INTO ANOTHER’S SKIN
SELECTED ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF MARÍA LUISA DAÑOBEITIA
MAURICIO D. AGUILERA LINDE MARÍA JOSÉ DE LA TORRE MORENO LAURA TORRES ZÚÑIGA (eds.)
INTO ANOTHER’S SKIN
SELECTED ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF MARÍA LUISA DAÑOBEITIA
GRANADA 2012
Fotografías: Mario Pardo Segovia
Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul. Joyce Carol Oates
ÍNDICE
DEDICATORIAS ...... xiii
PREFACIO ...... xxiii
I. EDAD MEDIA Y RENACIMIENTO
“THROUGH THE MISTS OF ANCIENT TIME”: UNA APROXIMACIÓN A LAS MUJERES ANGLOSAJONAS DESDE EL PAGANISMO GERMÁNICO AL CRISTIANISMO TEMPRANO María José de la Torre Moreno ...... 3
THE QUEEN OF TROUBADOURS GOES TO ENGLAND: ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE AND XIITH CENTURY ANGLO- NORMAN LITERARY MILIEU Eugenio M. Olivares Merino ...... 19
SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO AND FREUD’S MOST PREVALENT FORM OF DEGRADATION IN EROTIC LIFE Jesús López-Peláez Casellas ...... 35
HUGH BROUGHTON’S CENSURE OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE Rocío G. Sumillera ...... 47
II. NARRATIVA CONTEMPORÁNEA
ANN RADCLIFFE: UN BEST SELLER DEL S. XVIII Mary Gleeson ...... 61
CORRESPONDENCIAS ENTRE SAMUEL RICHARDSON Y RICHARD B. WRIGHT: LA NOVELA EPISTOLAR ENTONCES Y AHORA Mercedes Díaz Dueñas ...... 73 viii ÍNDICE
THE IRISH RURAL COMMUNITY IN EDNA O’BRIEN’S SHORT FICTION: NATIONALISM, RELIGION AND THE FAMILY AS ANDROCENTRIC TROPES Pilar Villar Argáiz ...... 85
CHANGES IN IDEOLOGY IN MARGARET DRABBLE’S FICTION Celia M. Wallhead ...... 97
MI MANUAL DE HISTORIA SOÑADO. “I’VE HAD A DREAM”: LA OBRA DE RUDOLFO ANAYA AL SERVICIO DE LA HISTORIOGRAFÍA DE SU TIERRA Nathalie Bléser Potelle ...... 109
FOOD AND TASTE IN DETECTIVE STORIES Nieves Pascual Soler ...... 119
“EVERYTHING IN MY BODY […] IS QUICKNESS AND TRIUMPH”: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CARNIVAL AND THE FEMALE IN VIRGINIA WOOLF’S THE WAVES Isabel Andrés Cuevas ...... 131
EL JUEGO METAFICCIONAL EN “WOMEN’S NOVELS” DE MARGARET ATWOOD Cristina Pérez Valverde ...... 139
THE LANGUAGE OF METATEXTUAL FICTION. THE NARRATIVE DISCOURSE OF JASPER FFORDE José Luis Martínez-Dueñas Espejo ...... 149
“MARRIED FOLKS THEY ARE: AND FEW PLEASURES THEY HAVE”: MARRIAGE SCENES IN O. HENRY’S SHORT STORIES Laura Torres Zúñiga ...... 155
REVISITING KATHERINE MANSFIELD: AN INTERVIEW WITH MARGARET SCOTT Gerardo Rodríguez Salas ...... 167
III. TEATRO, CINE Y CULTURA NORTEAMERICANOS
HUC VENITE, PUERI, UT VIRI SITIS: CRUZANDO THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR DE JOHN IRVING Cecilia Díaz Marín y Rosa Morillas Sánchez ...... 175
STUDIES IN HONOUR OF Mª LUISA DAÑOBEITIA ix
“THE MISERABLE, LAUGHABLE THING IT IS”: THE DEMISE OF THE TRADITIONAL MASCULINITY IN ROBERT ANDERSON’S PLAYS Mauricio D. Aguilera Linde ...... 189
VIOLENCE AND RESISTANCE: RETHINKING ON SUSAN GLASSPELL AND TENNESSEE WILLIAMS´S WORKS Nieves Alberola Crespo ...... 201
ADAPTING A SHORT STORY INTO A FULL-LENGTH MOVIE: A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE María Elena Rodríguez Martín ...... 211
WARPED DISCOURSES: THE LOGIC OF ABSENCE IN DEMOCRATIC DISCOURSE Miriam Fernández-Santiago ...... 219
IV. POESÍA Y ARTE
PLATONISMO Y ECOS DE A DEFENCE OF POETRY, DE P. B. SHELLEY, EN EL PENSAMIENTO POÉTICO DE ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI Ángel Enrique Díaz-Pintado Hilario ...... 231
FLOATING DOWN BEYOND CAMELOT: THE LADY OF SHALOTT AND THE AUDIO-VISUAL IMAGINATION Margarita Carretero González ...... 243
MARÍA LUISA DAÑOBEITIA: ERUDICIÓN Y AMOR. APUNTES PARA UNA SEMBLANZA
En uno de sus Escolios a un texto implícito, Nicolás Gómez Dávila ha escrito: “Las dos alas de la inteligencia son la erudición y el amor.” Pues bien: la inteligencia de María Luisa Dañobeitia como profesora de literatura ― inteligencia lectora e inteligencia docente — ilustra, a mi entender, a la perfección el aserto del egregio pensador colombiano. En efecto, ante los ojos admirados de sus alumnos ― entre los que he tenido la suerte de contarme ―, María Luisa Dañobeitia desplegaba, poderosa e imponente, el ala de su erudición, erudición en las tres acepciones que de este vocablo recoge el Diccionario de la Real Academia Española: “1. Instrucción en varias ciencias, artes y otras materias. 2. Amplio conocimiento de los documentos relativos a una ciencia o arte. 3. Lectura varia, docta y bien aprovechada.” Y desplegaba, asimismo, atractiva y cautivadora, el ala de su amor: amor por la literatura, por el libro, por el texto que en cada momento constituía el objeto de su explicación en clase. Se notaba enseguida que a María Luisa Dañobeitia el texto le importaba, le interesaba, le atañía, la entusiasmaba, no sólo profesional, académicamente, sino también personal, vitalmente; el alumno lo notaba, sí, y, lo que es más, quedaba pronto contagiado de su entusiasmo. Se diría que María Luisa Dañobeitia, profesora de literatura y, por ende, lectora “profesional”, ha conservado siempre ― y siempre ha sabido transmitir a sus alumnos ― la pasión por la literatura que caracteriza al apasionado lector aficionado. Y en las alas de su inteligencia — como “en las alas del canto” en el poema de Heine, musicado por Mendelssohn ― nos llevaba María Luisa Dañobeitia a sus alumnos a descubrir y explorar los más diversas regiones del vasto mundo de las bellas letras en lengua inglesa: de Shakespeare a Richardson, de Marlowe a Dickens, de Thomas Hardy a Iris Murdoch. Los que hemos recibido su magisterio seguro que no olvidaremos nunca a María Luisa Dañobeitia (la magia de María Luisa Dañobeitia) explicando Doctor Faustus o Great Expectations. En clase, con esos textos abiertos entre sus manos, María Luisa Dañobeitia, en su elemento natural, diríase que se transfiguraba ante nosotros, sus alumnos. Como se transfigura al hablar del libro que acaba de leer o está aún leyendo, al contar sus impresiones de la última película que ha visto, al dar noticia de los resultados de sus más recientes investigaciones, al hablar de antiguos alumnos con los que sigue en contacto y cuyas vidas no le son en absoluto ajenas, o al exponer, con su habitual lucidez, sus ideas sobre lo que pasa ― nos pasa ― en el mundo. Como se transfigura ― xiv también, y de un modo especial ― ante el lienzo en que está trabajando, el pincel suspenso entre sus dedos, mientras gira en su viejo tocadiscos un disco de vinilo y Violetta Valéry canta “la cruz y la delicia” ― “croce e delizia”― de su amor recién descubierto. Ángel Enrique Díaz-Pintado Hilario
Mª Luisa es una de esas profesoras que parecen saber todo sobre todo. Recuerdo estar en clase con ella y ver cómo era capaz de hilar un tema con otro, de contarte la historia de las distintas versiones de Parsifal, a la vez que extraía hasta el más mínimo matiz de los significados implícitos en un texto. En clase de Mª Luisa, todos nos quedábamos escuchando en silencio, fascinados, queriendo aprender. Futuros profesores de Filología la mayoría de nosotros, todos queríamos beber de esa sabiduría que parecía inagotable. Nunca lo dijimos, pero en nuestro silencio, todos nos sabíamos aspirantes a alcanzar ese grial de conocimientos, de excelencia docente. En efecto, nunca lo dijimos, pero aún hoy, todos sabemos cuál es el grial que perseguimos en nuestra búsqueda diaria: las clases de Mª Luisa encierran la respuesta. Isabel Andrés Cuevas
Gracias, Mª Luisa, por ser una profesora entusiasta y una compañera generosa... Se te echará mucho de menos. Pilar Villar Argáiz
Es difícil hacer una semblanza de una gran amiga y más aún si ésta semblanza ha de ser breve. Como profesional, investigadora y docente María Luisa Dañobeitia ha sido mi maestra. Lo que escribo, lo que he escrito y lo que confío en seguir escribiendo está condicionado por lo que ella tuvo la generosidad de enseñarme: leer debajo de las palabras, utilizar mi imaginación y, sobre todo, no tener miedo al texto. María Luisa me enseñó a revolverlo, a trastornarlo y a destruirlo en clases que me obligaban a pensar y curiosamente me hacían sentir que yo también era ese texto. Ella movió mi voluntad hacia la literatura. Gracias, María Luisa. Nieves Pascual Soler
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“BON VOYAGE, BELLE”
La insinuante, sofisticada y delicada elegancia de una inteligencia inquieta ha dejado de transitar por entre los larguísimos pasillos de un edificio gris que, ahora, sin su presencia casi etérea, parece más de hormigón armado que nunca. Encarnación Hidalgo Tenorio
What could have made her peaceful with a mind That nobleness made simple as a fire, With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind That is not natural in an age like this, Being high and solitary and most stern? ("No Second Troy", W. B. Yeats). Jesús López-Peláez Casellas
Han pasado ya muchos años, más de veinte, desde aquel primer día de clase con la profesora María Luisa Dañobeitia. A pesar del tiempo transcurrido no puedo por menos que evocar las clases del curso de literatura inglesa que ella impartía en cuarto de carrera en la Universidad de Granada. Sus clases no me dejaban indiferente. María Luisa paseaba por el aula; bajo un expectante silencio, su voz se imponía con sus esclarecedoras, acertadas e interesantes explicaciones. Con precisión y exactitud nos guiaba por los entresijos de las obras literarias que formaban parte del temario. Su discurso hacía posible que me sumergiera en los mundos ficticios de Charles Dickens, George Eliot o Thomas Hardy. Se paraba el tiempo y comenzaba un viaje que me transportaba a la Inglaterra victoriana. De entre las miles de ventanas que Henry James dice que la ficción posee, ella nos descubría las más personalísimas al tiempo que se hacía patente su pasión por los textos. En sus manos, la literatura se presentaba como un quehacer atrayente. Únicamente pude disfrutar de sus enseñanzas durante un curso académico, pero fue suficiente para contagiarme su amor por la novela inglesa del siglo XIX. Tengo mucho que agradecerle, ya que con el tiempo me serían muy útiles sus pautas pedagógicas a la hora de llevar a cabo mis tareas de docencia universitaria. Aunque me decantara por el estudio de la literatura estadounidense, su método, buen hacer y entusiasmo han estado siempre presentes en mi andadura como profesora e investigadora. Hace unos pocos años coincidí con Dañobeitia en un acto académico. La brillantez de sus comentarios seguía cautivándome. Quizá fuera ella la que me hizo caer, en palabras de Rosario Ferré, de “la sartén al fuego de la literatura”. Nieves Alberola Crespo
