El Caso De Mateo Alemán: La Interaccion Entre El Derecho Y La Literatura En El Informe De La Mina De Mercurio De Almaden Y El Guzman De Alfarache
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City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 9-2019 El caso de Mateo Alemán: La interaccion entre el derecho y la literatura en el informe de la mina de mercurio de Almaden y El Guzman de Alfarache Cristina Morales Segura The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/3454 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] EL CASO DE MATEO ALEMÁN: LA INTERACCIÓN ENTRE EL DERECHO Y LA LITERATURA EN EL INFORME DE LA MINA DE MERCURIO DE ALMADÉN Y EL GUZMÁN DE ALFARACHE by Cristina Morales Segura A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Latin American, Iberian and Latino Cultures in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2019 © 2019 CRISTINA MORALES SEGURA All Rights Reserved ii El Caso de Mateo Alemán: La Interacción entre el Derecho y la Literatura en el Informe de la Mina de Mercurio de Almadén y El Guzmán de Alfarache by Cristina Morales Segura This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Latin American, Iberian and Latino Cultures in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________________ _______________________________________ Date Paul Julian Smith Chair of Examining Committee ________________________________ ______________________________________ Date Carlos Riobó Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: José Calvo González Carlos Riobó Oswaldo Zavala THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT El Caso de Mateo Alemán: La Interacción entre el Derecho y la Literatura en el Informe Secreto de Almadén y El Guzmán de Alfarache by Cristina Morales Segura Advisor: Paul Julian Smith In 1593, the Judge Mateo Alemán was in charge of inspecting the quicksilver mines of Almadén in Spain to report on the situation of its workers, prisoners of the Crown, and galley men forced to work on the exploitation of mercury. After one month of work, the assignment was cancelled, Alemán was forced to retire from his research, and his work was lost in the archives of the Habsburgs. A few years later, in 1598, Alemán published his famous best seller, El Guzmán de Alfarache. Alemán’s legal Report, finally found and published in 1966 by Germán Bleiberg, is a narrative text with its own literary identity. In this dissertation this text is used as an example for the practical application of the new legal methodology prompted by the movement Law and Literature. A real proof of the so called “Narrative Theory of Law”, Alemán’s Report is organized with the aim of conveying a story, using literary and rhetoric tools to give voices to characters who narrate their lives in texts susceptible of being analyzed as Literature. Alemán elevates the status of his protagonists to this people -Foucault’s “infamous” men or docile bodies- by granting them a voice and by creating characters who previously did not have one. The Report is grounded in the topic of the punishment of these galley men, because it is the consciousness of this historic reality iv that impels Alemán to confront his task. His judgment sides against a punitive technology, half way between the Medieval and Modern periods, that uses human subjects for the benefit of society, forming docile bodies, that are needed in times of war and threatened by the loss of international political power. Alemán fights with his fragile potestas and auctoritas to establish contradictory spaces, according to Lefebvre’s terms, in which he defends his stance with the tools at his disposal. Literature permeates the legal Report with the evident purpose of raising consciousness and changing opinions. The reader therefore discovers a text susceptible to being analyzed according to the parameters of literary criticism. Just as Literature incurs in Alemán’s legal Report, Law will do the same in the pages of Guzmán de Alfarache in order to grant the novel with the legal legitimacy needed to develop two very singular purposes: an indictment of the current socio-political situation, and the social (and not religious or canonical) redemption of the mistreated figure of the pícaro. This new approach of El Guzmán uses the Law to bestow a critical and committed nuance to the voice of the rogue, portraying him as a victim of his contemporaneity and serving as an advocate for his plea. The reader thus sees a text full of legal implications that aims to reach the specific purpose that the Report never attained. The novel uses the Law to present this new subject, the product of an emergent modern society that exposes the pícaro’s case, using a forensic terminology, with the aim of denouncing a society and institutions founded on corruption and morally reprehensible