmina Markič, 197-209) and “La interpretación del Qui- jote por la crítica eslovena” (Branka Kalenić Ramšak (211-23) are, like a number of the entries, somewhat short on analysis, but they contain informative references for scholars interested in the reception ofDon Quijote in Central Europe. Barbara Pihler focuses on the linguistic play of Cervantes as she illustrates the difficulty and measured successes of translating the novel into Slovenian (“Don Quijote y su lenguaje,” 225-54). In one of the more sustained efforts of the volume, Fernando Varela Iglesias offers a readable and fairly nuanced overview of “hard school” and “romantic” strains in Don Quijote criti- cism (“Realismo e idealismo en la recepción del Quijote”, 43-77). And an insightful and rhapsodic account of Cervantes’ own quijotismo is given by María Luisa Domínguez (“Metadiscurso y pasión en el Quijote,” 137-55). Aptly invoking Borges, Nabokov and Volume 28.1 (2008) Reviews 211

Fuentes, Domínguez discusses how Cervantes’ ludic appropriation of conventions and his suspect narrators do much more than cultivate a critical, skeptical reader. They also affirm the pleasure of reading, and the ability of , in all its artifice, to shed light on reality. Despite such luminous moments, I am not sure how much cervantistas stand to gain from working their way through the seventeen essays of El Quijote hoy. The con- ference undoubtedly produced stimulating discussions and useful connections. But it has made for a somewhat scattered and ephemeral collection of articles. A good reader would more profitably—and with greater pleasure—cultivate an appreciation for Cer- vantes’ complexity, modernity and celebration of imaginative literature by spending time with the primary works in question.

Michael Scham University of St. Thomas [email protected]

Zenón Luis-Martínez and Luis Gómez Canseco, eds. Entre Cervantes y Shakespeare: sen- das del Renacimiento/ Between Shakespeare and Cervantes: Trails along the Renais- sance. Newark, Delaware: Juan de la Cuesta, 2006. 351 pp. ISBN: 1-58871-104-8

This assemblage of eleven high-quality essays, seven in Spanish and four in Eng- lish, is one that every Cervantista and many a Shakespearean will want to own. The articles are the fruit of a symposium held in Huelva in 2004, but it is apparent that they have been reworked for publication, making the book more than a mere proceed- ings. Written mostly by established scholars, however, the essays only rarely break new ground. Exceptional in this regard is Richard Wilson’s strong reading of the ghostly presence of Catholic miracles and Spanish pilgrimages in All’s Well that Ends Well. His original and clever take makes one want to see the play afresh. Daniel Eisenberg con- vincingly rehabilitates John Bowle, the pioneering eighteenth-century English scholar who assiduously studied theQuixote, and in the process “came closer to replicating Cer- vantes’ reading than anyone has” (55). A list of Bowle’s firsts (twenty-one of them by Eisenberg’s reckoning) is impressive: the first to number the lines of the Quixote; to annotate it fully; to index words and proper names; to map Don Quixote’s Spain; to grant Cervantes the stature of a “classic” author, and so on. Bowle’s Achilles heel was to overestimate his expertise in Spanish, and Eisenberg similarly opens himself to criti- cism for too often insinuating his own voice into an essay that rightfully belongs to the Englishman. The first truly comparative essay in the collection is that of Pedro Javier Pardo García, who views Tom Jones and Vanity Fair as emulations of Cervantes. Field- ing’s work has been seen in this way before, but Thackeray’s only rarely. In tracing the transition from one literary milestone to another, Pardo García also has much of inter- 212 Reviews Cervantes