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Es difícil hablar de alguien de quien se conoce solo una minúscula parte de vida. Crear una etopeya con tal desventaja puede generar la injusticia de dejar cosas importantes sin decir, o de pasar por alto cosas que han sido verdaderos hitos para la persona de la que hablamos. A veces incluso, al describir a una persona, inconscientemente, se crea también un personaje. En el caso de Mª Luisa Dañobeitia el riesgo es mayor si cabe porque hasta físicamente ella tiene mucho de personaje literario. ¿A quién no le recuerda ligeramente a la fragilidad del perfil de Virginia Woolf, la mirada serena pero despierta de Joseph Conrad o la elegancia de Isaak Dinesen? ¿Quién podría negar que existe cierto parecido entre ella y el retrato imaginario que en su día hiciera Ignacio Zuloaga de un digno y venerable Alonso Quijano? Hesse, Valle-Inclán, Unamuno, Joyce o Beckett podrían servirnos también para decir algo de ella, pero correríamos el riesgo de desvirtuar esta descripción. A una persona se le pueden asignar tantos roles como seamos capaces de reconocer. En el caso de Mª Luisa seguramente encontremos a una profesora, una compañera o una amiga, y, aún así, seguirá siendo una persona compleja, querida o incomprendida, llena quizás de defectos, pero también de virtudes y valores que no podremos negar. Mucho se puede decir de ella. Creo que lo que más la caracteriza no son tanto sus cualidades sino su contexto y el papel que le ha tocado vivir en un mundo cambiante. Un mundo gatopardiano que despide a la ‘vieja escuela’ para dar paso a la ‘nueva’ y donde ya no interesan tanto los textos literarios como la crítica que se hace de ellos; donde ya no prima que quien transmita el conocimiento sea una persona humanista en el sentido más renacentista del término, capaz de aproximarse y profundizar en aquellas disciplinas que le hayan permitido generar un sentido crítico coherente y cohesionado con nuestra realidad, sino que basta que el transmisor sea un especialista aséptico del tema a transmitir. Seguramente este homenaje es más que merecido por haber contribuido con su conocimiento a la investigación y la divulgación de la literatura; por haber guiado a muchas personas en sus carreras o haber contribuido a nuestra formación profesional; por haber sido una buena compañera o por haber compartido no solo su tiempo sino también buena parte de su cariño. Todas estas razonas justifican este libro en su honor, pero sin duda, y la que seguramente está por encima de todas ellas es que Mª Luisa ha sido una de las pocas personas que nos ha hecho descubrir la literatura como nadie. He conocido a pocos docentes que como ella sean capaces de enseñar de una forma clara y apasionada los mensajes que guardan los textos; de llevarte de la mano con entusiasmo por una obra hasta que tu puedas andar con pie firme por ella y sentir las emociones codificadas en cada palabra; que te conceda libertad para pensar sobre una obra literaria respetando tu posición pero generando siempre un talante crítico. Pocas personas dedicadas a la enseñanza de la literatura han conseguido transmitir tanto como lo hace ella, y pocas personas pueden atribuirse el mérito de haber
xvii sabido enseñar que hay pocos modos mejores para entender la condición humana como la literatura. Mario Pardo Segovia
“She was [never] afraid of all the Freaks, for it seemed to her that they had looked at her in a secret way and tried to connect their eyes with hers, as though to say: we know you.” (The Member of the Wedding, Carson McCullers). Mauricio D. Aguilera Linde
Mi primer recuerdo de Mª Luisa Dañobeitia me provoca una sonrisa que me transporta a la asignatura optativa ‘Literatura Inglesa y su relación con las literaturas europeas’. Una mujer entrañable y cercana entraba en el aula con una copia inteligentemente manoseada de The Countess Cathleen. Sus comentarios siempre iban más allá de la obra en un despliegue inigualable de originales comparaciones y digresiones, que la convertían en una musa de la literatura para un grupo de estudiantes inexpertos pero ávidos de saber. Su voz peculiar y onírica y sus historias siempre imprevisibles hacían que esperáramos ansiosos la llegada de la clase que, a buen seguro, no dejaría a nadie impasible. Tu paleta experta de pintora de ideas nos sirvió en una de tus clases para dar color a nuestra hipotética adaptación de la obra de Yeats. Gracias, Mª Luisa, por colorear nuestras interpretaciones literarias y, de paso, nuestras vidas. Gerardo Rodríguez Salas
Querida María Luisa: Parece mentira pero este curso académico hace veinte años que empecé mi último curso de carrera; exactamente dos décadas desde que empezaron nuestras conversaciones, primero dentro del aula ― “diseccionando” textos — luego en los despachos, pasillos, cafetería de la facultad e incluso en el ciberespacio. Gracias por compartir tus ideas, tus risas y tus lágrimas; mil gracias por esas charlas sobre lo material y lo espiritual, sobre vidas reales y de ficción, sobre vidas humanas y no humanas. Sigue disfrutando de ello y, cuando tengas un ratito, sigue compartiendo. Margarita Carretero González
Conocí a la doctora Dañobeitia en octubre de 1989 y puedo decir, sin dudarlo un segundo, que si hoy en día soy profesor de literatura inglesa, medieval y xviii renacentista, es por ella. Para mí, María Luisa era ― a medida que avanzaba el curso — the Wife of Bath, Morgan la Fée, the Fairie Queen, y Gertrude… pero no la madre de Grendel. Gracias a ella, comencé a leer los textos como si se trataran de acertijos, con códigos ocultos o claves secretas. Y desde entonces, siempre me he enfrentado a cada nueva obra literaria, como quien abre un viejo cofre, alerta e ilusionado. Hony Soyt Qui Mal Pence Eugenio M. Olivares Merino
RECUERDOS Recuerdo la delicada figura de Mª Luisa moviéndose por los pasillos del departamento, el viejo y también el nuevo edificio. Recuerdo la lista de notas con su letra manuscrita de caligrafía antigua en medio de decenas de listados informatizados. Recuerdo su voz pausada y tranquila con la que lo mismo hablaba con pasión de leyendas y mitos que defendía lo que creía con vehemencia. Recuerdo sus miles de historias, anécdotas y vivencias — siempre únicas — que a veces compartió conmigo. Recuerdo que no la olvidaré. Carmen Aguilera Carnerero
I
Se pierde por un laberinto de estanterías con el libro en la mano, como una ninfa que cruza al otro lado del espejo y descubre un imaginario poblado de rosas y estrellas. Lo ha tomado del último estante, el que roza la tarde por el ventanal de la izquierda. No puede despegar los ojos de esa frase. Esa noche se quedará dormida con él en su regazo. Una universidad lejana, años después, el libro abierto por la misma página. Y, aunque lo habrá olvidado, se habrá cumplido el sueño.
II
Anatomy of Criticism Northrop Frye, Victoria College, Toronto
Poso los ojos en el libro. Los arquetipos como un orden de palabras, estructuras verbales y mitologías, significados de la imaginación La esencia misma de lo humano
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Mitos, metáforas que expanden horizontes Kerigma, poder transformativo.
Vuelvo a unos años que nutren el presente Páginas señaladas por sus manos Palabras que marcaron el camino
III
How should the humanities be taught, and how should scholars in the humanities be trained? Jung belongs in any humanities program… his archetypes constitute the universal tropes of epic, drama, folklore, and fairy tale. Eric Neumann’s work, above all, assimilates or smoothly dovetails with major literature and art. Poststructuralism…can claim success only with self-reflexive literature. Camille Paglia
W.B. Yeats, C.G. Jung, N. Frye
Mª Luisa led me into their worlds. Cristina Pérez Valverde
Atardecer. Interior. Aula en la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. Nunca fuimos ni necesitamos ni quisimos ser más de 10 personas en ese aula. María Luisa me enseñó a leer. Leer cuidadosa y pacientemente. Olvidar vicios y manías y dar siempre varios pasos hacia atrás antes de dar uno hacia delante. Me enseñó que toda lectura hace referencia a mil textos y en última instancia a uno mismo. Me enseñó que la palabra “interesante” está vacía de significado. Esta enfermera impenitente, incapaz de hacer dos cosas a la vez, que siempre busca la interacción y la entrega por parte de sus alumnos, y me atrevería a decir que por parte todos los que la rodean, lía tabaco y te enreda con las diez mil vidas que ha vivido. Una preciosa retahíla cuyo delicado orden es magnético y misterioso. Una maravilla. Bel canto, tabaco y literatura. Los filólogos leen lápiz en mano. Quién fuera lápiz en mano tan noble. “Algún día harás películas cargadas de símbolos. No será complicado. Será precioso”. GRACIAS DE TODO CORAZÓN. Valentín Ramos Gea xx
Tuve la suerte de tener a Mª Luisa como profesora durante tan solo un cuatrimestre, donde me descubrió una de mis novelas favoritas, 1984. Fue posteriormente como becaria en el departamento cuando pude conocer mejor tanto a la brillante profesora siempre dispuesta a compartir su último hallazgo crítico, como a la compañera afectuosa y cercana a los que comenzamos a aventurarnos en esta a veces solitaria carrera académica. Si algo he aprendido con y de ella, es que ambas facetas no deben dejar de ir de la mano. Laura Torres Zúñiga
ON OCCASION OF MARÍA LUISA DAÑOBEITIA’S RETIREMENT
Me cumple el honor de dirigir unas palabras con motivo de la jubilación de nuestra amiga y colega María Luisa Dañobeitia Fernández al llegar la edad reglamentaria, lo que una vez más nos hace reflexionar sobre lo finito y lo contingente. Sucede esto porque pasados muchos años de convivencia y de carrera profesional se producen momentos, como el que nos ocupa, en el cual pronunciar unas palabras no es sólo cumplir con un rito, manifestar una costumbre o continuar un uso habitual y propio sino extender en cierta forma ese planeo vital al rememorar un testimonio de amistad de quien durante treinta años ha sido una profesora ejemplar provista de una original impronta intelectual. Ella ha sabido transmitir esto a generaciones de alumnos de nuestra facultad y ha dejado una indeleble huella en determinadas personas, humana y profesionalmente. Pero no me corresponde hacer un panegírico, no es lo que la ocasión requiere. Más bien se me antoja que lo apropiado es seguir un breve comentario como el que se hacía en las antiguas oposiciones o en los concursos cátedra o también como los que se redactan en los informes de la ANECA, con aquello de fortalezas y debilidades del plan de estudios o del departamento. Así que una vez analizados los meritos de la Dra. Dañobeitia y tras haber considerado sus contribuciones a los estudios literarios del inglés, su investigación, publicaciones y otras altas circunstancias que en ella concurren, yo echo de menos dos cuestiones de fundamental interés que coronarían su carrera docente e investigadora y cerrarían de forma completa su personalidad intelectual. Se trata de dos aspectos que son inherentes a su personalidad y proyección y que, sin embargo, no me consta que ella los haya realizado debidamente. Dada tal circunstancia le propongo que acometa tales tareas ahora que va a prescindir de determinadas obligaciones y que tendrá la oportunidad de realizar otras actividades con mayor tranquilidad.