practices. Alemán was unsuccessful as a powerless servant of the Crown, but very successful as an author. Through his literary counter-archive work he managed to give information, to bring to light, and to make public episodes that the official discourse condemns to the silence of the archives; and finally, to promote humanity, compassion and, to some extent, the truth, contributing v to the formation of another kind of discourse. This is a new discourse that confronts the already existing one denounced by Foucault. Both texts represent the symbiotic tension between Law and Literature, two disciplines that nourish each other reciprocally, by aiming to achieve the same purposes. Alemán’s legal Report is law, narrative, stories, rhetoric and poetry at the same time. Conversely the novel uses Law wisely and subversively as a natural legitimatizing tool, and sets out its formal plaint, leaving to the discretion of the reader the final verdict on the pícaro. It thus serves as an alternative judicial procedure for Guzmán, this other galley slave. This verdict may be more benevolent toward the new character and more rigorous toward the institutions where he thrives. It is perhaps a non-guilty verdict that, although it only takes place in fiction, will offer a strong resistance from inside the system and will have the virtue of creating an ideological counter-archive, driving forward the society and, with it, the Law. A consciousness of Literature as an impulse for society, and also as a jurisprudential precedent, -non-legal, but enormously valid for the progress of the legislative and judicial processes- emerges from this thesis. In conclusion, if this work began by arguing that Law is the source of Literature –the legal imitatio-, it ends by proposing that Literature also becomes a source of Law and an essential factor in its interpretation. We are confronting a new jurisprudence, a precedent, that is gentle and tenacious, molding the decisions of men and women and, with them, the entire society. SUMARIO En 1593 el juez visitador Mateo Alemán fue encargado de realizar una visita a la mina de mercurio de Almadén en España para inspeccionar e informar sobre la situación de sus trabajadores, presos forzados de la Corona que, condenados inicialmente a galeras, habían sido vi derivados a trabajar en la explotación de azogue. El Informe fue atajado de raíz y su autor retirado del caso un mes después de comenzada la tarea, el trabajo quedó perdido en los archivos de los Austrias. Pocos años después, en 1598, Alemán publica con enorme éxito editorial El Guzmán de Alfarache. El informe jurídico constituye un texto narrativo con entidad literaria propia, susceptible de ser analizado bajo parámetros de crítica literaria. Se trata éste de un ejemplo, tanto en la construcción como en el análisis, de la aplicación práctica de la nueva metodología crítica jurídica impulsada por el movimiento de Derecho y Literatura: la llamada Teoría Narrativista del Derecho. El Informe de Alemán se halla organizado y expuesto para transmitir una historia argumentada a través de una retórica y, como tal, las voces de sus personajes narran sus vidas en textos que, simplemente por ser textos, son susceptibles de ser analizados como literarios. Alemán termina por conceder una categoría superior a sus protagonistas al otorgar voz a unas personas -los hombres infames, los sujetos dóciles foucaltianos- que no la tienen. El tema del castigo a los forzados es el vértice sobre el que el Informe pivota, ya que es la concienciación sobre esta realidad histórica la que mueve a Alemán a pronunciarse sobre una técnica punitiva, a caballo entre la sociedad medieval y la moderna, que utiliza al sujeto en beneficio de la sociedad, constituyendo cuerpos dóciles y necesarios en un momento de guerra y de amenaza de pérdida del poder político internacional. Alemán pelea así con sus frágiles potestas y auctoritas y establece espacios de conflicto a la manera de Lefebvre en los que defiende su postura con todas las armas que tiene a su disposición. La Literatura, pues, permea en el texto jurídico con la intención evidente de crear conciencia y opinión. El lector va descubriendo por todo ello un texto susceptible de ser analizado como literario. vii De forma simultánea, si la Literatura entró en el Informe jurídico, la ley y el Derecho lo harán en las páginas de El Guzmán para otorgarle la legitimidad jurídica necesaria para desarrollar un propósito muy peculiar: la crítica al contexto socio-político del momento y la buscada redención social –nunca religiosa ni canónica- de la maltratada figura del pícaro. Se trata de una lectura nueva de El Guzmán de Alfarache, que, sobre la base del Derecho, otorga un acentuado matiz crítico y de compromiso socio-político a la voz del vagabundo, víctima de su contemporaneidad.