est to say about Smollett, Sterne, Austen, Eliot and Dickens, always with the Quixote acting as a springboard for the rise of the novel. José Montero Reguera does for the twentieth-century writer, translator of Shake- speare, and Golden Age critic Luis Astrana Marín what Eisenberg does for Bowle, that is, he restores him to a deserved place of primacy among scholars and biographers of Cervantes. Like Bowle, Astrana Marín shrunk from politics but not from rivals, and was a bit too full of himself, yet enough time has passed since the Spaniard’s death in 1959 for such sins to be mostly forgivable. In addition, Astrana Marín made the claim that is a raison d’etre of this entire collection of essays: “Jamás se entenderá completamente a Shakespeare si no se relaciona con nuestra literatura del Siglo de Oro” (132). With this essay, then, the first part of the book, called “Cruces de Caminos/ Crossroads,” comes to a close. The rest of the volume is called “Sendas Paralelas/ Parallel Paths,” although the distinction between the two approaches is not always clear. The fact that women are nearly absent as authors (there is one author and one co-author) is probably a reflection of a sad fact of the profession ofcervantismo , yet surely a female Shakespearean scholar or two could have contributed to this project. Two essays in the second part take up common motifs in Shakespeare and Cer- vantes: blood and locura. Roland Greene’s article veers to some degree away from social, medical and religious constructs in order to forward the question, “How does the con- cept of blood get reinvented in the late sixteenth century to take fresh account of the material, the liquid itself?” (142-3). The critic’s gaze comes to rest on The Merchant of Venice and a handful of bloody (or apparently bloody) episodes from Don Quixote. As contemporaries, argues Greene, Cervantes and Shakespeare both “recognize in blood a concept under revision, and register that revision for a less learned, more diverse than an earlier generation of writers had” (156). Valentín Núñez Rivera’s “Per- files de la locura en Shakespeare y Cervantes” links buffoonery with insanity, insofar as each allows for a certain liberty of action and expression. Seen in Cervantes as an Erasmian inheritance by way of Orlando’s fury and Amadís’ melancholia, “La locura se convierte … en un método perfecto de exposición dialéctica para los humanistas; el loco funciona como instrumento de investigación de la naturaleza humana” (186). For Don Quixote and the Licenciado Vidriera, insanity becomes, at least temporarily, “una fórmula de realización personal, … un modo de ser más auténtico, que los eleva de la alineación y el rechazo social, de la vida gris y frustrada de los cuerdos” (204-5). The second half of this article treats authentic and faux fools and madmen in Twelfth Night, Hamlet and King Lear, but suffers from the fact that all quotations, some of them quite lengthy, are in Spanish. Along similar lines, one of the finest essays in this group is a carnivalesque com- parison of Sancho Panza and Falstaff. Applying Bakhtin’s poetics almost literally to two of literature’s most famous non-leading men, Augustin Redondo surprisingly man- ages to say something new about both. His method takes Carnival as the thesis and Cuaresma, or Lent, as the antithesis, i.e., the symbol of societal norms. As Falstaff and Sancho bounce back and forth between extremes of feast and famine, Redondo implies Volume 28.1 (2008) Reviews 213 an explanation