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Lo primero que he echado de menos en María Luisa Dañobeitia Fernández es que no haya realizado una cruzada a Tierra Santa, como hizo en su momento Leonor de Aquitania. Esta actividad constituiría un broche de oro a sus intereses como medievalista para conseguir el Grial. María Luisa Dañobeitia partiría de la Occitania hacia la Renania, atravesando Hungría, y llegando hasta Bulgaria para recalar en Constantinopla y llegar a Antioquia, para llegar a Siria del Norte, el feudo fronterizo de los reinos latinos. Imagino yo a nuestra amiga entre francos y alemanes hablando de recetas bizantinas e intercambiando historias de damascenos y sarracenos, comprando sedas de rara color y fumando cigarrillo tras cigarrillo con los mercaderes turcos mientras la soldadesca y los carreteros lanzaban improperios y toda suerte de blasfemias a las acémilas, bueyes y demás bestias de carga. También no desaprovecharía la ocasión para hablar con los médicos de Constantinopla y discutir sobre misteriosos síntomas. María Luisa nos contaría de su regreso por el Mediterráneo, por las peligrosas costas del Peloponeso, dada la enemistad del rey de Sicilia y los bizantinos. En todo momento, su aventura sería de alto interés y a todos nos resultaría lógico que hubiese emprendido tal viaje. La segunda cuestión que le queda por hacer se halla también relacionada con su estudio del medioevo y su literatura, pero hace referencia a su afición por la raza canina, de la que me ha hablado en ocasiones con profusión de nombres y castas. Esta segunda cuestión a la que me refiero es que no ha escrito aún, que se sepa, un bestiario, y esto abundaría con creces en su prosapia literaria y académica. Ella podría construir un auténtico mosaico de bestiario en el que aparecerían zorros y canes y búhos y ruiseñores que encandilarían al lector con sus razonables monsergas. Su originalidad estribaría en que ese bestiario tendría por una parte una explicación y unas palabras acordes con la escritura, y por otra parte habría una serie de ilustraciones hechas por ella misma, ya que sus dotes artísticas exceden la mera escritura. De esta guisa además de describir al león, al águila, la serpiente, la hormiga, el ciervo, la araña, el zorro, la sirena, la torcaza, el elefante, la pantera o la tórtola los dibujaría igualmente con singular primor, ornándolos de colores preciosos. Pero eso no sería lo mejor: lo auténticamente original y novedoso sería que esos animales lejos de ser seres anónimos a los que la naturaleza ha desplazado a una representación determinada en escritura e imagen, esos animales serían personajes conocidos que han pululado por nuestros pasillos y despachos durante años, muchos de ellos de forma honorable y virtuosa, por lo que recibirían zooformas nobles y dignas, mientras que otros aparecerían en morfologías vitandas y onerosas en verecundia. No obstante, he de decir en honor de la homenajeada que esta última consideración no cabe en su noble corazón y es más fruto de mi imaginación aristotélica, al separar lo bueno de lo malo y representarlo en transposición creativa. Pero dejémoslo estar. En cualquier caso, la Dra. Dañobeitia, estoy seguro, haría un bestiario ejemplar. No quiero terminar sin, además de expresar de manera pública y formal mi admiración y afecto por la homenajeada, dejar constancia de esto en la forma en que lo solemos hacer los que nos dedicamos a esta noble arte de la filología, que xxii por cierto según Marciano Mineo Félix Capella contrajo nupcias con Mercurio, lo que puede verse en un cuadro de Boticelli falsamente considerado la alegoría de la primavera, como ha demostrado Giovanni Reale al explicar que en realidad se trata de las bodas de Mercurio con la Filología, en presencia de la poesía y de la retórica. Pues bien, sigo, en filológico modo como la ocasión requiere. Hace unos días, preparando unas notas de clase, me topé con una antología de textos medievales en la que pude leer los siguientes versos, que se aplican a la ocasión y con lo que concluyo no sin antes agradecer el que se me haya dado viva oportunidad de expresar mi opinión y emoción en este momento. Aquí sigue lo que leí:
Lo! In those old dayes of King Arthour There lived a lady of greet honour. María Luisa was her name, I telle And many people were in helle For not having studied with gentilesse The novels and tales of old richesse, Full of notes and of many pages That to the yonge pepele filled their eyes With the wordes of the poet of Florence And the analysis of the sentence Of the dwelling of a poor scoler With a rich gnof that was a carpenter. Maria Luisa always told the fair story That went out of her memory Of a poor wydwe, somdel stape in age Was whilom dwellying in a narwe cottage. The ladies and gentilmen scolers in this Université Speak and praise her grand veriteé And ever, alas, her long tale is admired though our fair and gode Maria Luisa is retired. José Luis Martínez-Dueñas Espejo
ED
Tuve la oportunidad de conocer a María Luisa cuando me incorporé al departamento como ayudante. En cada encuentro en el pasillo, por breve que éste fuera, era capaz de deleitarte con una anécdota o una hipótesis acerca de un tema de actualidad que siempre te dejaba sumida en un tren de pensamientos. Tal es su gusto por la conversación que engarza unas con otras, y con ellas fluyen las diferentes facetas de María Luisa que te atrapan y, difícilmente, olvidas. En estos últimos años, a raíz de que naciera Lola, María Luisa me ha regalado su aspecto más maternal, el más solidario, el que me ha calado más hondo. Gracias, amiga. Rosa Morillas Sánchez
Conocí a María Luisa en octubre de 1989 en una conferencia sobre semiótica celebrada aquí en Granada. El título de su ponencia, “El ritual del corte del cabello en The Unicorn de Iris Murdoch” abría un horizonte de lecturas bíblica, mítica, psicoanálitica y antropológica que nos dejó a los oyentes profundamente desconcertados. En el análisis María Luisa desgranaba los elementos codificados en el ritual. Hannah, vestida de gala, pese a estar en casa, se deja cortar el cabello por Dennis, un joven virginal, al atardecer. El viento sopla intensamente: un murciélago se arrastra moribundo por la habitación, momentos antes de quemar los mechones de cabello. Arrodillado, Denis calza a la muchacha. Unas semanas más tarde, manteníamos nuestra primera conversación. Yo tenía 23 años, ganas de aprender y aún conservaba la ingenuidad de que quien cree que una tesis doctoral puede contener todas las lecturas y atrapar todos los interrogantes de un texto literario. Si algo le debemos a profesora María Luisa todos los que hemos sido sus alumnos no es tanto su conocimiento inagotable de la tradición literaria (¿quién se atreve a desafiarla en estas lides?), ni su intuición sobre el quid de una obra, ni su asombrosa rapidez para descodificar símbolos y leer mensajes en clave, ni tan siquiera su conocimiento del cómo ni del qué puede y debe enseñarse en literatura. Si en algo estamos en deuda, y seremos siempre aprendices, es en la praxis y la enseñanza de la hermenéutica. Porque María Luisa, ahora puedo confesarlo, no ha sido nunca profesora (pese a haber pisado las aulas durante muchos años y haber cautivado a sus alumnos durante tantos otros) sino hermeneuta. Me explico. Un profesor es ante todo un educador y como tal educa, esto es, conduce (ducere) por un camino que lleva al conocimiento. Un hermeneuta interpreta, traduce significados y para ello sospecha, duda, pone en tela de juicio lo que es aparente, y ante todo ve más allá de lo que se lee en la letra impresa. En lugar de marcar sendas, las borra; desconfía de las verdades aprendidas, de los métodos unívocos y cerrados, y derriba los sistemas monolíticos de xxiv conocimiento. En vez de hacer fácil lo complejo, destapa significados ocultos que oscurecen y complican lo que a priori parecía meridiano y sin ambages. No seré el primero que afirma con rotundidad que la hermenéutica (la teoría de la interpretación) es el alma de la filología (para quienes todavía creemos en ella); y que la filología es la ciencia fundamental de la memoria. En palabras de Emilio Lledó, la hermenéutica descubre en la escritura que el hombre ha tenido historia, recupera la voz del pasado y le da un sentido de diálogo intenso y claro (Lledó 1998). 1 La hermenéutica abarca territorios que se solapan: la interpretación gramatical, la interpretación pragmática, la interpretación estilística y, por último, la interpretación histórica: los sentidos figurados, niveles, valores, ideologías, el geist en términos de Steinthal, todo aquello que va más allá de las proposiciones sintácticamente encadenadas y que escapa a la pura materialidad del lenguaje. Y es hacia este último escalón de la hermenéutica donde María Luisa ha intentado empujarnos. ¿O debería decir estrellarnos? Todos los que hemos sido sus discípulos hemos sentido el vértigo del doble salto mortal que implica pasar de la comodidad de la interpretación gramatical, pragmática y estilística a la interpretación de los significados ocultos. Leer a contramano, “against the grain”, deshacer lo que es obvio, aprender a ver el texto a contraluz no son tareas fáciles. Nunca se me dieron bien las adivinanzas y, sin embargo, nada agradecemos más a María Luisa que la sospecha como principio hermenéutico básico. ¿Saltar sin red? Todo lo contrario: su praxis hermenéutica cuenta con redes, excesivamente tupidas, además. No parte de la nada, es obvio. Pero ¿quién en su sano juicio se atreve a leer, y sobre todo a digerir, el elaborado entramado de símbolos de La rama dorada? Creo que ese fue el primer libro que la Dra. Dañobeitia me aconsejó. Luego vinieron otros: La diosa blanca de Graves; y otros autores: Gaston Bachelard, Northrop Frye, Carl Jung… No creo que haya muchas personas en España (y me atrevería a decir más allá de nuestras fronteras) capaces de sentirse como pez en el agua en un caudal tan complejo y granado de referencias cruzadas. Solo María Luisa puede entender con toda profundidad la occisión del rey del bosque, la leyenda del rey tullido o Rey Pescador, la palingénesis o el ciclo de las estaciones, el sacrificio del toro, o el simbolismo de la manzana o del muérdago, la decapitación o la magia del pentágono, por citar tan solo unos ejemplos. Los demás, como mucho, intentamos mantenernos a flote en estas aguas turbulentas. La situación puede ser aún más incómoda porque María Luisa extrapola sus conocimientos a la vida, a la prosaica, a la más cotidiana. Cuando este verano decidí viajar a Camboya y buscaba en la red dónde, cómo y cuándo llegar, qué ropa llevarme y qué pastillas tomar, María Luisa viene y me suelta con una naturalidad pasmosa lo siguiente: “recuerda que todavía se celebra allá en algunos lugares el ritual del Rey del Fuego y del Rey del Agua”. La referencia, luego descubro, ocupa un breve párrafo en las más de 800 densas páginas de La rama dorada, y a mí me deja
1. Emilio Lledó. Imágenes y palabras. Ensayos de humanidades. Barcelona: Taurus, 1998.
xxv boquiabierto, pero en el transcurso de la conversación disimulo, no quiero que mi directora de tesis descubra, una vez más, mi ignorancia. No creo que ninguno de los seis discípulos, me refiero a los seis que escribimos una tesis bajo su dirección, y que hemos acabado como profesores universitarios, hayamos sabido encontrar o arrancar la rama dorada necesaria para ocupar el puesto del sacerdote en el templo del saber (pese a que sospecho que algunos de ellos, y me congratulo, llegarán a ser catedráticos de universidad). Más allá de las jerarquías del cuerpo docente de la Universidad, más allá de la vida laboral activa o el cese de actividades, María Luisa, P.T.U. y ahora jubilada, seguirá oficiando como maestra de ceremonias en las literaturas medieval y renacentista. Su dominio, por añadidura, de Blake, de la novela epistolar del S.XVIII y de la literatura canadiense la convierten en una profesora que es imposible reemplazar, una rara avis en una universidad obsesionada en los últimos tiempos en formar a expertos de un campo (¿debería decir huerto?) cada vez más angosto, que, sin embargo, paradójicamente, da para un sinfín de publicaciones. “No man is an island”, Donne nos dijo en sus meditaciones. Foucault afirmaría siglos más tarde que “[l]as fronteras de un libro no están nunca delimitadas: más allá del título, de las primeras líneas y el punto final (…) [un libro] está atrapado en un sistema de citas de otros libros, otros textos, otras frases, como un nudo en una red” (Foucault, 1972:23). 2 Yo creo que muchos debemos parte de nuestra voz, de nuestras exégesis, de nuestras sospechas y silencios en el aula a quien nos obligó a ver la literatura (y la vida) de otra manera.