of why Falstaff is destined for rejection by Prince Hal, while Sancho remains by his master’s side to the end: “Falstaff a pesar del afecto que experimenta por el príncipe, no deja de ser un astuto granuja, mientras que Sancho… adquiere una auténtica dignidad, que trasciende la comicidad en varias ocasiones, en particular en el revelador episodio de la ínsula Barataria” (182). In other words, if the Henry plays are Hal’s Bildungsroman, then the Quixote is Sancho’s. Jorge Casanova’s essay on ekphrasis reveals an imaginary self-portrait of Cer- vantes that might serve as an argument for the superiority of writing over painting. Casanova then walks us through The Rape of Lucrece, who takes a painting of the siege of Troy to be an image of her violator and rips it to shreds, once again lending the illu- sion of reality to a portrait that is non-existent. Finally Casanova notes the generalized importance of emblems in the Renaissance, and shows how two of them—one repre- senting an Insani Gladius and the other showing Opportunity/Ocasión—found their way into the Quixote and The Rape of Lucrece. Without saying so, the essay encourages the reader to look for similar devices in other literary works of the age. Pastoral novels are the topic of Elena Domínguez Romero’s essay, which casts Cervantes as one who questions both the stereotypical depiction of lovers by Mon- temayor and their orthodox (i.e., Counter-Reformation) depiction by Gil Polo in La Diana and its continuation. Shakespeare’s As You Like It and Love’s Labour’s Lost are similarly treated as a diptych that could be compared to La Galatea, if only Cervantes had written the promised sequel. The final two essays in the book are quite broad in scope, and this is only fitting given that they were written (or, in one case, co-writ- ten) by the editors. Zenón Luis-Martínez sees in Henry V, Othello, The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale and particularly Pericles an effort to accomplish in drama that which had previously been the birthright of narrative fiction; “in his late plays we find a change of direction to themes, literary problems, and aesthetic solutions that betray a poetic vision that seems closer to those genres like romance or the novel” (261). Meanwhile, Cervantes had struggled with verisimilitude in his verse romanceLos trabajos de Persiles y Segismunda (a conscious imitation of Heliodorus, perhaps leading him to the convic- tion that only a new form of prose fiction was capable of holding his ideas). Spain, the author notes, had a more sophisticated stance than England in regard to the novel and the novella in a variety of sub-genres. (The converse is perhaps also true, that England had a more inclusive stance vis-à-vis stage drama, allowing Shakespeare to attempt onstage what Cervantes was able to experiment with on the page.) The final essay in this volume is devoted to the granddaddy of them all, The Golden Ass, a work that both Shakespeare and Cervantes certainly read. Luis Gómez Canseco and Cintia Zunino Garrido’s article is one that will send us back with pleasure to Apuleius, trying, like so many before, to find the in so much immorality and trace the skein of influence upon our favorite authors. Many specialists reading this book will wish that there had been an article on this or that topic —Cardenio, to take one obvious example. We all want to find and explore connections between Spain and England circa 1600, colonial and cultural rivals that 214 Reviews Cervantes

they were on the edge of modernity. Fortunately, the bibliographical references in the footnotes to these essays are uniformly excellent and will guide us further along the trails of the Renaissance, until we see what it is that we want to see, or determine to make it for ourselves.

Robert S. Stone US Naval Academy [email protected]

Don Quixote. By Miguel de Cervantes. Trans. Tom Lathrop. Newark, DE: Cervantes & Co., 2007. xxx + 864. ISBN: 1-58977-025-0.

The four-hundredth anniversary of the publication of Part I of Miguel de Cer- vantes’ masterpiece El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha in 2005 was a year- long, world-wide celebration that included the publication of new editions and new translations, seminars, conferences, and marathon readings. Universities, colleges, in- stitutes, and libraries were among many venues that honored this historic literary event. One of the more noteworthy publications to mark the fourth centenary of Part I was Tom Lathrop’s translation of Don Quijote. Lathrop is a founding member of the Cer- vantes Society of America, whose career as a Cervantine scholar includes nearly twenty articles on Don Quijote, an edition of the novel, which is currently in its seventh print- ing, and more than thirty-five talks on different aspects of the novel at conferences and symposia. In addition, he is a linguist who has authored or co-authored books on the evolution of Spanish, the syntax of the old Spanish subjunctive, and Spanish, European Portuguese, and Brazilian Portuguese language textbooks. Lathrop explains in the Introduction to his translation why he decided to add yet another translation to the seven translations, including three within the last eight years, that have appeared since the middle of the twentieth century: “The reason I felt justi- fied in doing this translation is that translations are sometimes based on faulty Spanish editions, or editions that took too many liberties with the original text, fixing perceived errors, changing chapter titles, even adding text to the work” (vii). Lathrop’s vast expe- rience as a professor and scholar of Don Quijote and of Romance languages facilitated his translation of such a well-known and challenging text, resulting in a pleasurable edition, punctuated by numerous photographs, extensive and insightful footnotes, and fifty-five illustrations by world-renowned artist, Jack Davis. The Introduction provides for both the specialist and the non-specialist anin- formative orientation to Cervantes’ masterpiece. Following a section dedicated to the author’s life as it relates to the novel, Lathrop writes about the fictional Cervantes, the Arabic manuscript, the secular clergy, and Avellaneda. In addition, Lathrop offers an impassioned defense of the mistakes found throughout the novel, including entire Volume 28.1 (2008) Reviews 215 sections devoted to the “erroneous” chapter titles and the controversy surrounding the theft of Sancho Panza’s donkey: “Cervantes, as a rule, simply does not make mistakes and he’s not careless either. Indeed he had to be particularly keen and creative in order to make sure everything was contradicted. Every contradiction, every mistake, every careless turn of phrase is there because Cervantes wanted it exactly that way” (xi). Lath- rop concludes his introduction with a lengthy section about the translation process, including a list of the editions, translations, and dictionaries that he consulted. One of the many challenges that a translator of Don Quijote faces is how to rec- oncile the linguistic register of an anachronistic seventeenth-century character with a style and vocabulary that do not appear overly contemporary. Lathrop is able to do so admirably, as the following example from I, 8 illustrates: “If you were a knight, as I see you’re not, I would have already punished your folly and insolence, you wretched creature” (62). In I, 21, the formal cadence of Don Quixote is also clearly evident: “His Majesty has acted like a very prudent warrior in protecting his dominions in advance so the enemy won’t find him unprepared, but if he’d take my advice, I’d tell him to try something that must be very far from his thoughts” (429). Lathrop’s translation is, for the most part, highly accurate. For example, Lathrop does not misrepresent the word hidalgo. This word appears often in previous transla- tions as gentleman, instead of a word closer to its true meaning, as defined in the Dic- cionario de Autoridades: “la persona noble que viene de casa y solar conocido, y como tal está exento de los pechos y derechos que pagan los villános.” Lathrop, no doubt aware of the inherent difficulty associated with a translation of the wordhidalgo into modern terminology, leaves it in its original form and explains its meaning in a footnote in I, 1: “An hidalgo is a member of the lesser nobility, exempt from taxes” (17). Lathrop is also sensitive to the problematic nature of attempting to translate monetary units into Eng- lish. Instead of substituting a near-equivalent English translation for the word blanca, for example, he leaves it in the original and explains its value in a footnote in I, 30: “Theblanca was a coin worth half a maravedí, that is, worth practically nothing” (30). A third example of the accuracy of Lathrop’s translation is the word admirado, with which Cervantes describes Roque Guinart’s reaction in II, 60 after hearing Claudia Jerónima tell him that she murdered her fiancé. According to the Diccionario de Autoridades, ad- mirado means “mirar una cosa con espanto de su calidad, de su valor, u de su grandeza.” Lathrop’s translation captures the essence of the verb admirar: “Roque, astonished at the gallantry, pluck, good looks, and initiative of the beautiful Claudia…” (785). Lathrop’s translation contains more than a thousand footnotes that explain in detail the literary, historical, and cultural milieu that surrounds the knight’s many ad- ventures. In II, 2, for example, Lathrop explains the dress code that society expected hidalgos to follow: “It was considered bad for hidalgos to wear mended, patched cloth- ing, although thread-bare was all right. Mended clothing was for the working class” (439). During Don Quixote’s argument with the goatherd in I, 52, the knight picks up a loaf of bread and hits the goatherd in the face with it. Lathrop informs the reader that the bread may do more harm than the reader might think: “This is clearly not Wonder 216 Reviews Cervantes