Mauricio D. Aguilera Linde 11 de Noviembre de 2011
2. Michel Foucault. The archaeology of knowledge and the discourse on language. Trad. A. M. Sheridan. Nueva York: Pantheon Books, 1972.
Este libro es la suma de muchos esfuerzos. Reúne 22 ensayos firmados en su mayoría por sus compañeros de departamento, aunque también hay otras áreas de conocimiento (Traducción e Interpretación, Didáctica de la Lengua, Filologías Eslava y Francesa) y otras universidades (Jaén y Jaume I de Castellón). Con la excepción de nuestro catedrático, José Luis Martínez Dueñas-Espejo, y de nuestras compañeras Miriam Fernández Santiago y Nathalie Bléser Potelle, el resto de los autores hemos sido alumnos de María Luisa en algún momento de nuestra formación académica. Como cabría esperar en un Festschrift, el volumen es una miscelánea sobre autores anglonorteamericanos: desde la literatura anglonormanda y los hitos canónicos (Shakespeare, Tennyson, Woolf, Williams, entre otros) hasta los juegos intertextuales o metanarrativos de John Irving, Margaret Atwood y Jasper Fforde, o las resonancias míticas de Rudolfo Anaya y la ironía de O. Henry. Hay también ocasiones en que Baudrillard y Derrida reaparecen en el análisis de la fotografía del gobierno de Obama frente a la ejecución de Osama bin Laden. En otras, el sempiterno Platón nos vuelve a hablar a través de Shelley y la poesía de Adam Zagajewski. Un aspecto resulta irrefutable: ya se trate de novela epistolar, gótica, detectivesca, o de relatos ambientados en la Irlanda de mediados del S.XX, la mayoría de las contribuciones se centran en la representación de la mujer y en cuestiones de género. Hay, por último, ensayos que versan sobre la recepción de la Biblia del Rey Jacobo a principios del S.XVII, y otros que analizan la utilización de un relato literario en la producción cinematográfica de Artificial Intelligence (2001). Es esta pluralidad no solo metodológica sino de objetos de conocimiento la raison d’etre de quiénes nos dedicamos a la hermenéutica literaria. Partimos de conceptos de episteme diferentes, y, qué duda cabe, de doxas e ideologías opuestas. Y, sin embargo, creemos en la creación de un espacio común, heteroglósico, donde no siempre es posible compartir puntos de vista. Quede este xxviii libro como muestra de nuestros intereses dispares y como tributo de nuestra admiración unánime a quien supo modelar muestra vocación docente e investigadora.
Mauricio D. Aguilera Linde María José de la Torre Moreno Laura Torres Zúñiga
I
EDAD MEDIA Y RENACIMIENTO
“THROUGH THE MISTS OF ANCIENT TIME”: UNA APROXIMACIÓN A LAS MUJERES ANGLOSAJONAS DESDE EL PAGANISMO GERMÁNICO AL CRISTIANISMO TEMPRANO
MARÍA JOSÉ DE LA TORRE MORENO Universidad de Granada
Este trabajo plantea una aproximación a la realidad histórica de las mujeres anglosajonas analizando diversas referencias fragmentarias que contribuyen a generar una idea aproximada de la conceptualización que las sociedades germánicas poseían de las figuras femeninas. Las referencias empleadas en este propósito incluyen no tanto la poesía del periodo anglosajón, sino la mitología y el folclore de los pueblos germánicos (de los que descienden anglos, jutos y sajones), documentos jurídicos del contexto histórico, así como crónicas históricas y estudios arqueológicos. Una vez establecidos los parámetros definitorios de la percepción y situación social de las mujeres en el mundo germánico, se plantea una comparativa con la lectura que de estos elementos se realizó desde la óptica cristiana, así como con la situación que la nueva sociedad estableció para el género femenino.
Se sabe muy poco del periodo anglosajón, y los motivos que se alegan para esta oscuridad son varios. Patrick Wormald aduce que las fuentes que cuentan esta historia se compilaron con mucho retraso a las fechas históricas reales, y además se elaboraron a partir de una tradición oral, que incorporaba mito y ficción, convenientemente adaptados a los hechos narrados (Wormald 1998:2). Del periodo germánico es muy escaso lo que nos ha llegado documentalmente. Nuestro conocimiento del mundo germánico se nos presenta como la huella difusa de un pasado remoto, “through the mists of ancient time, revealed only in glimpses, and by half-understood allusions buried in later history and story” (Holt 1984:66). De ahí que para el estudio de estas sociedades de raíces germánicas haya que recurrir a documentos legales (como testamentos, cartas de propiedad, “charters”, “royal diplomas”, “writs”, así como leyes), crónicas, restos arqueológicos, y la literatura preservada del periodo, así como compilaciones de sabiduría popular y folclor: Maxims, Gnomic Verses y Riddles. Según Michael Alexander, la poesía junto con la arqueología y el derecho 4 MARÍA JOSÉ DE LA TORRE MORENO conservado son las principales fuentes para conocer la sociedad de este periodo (Alexander 1975:15). El filólogo alemán Frederick Klaeber consideraba Beowulf como “a veritable treasure house of information on Germanic antiquities” (cf. Bravo 1998:107). Bruce Mitchell y Fred C. Robinson también apuntaban a este elemento aglutinador de la cultura germánica que se encuentra en Beowulf, cuando lo calificaban de “poetic summa of the Germanic heroic age” (Mitchell y Robinson 1988:21). Sin embargo, a pesar de todo, el conocimiento que nos pueden proporcionar Beowulf y otros poemas no deja de ser fragmentario y volátil, al depender de las referencias, a menudo codificadas, alojadas en las obras que determinados clérigos eligieron por diversos motivos (entre los que cabe contemplar los ideológicos) para su transcripción. John Niles argumenta que la cultura pagana anglosajona del periodo anterior a la conversión nos ha llegado tan opaca e incompleta debido al silencio de los clérigos sobre los aspectos paganos que habían luchado por erradicar (Niles 1998:128). En estas páginas, abordaremos los rasgos que, recuperados a partir de diversas fuentes, contribuyen a generar una imagen del significado del género femenino en el remoto contexto de las sociedades germánicas, y cómo estos parámetros definitorios (fertilidad, magia, sabiduría y poder) se traducirían en valores muy diferentes en el ámbito de la cultura cristiana posterior. 1 Un modo de entrever la situación de la mujer en la sociedad germánica es buscar dentro del contexto de la fe cristiana primitiva, más ampliamente documentada. Los autores y dirigentes religiosos asimilaban figuras de los cultos paganos a la cultura judeo-cristiana, de modo que así se rehabilitaba la cultura bárbara para hacerla inocente dentro del contexto de la fe cristiana (Niles 1998:135-136). Un ejemplo de la convivencia de ritos paganos y cristianos que aporta Niles se sitúa en un momento de la expansión del cristianismo en que las fuentes y los pozos no podían dedicarse a ninguna figura pagana porque eran exclusivos del culto a la Virgen (ibid.:128), lo que revela el sedimento de una diosa anterior ligada al agua de estos lugares, y que fue subsumida y transformada en la Virgen María por la cultura cristiana. No es difícil percibir el motivo de esta prohibición: apropiándose del lugar de culto de diosas paganas vinculadas a estos enclaves relacionados con el agua, y suplantándolas por la “diosa” cristiana, se pretendía erradicar estas creencias y dejar paso libre a la nueva religión, que no tenía inconveniente en asimilar estas costumbres bárbaras para completar su penetración en la isla.
1. Para comprobar cómo estos atributos se perciben en algunos personajes femeninos de Beowulf, véase por la presente autora “La demonización de la reina Thryth como freoðuwebbe: la transgresión de sus funciones de género”, en Towards an Understanding of the English Language: Past, Present and Future. L. Quereda, N. Mclaren, J.L. Martínez_Dueñas y C. Pérez (eds.). (2005) Granada: Universidad de Granada, 383-392; así como las obras citadas en la sección de referencias bibliográficas al final de este trabajo.
“THROUGH THE MISTS OF ANCIENT TIME”: MUJERES ANGLOSAJONAS 5
Como trasfondo, se atisba un telurismo del folclor antiguo que relacionaba a la mujer con el agua, asociación que es recurrente en las mitologías antiguas. En este rasgo se aprecia una de las constantes que se apuntará en la concepción de las diosas que se exponen a continuación: el estrecho vínculo entre la figura de la mujer y la naturaleza, un parámetro antropológico universal cuyo origen obedece a la peculiaridad biológica de las mujeres como fuentes de vida. Por otra parte, además de con el agua, numerosas figuras femeninas sagradas en las mitologías nórdica y germánica aparecen asociadas con cuevas y grutas, como otro modo de reforzar la identificación entre la mujer y la naturaleza, al evocar las mismas entrañas de la tierra. Estas cavidades simbolizarían el útero femenino donde también reside la fertilidad femenina. Entre las figuras de culto más extensamente adoradas por los pueblos germánicos estaba la diosa Nerthus. Tácito escribe sobre ella en el capítulo cuarenta de su Germania, donde la llama “terra mater”, evidenciando el vínculo de la diosa con la fertilidad y la naturaleza; y habla de la cueva sagrada donde se le rendía culto. Durante sus celebraciones los esclavos que eran sacrificados en su honor morían por ahogamiento en el “secreto lacu” en que también se bañaba la diosa y sus pertenencias tras el ritual, lo que unido a la ubicación de su santuario en una isla (Germania XL), nos remite a la idea del agua como elemento relacionado con la mujer. En las versiones de los mitos escandinavos de Asgard, Nerthus se presenta como la madre de Freyja. Freyja, también conocida por Freya o Frea,2 era la hija del dios germánico del mar Njord, y diosa de la fertilidad. Según la mitología germánica, era descendiente de los Vanir (deidades de la fertilidad), cuyos sortilegios y encantamientos conocía, así como los de los Aesir (deidades de la guerra). Esto nos habla de las fuerzas mágicas asociadas a esta diosa, que la llevaron en una ocasión a ejercer su poder sobre un admirador masculino de nombre Ottar al transformarlo en un jabalí de cerdas doradas llamado Hildesvini (“battle boar”). Desde entonces, esta deidad se relaciona con la figura del jabalí y las connotaciones de fuerza y poder en la batalla asociadas a este animal. Además, aparece vinculada con el agua y el mar, así como con el oro. De hecho, según las leyendas preservadas, las lágrimas de Freyja se convertían en oro al contacto con la tierra. Por otra parte, Freyja tenía un tesoro, que suele identificarse con el collar de los Brisings, Brosings o Bristlings, llamado Brisingamen, y que sobre su cuello era un emblema de los frutos del cielo y la tierra (Cotterell 1998:190). Otro aspecto de la diosa que está unido al simbolismo de la tierra y al poder de la mujer en pie de igualdad con el hombre es el hecho de que Freyja se repartía a la par que el dios Odín a los caídos tras la batalla (North 1997:108). Recordando su vinculación a la tierra y la fertilidad, esta otra dimensión sería el reverso del parto: como diosa de la tierra, reclama la vida que surgió de ella. Además de los testimonios recuperados del folclore germánico, los restos arqueológicos nos ayudan a completar nuestra visión. Figuras de jabalíes tal y como se describen
2. Según las leyendas preservadas, Freyja utillizaba diferentes nombres en sus viajes: Mardoll, Horn, Syr, Gullveig y Gefn. Esta última se propone también como otra variante de otra diosa de la fertilidad que se discute en páginas posteriores: Gefinn.