Bread. I know from experience that Manchegan bread can be heavy, hard crusted, and with jagged points on the top, a weapon to be feared in close combat” (405). While Lathrop does not anglicize proper names, he does translate nicknames: dueña Dolorida–the Distressed Duenna (II, 38; 650); Dolorida–the Distressed One(II, 39; 657); and Caballero de la Triste Figure–Woebegone Knight (I, 25; 184). In addition, titles associated with characters, for the most part, are translated as well: condesa Trifaldi– Countess Trifaldi (II, 38; 652) and bachiller Sansón Carrasco–bachelor Sansón Carrasco. The accuracy ofbachelor , however, is questionable. I do not believe that a reader who is unfamiliar with the meaning of the word bachiller would know that Sansón Carrasco’s title refers to his degree from the University of Salamanca. One title of note that is not translated is don. Lathrop’s translation is without a doubt the most esthetically pleasing one to date. Professional commercial artist Jack Davis drew the cover of the translation in addtion to the illustrations that depict different scenes from the novel. In addition to Davis’ drawings, there are fifty-nine photographs of places, historical figures, musical instru- ments, and weapons. In II, 46 (697), for example, Don Quixote finds a vihuela instead of a lute in his room. Lathrop not only explains the similarity between the two instru- ments in a footnote, but also he provides photographs of a vihuela and of a lute. Lath- rop’s translation also consists of the typographical style of the first edition of the novel wherever possible. While the primary target audience of Lathrop’s translation is students of litera- ture in translation at the university level, non-specialists and specialists alike will find Don Quixote a pure joy to read. Lathrop is to be commended for producing a transla- tion that is not only a faithful recreation of the original, but also one that is easy to read and to comprehend.

Michael J. McGrath Georgia Southern University [email protected]

Steven Wagschal. The Literature of Jealousy in the Age of Cervantes. Co- lumbia: University of Missouri Press, 2007. 232 pages. $39.95 cloth. ISBN 978-0-8262-1696-0.

Professor Wagschal begins his book by conceding that the concept of jealousy, as represented in Spanish Golden Age literature (and indeed, as commonly conceived then and now) covers a great range of emotional states with varying components. How- ever, it is this very inconsistency (which he termsjealousies ) that he finds fruitful, for as a result “jealousy in these early modern texts [is] a flexible, polyvalent designation that resists reduction” (17). He finds particularly useful the analyses of emotion developed by the contemporary philosophers of mind Ronald de Sousa and Peter Goldie, the for- Volume 28.1 (2008) Reviews 217 mer emphasizing that emotional reactions are not antithetical to reason but indeed can be rational reactions to a situation, the latter distinguishing between passing emotions and emotional predispositions or character traits (as in Cervantes’s “Celoso extreme- ño”), and also insisting that analyses of the emotion cannot be separated from the com- plex relationship of the subject to a variety of objects. Thus to Goldie, the experience of jealousy can only be understood in the context of the narrative of a particular life. Such a conception is naturally convenient for the literary critic whose main interest is the expression of emotions in literary constructs. Just as Wagschal finds the polyvalency of the concept an enticement rather than an impediment to analysis, his use of contem- porary philosophers keeps him from merely historicizing emotion: Spanish writers of the 17th century may have construed jealousy in particular ways and endowed it with certain attributes, but there is still such a thing as jealousy that endows his study with contemporary and historical interest. As he says, “The relationship of jealousy to the power of the gods is not a construct of Sartre, Girard or Derrida. On the contrary, Lope de Vega, Cervantes and Góngora each describe forms of jealousy which they compare with the divine, evoking the Greco-Roman or Judeo-Christian gods through a plethora of rhetorical strategies” (189). Indeed this quote sums up Wagschal’s approach, for he examines the role of jealousy in a number of plays by Lope, in two novels by Cervantes, and in a few poems of Góngora’s, and while he draws on many different forms of analy- sis (including psychoanalysis), there is a certain privileging of , of how language is used to structure a particular version of jealousy. For Lope, Wagschal draws on a number of quite disparate plays, from near-farcical comedies to the tragic, showing both the varieties of ways in which Lope used jealousy, and also how it tended to be a destabilizing force that had to be reined in or ratified by monarchical intervention. Thus in Los comendadores de Córdoba, the betrayed hus- band Fernando murders not only his wife and lover, but all his servants and even the household pets; these actions, going way beyond the scope of the honor code, can only be explained as a jealous rage, and only be forgiven by an absolute monarch. Wagschal is also interested in how jealousy mediates a transition from deceit/engaño (in both the epistemological and sexual senses) to a Baroque self-understanding, desengaño. A similar instance of jealousy as “instrumentally rational” (45) occurs inPeribáñez , where his suspicious jealousy, exacerbated by the portrait, leads him to discover both the Co- mendador’s perfidy and his wife’s fidelity. Yet if these plays represent male-gendered jealousy, what happens when the jealous (and more powerful) protagonist is a woman? Wagschal explores two such instances in plays by Lope, Arminda celosa and El perro del hortelano. In the first of these, the queen justifiably resents her husband’s infidelity, and although throughout the play her jealousy is described as irrational and danger- ous, in fact it is (as in the previous two plays) rational and enlightening: the king is in fact deceiving her, her suspicions lead her to discover the lover’s identity, and in the end to impose a solution that banishes the lover and yet restores the husband as king. In contrast,Perro represents jealousy as a character trait, one of several aspects of her -per sonality that mark Diana as an unstable ruler. What the two plays have (or rather, lack) 218 Reviews Cervantes

in common is husband-murder as a consequence of jealousy; to Wagschal, jealousy in a woman, whether justified or not, is laughable and reinforces the patriarchal ideology of contemporary society. The final pair of plays,La discreta enamorada and El castigo sin venganza, serve to contrast comic and tragic treatments of similar plot devices. While in the former multiple instances of jealousy are overcome in an almost parodic , in the latter jealousy conquers all with a force that is almost sublime in its ir- resistibility; other plays can ratify jealous murder through royal approval, but the duke alone can (and does) authorize the murder of his own wife and son. To Wagschal, the representation of jealousy in all these plays underlines Lope’s conservative political stance. This is not the case with Cervantes, and the two central chapters of the book, examining his treatment of jealousy, will be of most interest to the readers of this journal. Contrasting other readings of “El celoso extremeño” which locate the story’s exemplarity in “its condemnation of solipsism or as a defense of the freedom of choice,” the author argues “for a complementary reading in which it em- bodies a religio-aesthetic ” (99). Cervantes in this story undermines jealousy as un-Christian (and in fact, implicitly Jewish), and in so doing, attacks the very premise of the comedia as practiced by Lope and his colleagues. Carrizales’s jealousy is extreme and pathological by both 17th-century and contemporary standards, but also “intel- ligible and structured” (102); his Jewishness is located in popular associations of both wealth and sexual dysfunction with Jews, but above all in his parody of the jealous God of Hebrew scripture. The old man’s jealousy is neither a passing nor something brought on by evidentiary experience; it is a fundamental and defining feature of his character, a trait that echoes the description of Jehovah in Exodus 34:14. Carrizales too creates a kind of Edenic environment for Leonora, gives her companions, makes a covenant with them, forbids graven images, etc. Yet this is brought down by the Satan- like cunning of Loaysa, who gradually insinuates himself into their company. However, at the crucial moment when Carrizales discovers Loaysa in bed with his wife and as he is about to grab a knife and murder them, in accordance with the honor code as it plays out in Lope’s plays, he sets Leonora free and goes off to bed to die; to Wagschal, this represents the passing of the old law, and the triumph of love over jealousy. The scene in which Carrizales recognizes his fundamental dishonor, in the sexual sense, is the mo- ment in which he also recognizes its twin, his lack of pureza de sangre. Cervantes thus undermines the hegemonic ideological codes associated with the comedia, but only by projecting them onto the socially-despised other. The condemnation of jealousy pervades Cervantes’s other works, including the dramas, the Quijote, and for the most part, theTrabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda as well. The latter work, however, also contains a kind of Christian sublimation of jealousy, its incorporation within a theory of love. True love can perhaps be free from jealousy (celos), Persiles/Periandro argues, but his beloved counters (and he agrees) that it can never be entirely free from fear (temores). The latter is a kind of suspicious jealousy, insofar as anyone who possesses something of value always fears losing it. This kind of jealous fear is positive for it is related to the protection impulse, one that is necessarily Volume 28.1 (2008) Reviews 219 gendered male. Thus female jealousy, as in Lope, has no place, nor does any jealousy that leads to actual doubts about the beloved’s fidelity. Wagschal extends this analysis to other works of Cervantes: the discussion of “envidia noble” in the prologue to part two of the Quijote; Anselmo’s lack of an appropriate, protective jealousy in the “Curioso impertinente”; and the lack of jealousy among the barbarians in the