6 MARÍA JOSÉ DE LA TORRE MORENO en Beowulf – tanto en relieve como figuras tridimensionales que coronaban sus crestas – han sido halladas en los yelmos de guerreros 3 en los yacimientos de Sutton Hoo, York, Benty Grange (Derbyshire), Guilden Morden (Cambridgeshire), y Wollaston (Northamptonshire) (Webster 1998:188-189). Estas figuras de jabalíes tenían un valor talismánico en el que se percibe el poder mágico de la figura femenina, dada la vinculación entre Freyja y este animal, investido de fuerza para la batalla. Según apunta Aguirre, el jabalí sería un animal sagrado para la diosa tierra en una cultura pre-germánica, cuyo valor totémico y protector habría sido heredado por la deidad Freyja (Aguirre 1993:15). Tácito documenta esta costumbre y la creencia talismánica que la motivaba:
[the Aestyan nations] worship the Mother of the Gods. As the characteristic of their national superstition, they wear the images of wild boars. This alone serves them for arms, this is the safeguard of all, and by this every worshipper of the Goddess is secured even amidst his foes. (Tácito:XLV)
Freyja no es la única diosa de la fertilidad en la mitología de los pueblos germánicos y nórdicos; habría que mencionar también a Frig y Gefinn. Frig (también llamada Frigg en antiguo nórdico, así como Fricka, Frigga o Frija) era asimismo diosa de la fertilidad, al tiempo que de la tierra y la atmósfera. Estas semejanzas con Freyja han hecho pensar que quizá ambas fuesen dos derivaciones distintas de una sola deidad que representase a la madre tierra (North 1997:109). Frig también poseía un toque mágico: el don de la clarividencia, pues conocía los destinos de los humanos, y en cuanto al rasgo que liga a estas diosas con joyas y la tierra y sus entrañas, también le atribuye la mitología una fuerte pasión por el oro (Cotterell 1998:191). Gefinn o Gefjun era otra diosa de la fertilidad del olimpo nórdico, aparentemente ligada con la agricultura, actividad que emblematiza a la perfección tanto el concepto de fertilidad y maternidad como el de tierra y naturaleza como fuente de vida (Ellis Davidson 1993:108), aunque también se le atribuye una conexión con la fecundidad de los mares, por medio de su posible cognación etimológica con “gabia, a Germanic sea numen whose name denoted ‘giving’” (North 1997:225- 226). Otro elemento de su caracterización se encuadra en otro parámetro que se abordará más adelante en conexión con las figuras femeninas: su asociación con joyas, que se evidencia respecto a Gefinn en el episodio en que es acusada por Loki de prostituirse para conseguir un collar. Otros ejemplos de diosas de la fertilidad en el panteón germánico son Atla, la diosa nórdica de las aguas, o Sif, otra deidad femenina relacionada con la tierra y las cosechas (Cotterell 1998:191). Además, la asociación de las mujeres con la fertilidad de la naturaleza tiene otros referentes legendarios del folclore
3. Además de estos ejemplos de jabalíes en yelmos hallados en las islas británicas, también encontramos representaciones de estos animales en el grabado de un yelmo encontrado en la tumba número 14 de Vendel, Uppland (Suecia), y datado a finales del s. VI o siglo VII, así como en otra pieza sueca: en un relieve en bronce de la misma datación hallado en Torslunda, Öland, que representa a soldados sobre cuyos cascos hay sendas efigies de jabalíes (Webster 1998:189).
“THROUGH THE MISTS OF ANCIENT TIME”: MUJERES ANGLOSAJONAS 7 germánico además de los mitológicos ya expuestos. Por una parte, existen conjuros provenientes del acervo popular que recogen el poder relacionado con la mujer en esta sociedad: por ejemplo, podemos fijarnos en la bendición del campo conocida como “Æcerbot”, en que aparece una invocación a “Erce, eorþan mōdor” (Erce, madre de la tierra) (Niles 1998:137). La vinculación de la mujer con el paradigma de la generación de vida parece una noción omnipresente en las sociedades germánicas, a tenor de su presencia en otras facetas de la vida. Así se desprende, por ejemplo, de la información que sobre el modo de vida de los pueblos germánicos desarrolla Bede en su De temporum ratione, según la cual el término inglés Easter se deriva del nombre de la diosa Ēostre, por quien los ingleses primitivos habían dado nombre al cuarto mes, Eostremonath, el de la pascua, coincidente con la primavera. De modo similar, Bede relata que el tercer mes del calendario anglosajón, Hrēdmōnath, también recibió su nombre de la diosa Hreda (Hrêðe), cuyas fiestas se celebraban a lo largo de ese periodo, también marcado por su conexión con el equinoccio del renacimiento de la vida tras el invierno. Por último, en el origen pagano anglosajón de la festividad cristiana de la nochebuena, conmemorativa del nacimiento de Jesús, se encontraba una vez más el paradigma de la maternidad, puesto que esa era la fecha de la celebración pagana de Modranect o “Noche de las Madres” (ibid.:129). Además de la fertilidad, las dotes mágicas de sanación, clarividencia y seiðr (Cotterell 1998:190), junto con sus implicaciones de sabiduría y fuerza, quedaban impregnadas en la imagen de las mujeres a fuerza de aparecer vinculadas a ellas en mitos y tradiciones. Por ejemplo, además de los rasgos vislumbrados en los casos discutidos supra, los conceptos de poder sobrenatural, fuerza y sabiduría aparecen en las deidades Groa, las Norns, Eir, Veleda, Aurinia (o Albruna), o la valkiria Brunhild. Groa era una diosa cuyo principal rasgo era su clarividencia y sus poderes mágicos, que la ponían en situación de socorrer a dioses masculinos de la talla de Thor, a quien intentó sanar con palabras mágicas (Cotterell 1998:194). Las Norns o Nornir eran figuras míticas del folclor nórdico, que tenían el poder de decidir los destinos de dioses, gnomos, gigantes y hombres y mujeres. Una de ellas, llamada Urð o Urðr, personificaba el futuro y tenía una fuente mágica situada bajo las raíces del gran árbol cósmico Yggdrasill (Conde 1994:26; Cotterell 1998:211), lo que de nuevo liga a otra figura femenina con el agua y el interior de la tierra. 4 Los anglosajones la conocían como Wyrd, término recurrente en Beowulf y asociado con las fuerzas que rigen el destino de los hombres. 5 Este binomio mujer-
4. Sir James Frazer apuntó un rasgo en la mitología clásica grecolatina que tiene resonancias con los paradigmas discutidos aquí: agua y cueva, que estarían relacionadas con Egeria, ninfa de las aguas y asociada con el culto a la fertilidad (“associated with [Diana] was a water-nymph, Egeria”), cuyo “sacred spring […] gushed from a dark cavern. Every day the Roman Vestals fetched water from this spring to wash the temple of Vesta” (Frazer 1922, “The King of the Wood”, en The Golden Bough). Además, en este caso se aprecia también otra pauta que asocia el culto a la fertilidad con el culto a los árboles en otras culturas, como la grecolatina, según testificaba Frazer en la misma obra. 5. Tras su paso por el crisol cristiano, que efectuó una demonización de todo poder mágico ajeno a sus propias divinidades, y por tanto transformó a las mujeres depositarias de poderes sobrenaturales
8 MARÍA JOSÉ DE LA TORRE MORENO poderes mágicos (de adivinación y/o curación) también se refleja en el folclor germánico y nórdico en figuras de sus mitologías como Eir (compañera de Frigg, y que además de su capacidad de hacer conjuros tenía el don de la sanación, según aparece en las Prose Edda y Poetic Edda nórdicas), Gullveir o Gullveig (diosa y hechicera dotada de clarividencia en la Poetic Edda, y también posiblemente identificada con Freyja), Brunhild (guerrera – “shieldmaiden” – o valkiria con poderes mágicos), o en las veneradas por sus dones proféticos, Veleda y Aurinia o Albruna (Tácito:VIII). Veleda, mujer elevada al rango de diosa por los Bructerios, según relata Frazer, 6 poseía el atributo mágico de la clarividencia, lo que le hizo adivinar la rebelión de Batavia, y como las valkirias, recibió como regalo a los esclavos obtenidos tras la batalla. Las leyes conservadas también nos muestran la relación de las mujeres con la magia (Meaney 1990:160), y Tácito además reconocía la visión privilegiada que los germánicos tenían de las mujeres en general, y su tendencia a dejarse llevar por su sabiduría, aspectos en los que intervenía el don mágico-profético de la mujer:
[T]hey even believe them endowed with something celestial and the spirit of prophecy. Neither do they disdain to consult them, nor neglect the responses which they return. (Tácito:VIII)
Julio César recogió la costumbre germánica de que las matronas declarasen por medio de adivinaciones y mancias si era conveniente ir a la guerra o no (Meaney 1990:159). El término alto-germánico antiguo itis se utilizaba para designar a las mujeres que realizaban conjuros de amarre y liberación en el First Merseburg Charm (ibid.:158). Algunos objetos funerarios hallados en enterramientos de mujeres, como cuentas o hierbas, carentes de función práctica u ornamental, han sido interpretados por arqueólogos e historiadores como amuletos u objetos catalizadores de la función mágica asociada a las mujeres (Meaney 1990:160; Leyser 2002:15-17, 46; Williams 2005:205). Además del perfil de poder y prestigio de las mujeres anglosajonas en virtud de los dones referidos de fertilidad y magia, el papel de las mujeres en la sociedad anglosajona era visible y notable. Hay fuentes que indican que en la sociedad anglosajona la participación en derechos de propiedad y herencia de las mujeres, y su visibilidad pública eran algo normal (Fee 1996:292), a pesar de que la costumbre tendiese a mantener las posesiones en la línea masculina. Testamentos de la época y títulos de propiedad conservados hasta nuestros días prueban que las mujeres podían heredar y dejar en testamento tierras y
de adivinación y/o curación en brujas, Shakespeare nos presenta en Macbeth una versión de Wyrd y las otras dos Norns en las tres Weird Sisters. Es interesante notar la semejanza fonética y el carácter mágico del trío, si bien fallido y demonizado, a la vez que encarnado por tres criaturas repugnantes. 6. “But often the veneration of the men went further, and they worshipped women as true and living goddesses. For example, in the reign of Vespasian a certain Veleda, of the tribe of the Bructeri, was commonly held to be a deity, and in that character reigned over her people (Frazer 1922: VIII, “Incarnate Human Gods”).