Persiles, who oblige a bride to have sex with the groom’s relatives. Given that the protagonist of this novel is a representation of the Christian hero, his defense of jealousy must be taken as an articulation of its place in a Christian concept of erotic love. As Wagschal concludes, “he [Persiles] not only feels jealousy, but knows what it is and when it is appropriate to experience it” (135). The final chapters examine some poems of Góngora’s, beginning with the famous canción “Qué de invidiosos montes”; Wagschal relates this poem to the iconographic tradition of the mythological Vulcan-Venus-Mars triangle, seeing in the poem a con- flation of two versions of the . The variants differ on whether Mars is Venus’s husband or her adulterous lover, and the presence of both in the poem in turn reflects an ambivalence on the part of the jealous poetic speaker, who is drawn to imagine their love-making, yet also resists that impulse, by having his imagination arrive too late to witness their coupling. Similarly, the death-like state of the husband in the poem can reflect both a post-coital trance and a wish, on the lover/speaker’s part, that he would die. In the romancillo “Las flores del romero” the speaker counsels a jealous young woman that these feelings are transitory and that when she reconciles with her lover, what are today’s flowers will become tomorrow’s honey. Wagschal contrasts the delicate beauty of the poem, with its subtle but intricate , to the sublime representation of jealousy in the sonnet “O niebla del estado más sereno” and in thePolifemo , “wherein the subject’s reason and imagination are overwhelmed by a scene of such great magni- tude or power that it defies the subjects’s conceptual ability” (166). Significantly, both of these are representations of a masculine jealousy, as opposed to the female jealousy of the romancillo. To Wagschal the variety or polyvalency of jealousy is precisely what makes it so open to association with other ideological phenomena, “in which rhetoric is intricately linked to issues of race, class, gender, morality, epistemology, and aesthetics” (189). In the conclusion he speculates that the power of the emotion in seventeenth-century Spain is linked to “national suspicion and possessiveness, which arose from the per- ceived threat of enemies from both without and within. Ultimately, the beloved whose protection Lope justifies with jealousy is Spain herself, as the Spanish monarchy and inquisitors perceived themselves as assaulted by engaño plots from both water and land” (190). I appreciated the breadth of Wagschal’s study, which draws on examples from all three principal literary genres, by three of the most important authors at the beginning of the 17th century. Moreover, he treats well-known works as well as obscure ones: Peribáñez and El perro del hortelano, but also Los comendadores de Córdoba and Arminda celosa, plays I must confess I knew nothing about. Similarly, the Cervantes section treats a very familiar short novel, and the notoriously long and difficultPersiles , 220 Reviews Cervantes

and for Góngora he analyzes two well-known poems along with an unstudied ballad and sonnet. So the study is a significant pushing out from the conventional canon. The book is everywhere clearly written, and his arguments well-marshaled and always, at the very least, plausible. Admittedly, I am not convinced about every single detail (for example, Cervantes’s anti-semitic rhetoric in “El celoso extremeño”), and I wish he had written more about Castigo sin venganza and the Persiles and of course the Quijote, but on the other hand I appreciated the complete trajectory of his thesis, and I found the Góngora section, in particular, exceptionally nuanced and innovative, in a discussion of poems that I thought I knew very well. This is work of high quality indeed, and it lives up to the promise of Wagschal’s earlier articles on Renaissance literature and the visual arts.

Ignacio Navarrete University of California, Berkeley [email protected]