“THROUGH THE MISTS OF ANCIENT TIME”: MUJERES ANGLOSAJONAS 9 propiedades, 7 así como desheredar a sus hijos varones (Stenton 1990:80). Christine Fell apunta que puesto que la herencia no se basaba en la primogenitura masculina, las leyes anglosajonas no privilegiaban al hombre sobre la mujer en este aspecto (cf. Finke 1999:26). Las disposiciones legales de los reinos de Æthelberht, Ine, Alfred o Cnut muestran que la ley anglosajona protegía a las mujeres y preservaba sus derechos. Dorothy Whitelock encontraba en más de cincuenta testamentos anglosajones preservados pruebas de que las mujeres disponían libremente de sus propiedades (cf. Klinck 1982:116). Asimismo, Frank Stenton ‘found evidence for female ownership of property in place-names containing the names of women’ (ibid.:107), topónimos en los que la huella pública de muchas mujeres ha trascendido el paso del tiempo. Del mismo corpus de leyes mencionado se encuentran también provisiones respecto de la situación de las mujeres en cuanto a la institución del matrimonio. A pesar de la referencia en las leyes de Albert (ley XXXI) a la idea de comprar una esposa (Attenborough 2006:46-47), en un códice de Cnut se dice que “neither a widow nor a maiden is to be forced to marry a man whom she herself dislikes, nor to be given for money” (Second Code of Cnut:1020-3). En posteriores códices del mismo rey se muestra cómo el matrimonio se veía como un contrato social para los anglosajones, en el que el consentimiento libre de la mujer era un requisito. Frente a la postura que vería la figura femenina minimizada y reificada en función de una visión tan comercial del matrimonio, conviene contextualizar el significado de esta institución en la época, puesto que como afirma L. Finke, el matrimonio anglosajón se basaba más en una cuestión práctica de orden económico que en el amor mutuo (Finke 1999:24), y era una responsabilidad social que pesaba sobre las mujeres del mismo modo que sobre los hombres. Al contrario de lo que ocurriría durante la época cristiana, se permitía el divorcio y estaba relativamente extendido durante el periodo anterior a la Conquista Normanda. Si las mujeres divorciadas tenían hijos, tenían el derecho de elegir llevarlos con ellas o no, y además recibían una cantidad de dinero a modo de pensión (leyes de Æthelberht 79, 80 y 81 en Attenborough 2006:14-15). Las leyes también proporcionaban protección a las viudas por medio de compensaciones económicas. Asimismo, también se protegía a las mujeres contra la violación, como se refleja en las leyes de Alfred. Además, las leyes de Ine y de Alfred muestran cómo en caso de que los maridos cometiesen algún delito, no se consideraba a las esposas partícipes de esa culpabilidad (Attenborough 2006:39,70-72,75-76), lo que constituye otra muestra más de
7. Algunos ejemplos citados por Glosecki son ilustrativos: testamentos de la época evidencian que las viudas anglosajonas mantenían el control de las propiedades de sus esposos. De hecho, 10 de los 39 Wills conservados corresponden al legado de sendas mujeres. En uno de los testamentos del s. IX, se especifica que si la viuda vuelve a contraer nupcias, recupera la propiedad que aportó al matrimonio. El testamento de un noble de Surrey de finales del s. IX, Alfred, divide sus tierras otorgando 104 “hides” a su mujer e hija, y 3 a su hijo; y en cuanto al ganado, dispone que 100 cerdos sean para su hijo, y 2.000 aves de corral para su mujer e hija (Glosecki 1999: 47).
10 MARÍA JOSÉ DE LA TORRE MORENO cómo las mujeres anglosajonas del periodo pagano “were evidently not lost in their husbands’ public identity” (Mate 1999:6). También apreciamos que la percepción de la mujer anglosajona pagana está lejana de la supeditación absoluta al varón – predominante en la cultura cristiana – en la tradición nupcial que recoge Tácito: sintomáticamente, la obligación de dar una dote correspondía al marido, y no a la mujer. Por añadidura, entre los bienes incluidos en esta dote (“morgenġiefu”) se encontraban no solo bueyes, caballos, etc., sino también armas, como lanzas y espadas:
To the husband, the wife tenders no dowry; but the husband, to the wife. The parents and relations attend and declare their approbation of the presents, not presents adapted to feminine pomp and delicacy, nor such as serve to deck the new married woman; but oxen and horse accoutred, and a shield, with a javelin and sword. By virtue of these gifts, she is espoused. She too on her part brings her husband some arms. (Tácito:XVIII)
El pago de esta dote, según Christine Fell, no iba destinado a comprar a la novia al padre, sino que era una suma que se daba a la propia mujer para asegurar su estabilidad económica, y era ella y no los padres quien recibía este regalo (cf. Finke 1999:24-25). Según Marilynn Desmond, las sociedades germánicas eran “notable for the autonomy, responsibility, and legal protection available to women” (Desmond 1990:584). Incluso, afirma Desmond, “Anglo-Saxon social structures encouraged women to occupy significant positions within the hierarchical structures of the culture” (ibid.). Otros autores nos hablan también del papel central de la mujer en la sociedad germánica, como Michael Enright, que lo califica de cohesivo, y le asigna dotes de asesoría (cf. Fee 1996:293), o Christine Fell, que habla de autonomía y autoridad al describir la posición de la mujer en la cultura germánica y anglosajona temprana (ibid.), y que afirma que “the Anglo-saxon wife was both valued and respected, enjoying economic and marital rights, her independence [was] safe-guarded and her interests protected” (Fell 1987:73). Jane Liebell también concurría en esta visión de la mujer anglosajona anterior a la conquista, puesto que consideraba que su “dignity was respected, her ability was acknowledged and her freedom was unquestioned” (Liebell 2009:7). 8 Los ejemplos de otras mujeres concretas de la sociedad anglosajona también nos hablan de la gran libertad de intervención en la vida pública de que gozaban las mujeres de esta época, como podía ser el caso de Hild, abadesa del monasterio de Streonæshalch, más tarde conocido como Whitby, y otras
8. Conviene especificar que no estamos proponiendo, como apunta John Niles, que esta sociedad pagana fuese matriarcal (Niles 1998:130). Más bien, podemos pensar que era una sociedad que otorgaba un papel más central a la mujer (Aguirre 1993:12), y que no se veía amenazada por las capacidades y las diferencias de las mujeres, por lo que no tenía inconveniente en reconocer los valores de los principios femeninos sin tener que conceptuarlos en segundo término o demonizarlos, como ocurriría tras la implantación del cristianismo.
“THROUGH THE MISTS OF ANCIENT TIME”: MUJERES ANGLOSAJONAS 11 sucesoras suyas en el cargo como Eanflæd y Ælfflæd, o de Seaxburg, viuda de Coenwalh, rey de Wessex, a cuya muerte le sucedió en el trono en el siglo VII, o el caso de Cyneðryð (también llamada Drida), esposa del rey Offa, 9 bajo cuyo mandato se acuñaron monedas con su efigie, o por último el caso de Æthelflæd, señora de Mercia, que encabezaba campañas militares al frente de un regimiento (Stenton 1990:79). Al hilo de la habilidad bélica de Æthelflæd, conviene tener presente que, según críticos como Monica Potkay, los anglosajones no tenían una división entre atributos y roles masculinos y femeninos tan clara como se forjaría en la ideología cristiana (Potkay 1997:36). Otras mujeres de linaje aristocrático o real desempeñaron también un papel activo en asuntos de guerra, como Æthelburgh,10 o la anónima princesa inglesa conocida como la “Island girl” de que nos hablaba Procopius, que lideró la invasión de Jutlandia y capturó al príncipe Ragidis. En este mismo sentido, Tácito escribía en su Germania que las mujeres también participaban en las batallas, aspecto en el que eran consideradas “sanctissimi testes”, y en el que desempeñaban la función de exhortar e incitar a los luchadores a la batalla: “hortamina pugnantibus gestant” (Tácito:VII). El historiador romano muestra su desagrado hacia un pueblo que es capaz de profesar respeto hacia las mujeres, y que se degrada permitiéndoles que tengan poder sobre los hombres, con lo que deja claro el prominente estatus público que las mujeres podían adquirir en el mundo germánico:
Upon the Suiones, border the people Sitones; and, agreeing with them in all other things, differ from them in one, that here the sovereignty is exercised by a woman. So notoriously do they degenerate not only from a state of liberty, but even below a state of bondage. (Tácito:XLV)
Otras fuentes, como poemas anglosajones, nos muestran que el valor no era una prerrogativa masculina, como se aprecia en Judith, o en Elene, de Cynewulf, en el que la guerrera reina epónima guía a una tropa de guerreros masculinos, y sale victoriosa por su sabiduría e inteligencia. La presencia de la mujer en un orden, el guerrero, que más tarde se vería como exclusivamente masculino, se aprecia en la relación que los textos anglosajones establecen entre las mujeres y las armas. Las armas, junto a las joyas, que veremos a continuación, eran una señal de la riqueza del grupo: como se percibe en Beowulf, esta se medía por los objetos de valor que una comunidad poseía. Manuel Aguirre ilustra en su trabajo “On the Symbolism of Weaving in Beowulf” la relación implícita entre las figuras femeninas y las armas y armaduras. 11 Además, recientes hallazgos arqueológicos muestran cómo la
9. Conviene recordar que este Offa no es el que aparece en Beowulf como esposo de la problemática Thryth o Modthryth, con quien ocupó el trono de los anglos, aún en el continente, probablemente a finales del s. IV. El Offa arriba citado era el rey de Mercia, y vivió en la segunda mitad del s. VIII. 10. Esta reina destruyó Taunton en 722, según la Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 11. Estos objetos de metal, valiosos e investidos de poderes protectores, son entregados a los guerreros por mujeres, que de este modo intervienen en el destino del hombre, salvando su vida de forma a menudo portentosa, como se aprecia en el episodio en que Beowulf, luchando contra la
12 MARÍA JOSÉ DE LA TORRE MORENO asociación de las mujeres con armas no era prerrogativa exclusiva del género masculino: excavaciones en Heslerton, North Yorkshire, en el año 2000, o en Lincoln en 2003, así como en Hereford, Worcester y Dover, muestran enterramientos de mujeres entre cuyo ajuar funerario se encontraban armas (lanzas, dagas y escudos) (Stoodley 1999:29,49,101). Hasta fechas recientes estos objetos se consideraban suficientes para identificar el género de los restos (identificación arqueológica), pero al someter estos a pruebas de ADN los sorprendentes resultados han puesto en cuestión el modo tradicional de identificación (Nuttal 2000). La posición importante de la figura femenina que se desprende de esta visión se relaciona también con otros objetos de poder y valor en las sociedades germánicas, además de las armas: las joyas. La poesía anglosajona abunda en ejemplos en los que las figuras femeninas aparecen ligadas a las joyas que estas portan: el cuerpo femenino a menudo se denota metonímicamente por medio de estas joyas, que connotan una doble significación: por un lado, la posesión de joyas, exhibidas por las mujeres del clan, representan la riqueza del comitatus, y por tanto su grandeza y su estabilidad, 12 conceptos ambos esenciales en la ética heroica. Por otro lado, las joyas traducen el estatus social de la portadora como agente de poder: no solo la historia sino también la poesía preservada (Beowulf o Widsith) muestran a reinas en posición de ser “ring-givers” y de este modo, ejercer influencia en asuntos políticos y diplomáticos (de la Torre 2006). Los hallazgos arqueológicos muestran estos objetos en las tumbas de mujeres (Stoodley 1999; Williams 2005), y además muestran una clara atención hacia la ostentación del cuerpo femenino frente al enfoque evasivo del cuerpo masculino (Stoodley 1999:136). Los ejemplos expuestos hasta ahora nos hablan de una visión de la mujer en la cultura germánica alejada de la insignificancia e inferioridad con que se asociaría a partir de la nueva ideología cristiana. Obviamente, la misoginia no es un fenómeno exclusivamente judeocristiano, como atestigua la sentencia de Aristóteles que nos define como una deformidad de la naturaleza (“thelu hosper arren esti peperomenon”) en De Generatione Animalium (2,3,737a25). De hecho, la misoginia en nuestra civilización se remonta precisamente a la antigüedad madre de Grendel, sobrevive al poderoso puño de esta criatura gracias a la cota de malla que le regaló la reina Wealhtheow. Además de esta asociación, hay otro elemento que une aún más a mujeres y armas, y esta es la aportación de Aguirre: la recurrencia de expresiones relacionadas con el concepto de “tejer”, “hilar”, “unir”, con que se expresan ideas como la paz (freoðuwebbe o “peace-weaver” es la función de la mujer), o los procesos de orfebrería y herrería con que se forjan las piezas de joyería y armamento. Las acciones denotadas por estos verbos se vinculaban en el subconsciente colectivo con la figura de la mujer (Aguirre 1995:41-56). 12. “En un entorno tan inestable, que amenaza la disolución del grupo social y la aniquilación de aquello que los cohesiona como sociedad, las joyas evocan la capacidad de esa sociedad de distanciarse de las necesidades más perentorias. La posesión de joyas habla de los logros acumulados por el grupo y de los botines obtenidos, testimonio de su grandeza; la posesión del oro es una riqueza en sí, y su presentación trabajado como joya implica la capacidad de una sociedad guerrera de generar una civilización artesana y sofisticada, que busca el placer de producir artefactos culturales y artísticos” (de la Torre 2007:80).
“THROUGH THE MISTS OF ANCIENT TIME”: MUJERES ANGLOSAJONAS 13 clásica, puesto que la filosofía platónica instauró la desconfianza hacia la carne mortal, en contraste con el alma inmortal, ya que las mujeres, por su función primaria como madres, se identificaban con las funciones corporales y con el cuerpo en general. Sin embargo, la misoginia es una tradición que se instaló de forma generalizada en la sociedad occidental a través de la autoridad de patriarcas de la Iglesia, como San Pablo o San Jerónimo, entre otros muchos. Frente a la divinización de la fertilidad femenina del paganismo anglosajón, y su vinculación con las ideas de poder y prestigio, en la tradición cristiana occidental la mujer pasó a ser considerada un ser de segunda categoría (débil, pasiva, subordinada), e intrínsecamente pecadora: como consecuencia de su impureza ontológica, heredada de Eva, origen del pecado de toda la humanidad, San Jerónimo abogaba por el celibato como el estado óptimo del hombre para evitar toda contaminación por contacto con la mujer y – solo si la abstinencia no era posible – contemplaba el matrimonio como un mal menor para el alma humana, es decir, masculina. 13 San Pablo escribía sobre la misma idea en su Epístola a los Corintios 1,2: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman, but to avoid prostitution, man should have woman, and a woman a man”. Vemos por tanto que la nueva fe no solo se apropió de los lugares de culto de las diosas de la fertilidad, sino que de múltiples formas (suplantándolas por una diosa madre, pero virgen) desprestigió el origen del poder de la mujer: vilificando el cuerpo femenino y las relaciones sexuales inexorablemente asociadas con la maternidad. En la segunda epístola a Timoteo, San Pablo ordenaba a las mujeres vestirse “decorosamente”, cubriendo al máximo sus cuerpos, y adornándose “con pudor y modestia, no con trenzas ni con oro ni vestidos costosos” (San Pablo 2;12). Dado que la creencia cristiana era que la belleza de la mujer era indicativa de su pecaminosidad, establecía una ecuación entre ornamentación y falsedad. Según Howard Bloch, los misóginos buscaban así devaluar a la mujer como simple ornamento (cf. Potkay 1997:33), y por tanto, como criatura insustancial, de segundo orden. Sin embargo, los textos anglosajones al asociar a las mujeres con joyas y adornos no pretenden denigrarlas ni acarrean consideraciones morales; simplemente representan parámetros codificados en sus tradiciones y folclore. Por otra parte, la figura de la mujer investida de unos poderes mágicos (adivinación y sanación), y venerada por su sabiduría, también sufrió una metamorfosis regresiva: estos rasgos de poder sobrenatural se devaluaron y se persiguieron como brujería. En el Penitential of Pseudo-Egbert, se aprecia cómo las prácticas de sanación ejercidas por mujeres se castigaban en la época cristiana: “Let a woman be worthy of the same penalty [40 days on bread and
13. “It is good for a man not to touch a woman”; y “it is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they have not continency, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn” (San Jerónimo 1893). Otra significativa cita de San Jerónimo incide en la inferioridad del matrimonio frente al celibato: “is despite done to tree and grain, if we prefer the fruit to root and foliage, or the grain to stalk and ear? Virginity is to marriage what fruit is to the tree, or grain to the straw” (Against Jovinianus). En “Apologético a Pammaquio”, San Jerónimo expresa su desinterés por las mujeres y por este sacramento: “si yo estoy libre de mujer, no quiero buscar mujer. Como yo no desato los matrimonios una vez que se han contraído, tampoco tú te metas a atar lo que está suelto” (San Jerónimo 1962:352).
14 MARÍA JOSÉ DE LA TORRE MORENO water] if she tries to cure her child with any witchcraft” (Griffith1996:109). Griffith apunta que las leyes empezaron a prestar una atención especial a los posibles delitos cometidos por mujeres. El rey Alfred relacionaba a las mujeres con la brujería en sus leyes, como muestra de la preocupación cristiana por estos poderes femeninos (ibid:117). A partir de la cristianización de las islas británicas, se aprecia una tendencia creciente hacia la minimización de la presencia y poder femeninos en la sociedad: las leyes definen la identidad de las mujeres en relación con los hombres de su entorno y paulatinamente les exigen obediencia; las evidencias arqueológicas muestran en las mujeres menor esperanza de vida y mayor incidencia de enfermedades relacionadas con una peor nutrición que las de los hombres, como hipoplasia (Stoodley 199:136-144). Los derechos de las mujeres a poseer, testar o heredar propiedades se fueron limitando progresivamente, hasta su erradicación total en la práctica y posteriormente en la letra de la ley en 1285 (Glosecki 1999:25). A medida que la nueva sociedad e ideología cristianas se fueron fortaleciendo, la situación de las mujeres fue decayendo en prestigio y presencia públicas, así como en derechos, que quedaban mermados en leyes canónicas y seculares. Desde que el arzobispo Theodore expresara su disgusto ante la existencia de monasterios dobles (de hombres y mujeres) en la segunda mitad del siglo VII, las sucesivas reformas en el seno de la Iglesia contribuyeron a privilegiar las comunidades religiosas masculinas y a minimizar sus donaciones a las femeninas (Mate 1999:8). Rescatando la orden de San Pablo a las mujeres de permanecer en silencio y obedecer al hombre (I Epístola a Timoteo 2;12), los escritos eclesiásticos del cristianismo temprano muestran las indicaciones expresas de los obispos en el sentido de prohibir a las abadesas la predicación de la doctrina, disposiciones que culminarían en la prohibición del papa Inocencio III (Manzanas 1995:223), lo que venía a privar a las mujeres de la Iglesia de una voz pública. La contribución de las mujeres a la cultura y la vida del periodo aparece sistemáticamente reducida y casi borrada, 14 a pesar de que según críticos como Wormald “women were often better educated” (Desmond 1990:576). Las únicas mujeres que ostentaban algún tipo de posición visible dentro de la Iglesia eran las que, por medio de su virginidad y renuncia a la maternidad, se consideraban no marcadas por el género femenino (Mate 1999:6). En definitiva, la posición de “rough equality” con respecto a los hombres que las mujeres anglosajonas disfrutaban según Doris Stenton (cf. Mate 1999:5), 15 entró en declive creciente con la cristianización de la sociedad hasta su
14. No solo los patriarcas de la Iglesia contemporáneos infrarrepresentaban la contribución de las religiosas a la vida cultural, como Bede hizo al soslayar aspectos relevantes de los méritos de Hild y otras abadesas de Whitby (Mate 1999:6), sino incluso hasta nuestros días, parte de la crítica omite o minimiza el estatus intelectual de las religiosas y escritoras anglosajonas como Eadburg, Bucge, AElflaed, Hygeburg, Berthgyd o Leoba, como según Desmond hace Lapidge (Desmond 1990:576). 15. Historiadores y arqueólogos como Nick Stoodley postulan la diferente categorización de los géneros en la época de modo que la polaridad hombre mujer no existía como tal en la estructuración de la sociedad, sino que era una categoría transversal a otros factores (estatus social, condición física, trabajo desempeñado, potencial reproductivo, edad, etc.) en la época pagana (Stoodley 1999).
“THROUGH THE MISTS OF ANCIENT TIME”: MUJERES ANGLOSAJONAS 15 erradicación total tras la Conquista Normanda, como concluyen gran número de críticas, desde Florence Busckstaff en 1893 (cf. Mate 1999:5) hasta Marilynn Desmond (“Anglo-Saxon women were demonstrably much freer than their post- Conquest counterparts” 1990:584). La crítica Monica B. Potkay coincide en que la misoginia era contraria a las costumbres de esta sociedad: los textos anglosajones nunca asumen la inferioridad de la mujer, ni mental ni moral, ni la asocian al pecado (Potkay 1997:31). Según Frank Stenton, la fuerza de las tradiciones de origen germánico en lo tocante a la valoración del género femenino hizo que la influencia misógina de la ideología cristiana tardase más tiempo en hacer efecto y se prolongase la independencia que las mujeres habían obtenido previamente, durante la época de las migraciones (Stenton 1990:86). Esta situación extraordinaria, que muestra como falaz el modelo evolutivo de la historia, acabaría con la Conquista Normanda y la hegemonía cristiana, con sus arietes de propaganda antifemenina desde el seno de la Iglesia, la reforma gregoriana y los preceptos misóginos de la ley canónica (Fee 1996:293).
REFERENCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS
Æcerbot, metrical charm 1: For unfruitful land.
16 MARÍA JOSÉ DE LA TORRE MORENO
De la Torre, M.J. 2006, “El valor político de la función de la reina Wealtheow como ‘peace-weaver’: Poder ritual, logocentrismo y diplomacia”, en De habitaciones propias y espacios conquistados. M. Carretero, M.E. Rodríguez y G. Rodríguez (eds.). Granada: Universidad de Granada, 159- 170. De la Torre, M.J. 2007, “La invisibilidad del cuerpo femenino en Beowulf: Transferencias metonímicas y simbólicas del poder femenino orientadas a su ocultación y demonización”, en Cuerpos de mujer: Miradas, representaciones e identidades. A.M. Muñoz, C. Gregorio y A. Sánchez (eds.). Granada: Universidad de Granada, 73-90. Desmond, M. 1990, “The voice of exile: Female literary history and the anonymous Anglo-Saxon elegy". Critical Inquiry, 16:572-90. Ellis Davidson, H. 1993, The lost beliefs of Northern Europe. Londres y Nueva York: Routledge. Fee, C. 1996, “Beag and beaghroden: Women, treasure and the language of social structure in Beowulf”. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 97 (3):285-294. Fell, C. 1987, Women in Anglo-Saxon England. Londres: Blackwell. Finke, L.A. 1999, Women’s writing in English. Londres y Nueva York: Longman. Frank, R. 1991, “Germanic legend in Old English literature”, en M. Godden y M. Lapidge (eds.). The Cambridge companion to Old English literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 88-106. Frazer, J.G. 1922, The Golden Bough. A Study of Magic and Religion.
“THROUGH THE MISTS OF ANCIENT TIME”: MUJERES ANGLOSAJONAS 17
Medieval English Language and Literature. Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 223-229. Mate M.E. 1999, Women in medieval English society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Meaney, A.L. 1990, “The ‘Ides’ of the Cotton Gnomic Poem”, en H. Damico y A. Hennesey Olsen, (eds.). New readings on women in Old English literature. Bloomington e Indianápolis: Indiana University Press, 158-175. Mitchell, B. y Robinson, F.C. 1998, Beowulf. An Edition. Oxford y Malden, Massachussets: Blackwell Publishers. Niles, J.D. 1998, “Pagan Survivals and Popular Belief”, en M. Godden y M. Lapidge, (ed.). The Cambridge companion to Old English literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 126-141. North, R. 1997, Heathen gods in Old English literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nuttall, N. 2000, “New light on the Dark Ages”. The Times, 22 August, 2000.
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four Exeter Book Riddles”, en H. Damico y A. Hennesey Olsen, (eds.). New readings on women in Old English literature. Bloomington e Indianápolis: Indiana University Press, 137-145. Williams, H. 2005, “Rethinking early medieval mortuary archaeology”. Early Medieval Europe 13(2):195-217. Wormald, P. 1998, “Anglo-Saxon society and its literature”, en M. Godden y M. Lapidge (eds.). The Cambridge companion to Old English literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1-22. Wrenn, C.L. y Bolton, W.F. (eds.) 1988, Beowulf. With the Finnesburg Fragment. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.
THE QUEEN OF TROUBADOURS GOES TO ENGLAND: ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE AND 12TH CENTURY ANGLO-NORMAN LITERARY MILIEU
EUGENIO M. OLIVARES MERINO Universidad de Jaén
The purpose of the present paper is to cast some light on the role played by Eleanor of Aquitaine in the development of Anglo-Norman literature at the time when she was Queen of England (1155-1204). Although her importance in the growth of courtly love literature in France has been sufficiently stated, little attention has been paid to her patronising activities in England. My contribution provides a new portrait of the Queen of Troubadours, also as a promoter of Anglo-Norman literature: many were the authors, both French and English, who might have written under her royal patronage during the second half of the 12th century. Starting with Rita Lejeune’s seminal work (1954) on the Queen’s literary role, I have gathered scattered information from different sources: approaches to Anglo-Norman literature, Eleanor’s biographies and studies in Arthurian Romance. Nevertheless, mine is not a mere systematization of available data, for both in the light of new discoveries and by contrasting existing information, I have enlarged agreed conclusions and proposed new topics for research and discussion.
The year 2004 marked the 800th anniversary of Eleanor of Aquitaine’s death. An exhibition was held at the Abbey of Fontevraud (France), and a long list of books has been published (or re-edited) about the most famous queen of the Middle Ages during these last six years. 1 Starting with R. Lejeune’s seminal work (1954) on
1. Non fiction: Weir, A. 2007 (1999), Eleanor Of Aquitaine: By the Wrath of God, Queen of England. London: Vintage Books; Wheeler, B. and J.C. Parsons. (eds.). 2002, Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady. New York: Palgrave Macmillan; Swabey, F. 2004, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Courtly Love, and the Troubadours. Westport: Greenwood Press; Boyd, D. 2004, April Queen: Eleanor of Aquitaine. Phoenix Mill: Sutton Publishing Limited; Bull, M. and C. Léglu. (eds.). 2005, The World of Eleanor of Aquitaine: Literature and Society in Southern France between the Eleventh and Thirteenth Centuries.Woodbridge: Boydell Press; Turner, R.V. 2009, Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen of France, Queen of England. New Haven: Yale University Press. 20 EUGENIO M. OLIVARES MERINO
Eleanor Aquitaine’s literary role, I have gathered scattered information from different sources: approaches to Anglo-Norman literature, Eleanor’s biographies and studies on Arthurian Romance. Nevertheless, mine is not a mere systematization of available data, for both in the light of new discoveries and by contrasting existing information, I have enlarged agreed conclusions and proposed new topics for research and discussion.
INTRODUCTION
Little do we know about the personality of the queen whose wooden funerary effigy lies under the main dome in the Abbey of Fontevrault. Eleanor of Aquitaine died in 1204, though the exact place where she passed from the world is not known for sure: according to some chroniclers, she ended her life in Poitiers; according to others, she was taken to Fontevrault “where she put on the garb of a nun before closing her eyes” (Kelly 1950:386). Her hands are holding a book, most probably a prayer book, the Holy Bible – or, why not, a courtly romance... The granddaughter of William IX of Aquitaine – the first known troubadour –, Eleanor, was born in 1122 or 1124, somewhere in the far south of Aquitaine, probably in Bordeaux or Belin, where she spent her early childhood before moving to Poitiers after 1130 (Lejeune 1954:50). “Charming”, “welcoming” and “lively”, as Geoffroi de Vigeois (Kelly 1950:6) described her, she exercised an unquestionable influence in the development and popularisation of the new courtly sensibility in France. Highly intelligent and well-educated – she probably knew Latin (Lejeune 1954:22) –, Eleanor was the great patron of the two dominant poetic movements of the time: the courtly love tradition, conveyed in the songs of the troubadours, and the historical Matter of Britain, best represented in Chrétien de Troyes’ roman courtois. It is my purpose to present some considerations on the role played by Eleanor of Aquitaine in 12th century English literary scenario, since her importance in the growth of courtly love literature in France has been sufficiently studied. 2 After the Norman Conquest (1066), literary activities in the vernacular were long abandoned in England with the exception of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a text that, strictly speaking, is not a literary one. 3 It was not until 1100 that the first
Fiction: Penman, S. 1995. When Christ and His Saints Slept (Eleanor of Aquitaine Trilogy 1). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books; 2003. Time and Chance (Eleanor of Aquitaine Trilogy 2). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books; 2009; Lofts, N. 2010 (1955). Eleanor the Queen: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine. New York: Touchstone Books; Holland, C. 2010. The Secret Eleanor: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine. New York: Berkley Publishing Group; Devil's Brood (Eleanor of Aquitaine Trilogy 3); O’Brien, A. 2011. Queen Defiant: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine. New York: New American Library; English, C. 2011. To Be Queen: A Novel of the Early Life of Eleanor of Aquitaine. New York: New American Library. 2. See: Kiessmann, R. 1901. Untersuchungen uber die Bedeutung Eleonorens von Poitou fur die Literature ihrer Zeit. Bernburg: O. Dornblüth; Jeanroy, A. 1934. La poesie lyrique des Troubadours. Paris: Didier; Lejeune (1954:1-20). 3. We might also include The Ryme of King William or The Site of Durhan.
THE QUEEN OF TROUBADOURS GOES TO ENGLAND 21 vernacular literary texts were produced, all of them in Anglo-Norman (Legge 1963:7). Though there is no break in the continuity of this corpus during Stephen’s kingdom, Anglo-Norman literature did not reach maturity until the reign of Henry II: literary activity of all kinds saw a rebirth “in a closed French circle from which English vernacular sensibility was by definition excluded” (Swanton 1987:18). One may well expect that Eleanor’s marriage with Henry Plantagenet helped in the retaking of literary activities in England. The starting point of my research was a quotation from J.J. Parry’s English edition of Andreas Capellanus’s Arte Honeste Amandi:
Thomas of Britain wrote his Tristam and Ysolt under her inspiration, perhaps definitely for her.Wace dedicated to her his Brut, and it is generally believed that she is the noble lady to whom Benoît de Sainte-More dedicated his romance of Troy. (Parry 1969:13)
Irrespective of their place of birth (whether England or France), the authors that will be referred to in the present section are all included within that literary corpus which is known as Anglo-Norman. In doing so, I will follow a chronological order, the same used by Dominica Legge in her now classic study of Anglo-Norman literature.
A COURTEOUS QUEEN FOR A LITERATE KING
After a short-lived reconciliation favoured by Pope Eugenius III in 1149, the marriage of Louis VII of France and Eleanor was annulled in the Second Council of Beaugency (1152). Eleanor then regained possession of Aquitaine, and two months later (May 18th) she married the grandson of Henry I of England, Henry Plantagenet, Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy. In 1154 he became Henry II: England, Normandy and the west of France were united under his rule. That same year, on December 8th, King Henry and his wife, who was ten years his elder, arrived at some harbour below New Forest, immediately heading to Winchester and then to London (Kelly 1950:92). Eleven days later, at Westminster Abbey, the royal crown fell upon their heads. The palace of Westminster had been despoiled and could not be occupied, so the royal couple took residence in Bermondsey, London. According to Regine Pernoud (1995:114-115), there was something in England which was familiar for the new Queen. Being a girl, her imagination was most likely fed by the fantastic stories told by the Welsh or Breton jongleur Breri (or Bleheris), known to have been at Poitiers (ca. 1135). 4 These narrations, mainly from Celtic traditions, were about heroes who suffered from spells and endured tests from their fairy mistresses (Barron 1987:31). Once in England, she again heard about these Celtic characters, mainly Arthur and his knights, this time in an epic setting: Geoffrey of Monmouth had long ago written his Historia
4. About this conteur, see R.S. Loomis (1956:193-95).
22 EUGENIO M. OLIVARES MERINO
Regum Britanniae (ca. 1136). A new country, a loving husband, a new nation – the setting was perfect for fostering the type of literature and the spirit (fin’amors) she had promoted and enjoyed in Poitiers. Louis had always been suspicious about his wife’s literary tastes. It is not that he was an insensible or illiterate king, but the opinion of some of his advisors (Parry 1969:13) and the rumours about his wife’s affairs during the Crusade did not particularly favour his acceptance of an ideal in which the most sublime manifestation of human love was, after all, adulterous. Once Eleanor withdrew from Paris, Louis expelled all the wastrels and gallants that inhabited the court in the Queen’s days (Kelly 1950:84). Her new husband, the most powerful man in Europe, was different. In a letter to the Archbishop of Salerno, Peter of Blois – then a clerk in Henry II’s court – compares the king of Sicily with the Plantagenet:
Your king is a good scholar […] but ours is far better. [...] With the King of England there is school everyday, constant conversation of the best scholars and discussion of questions. (West 1938:20)
The same opinion is held by Walter Map (James 1994:476) in his De Nugis Curialum (Dist v, c. 6):
nullius comitatis inscius, litteratus ad omnem decenciam et utilitatem, linguarum omnium quae sunt a mare Gallico usque ad Iordanem habens scienciam, Latina tantum utens et Gallica. 5
Although Henry was too busy with politics, his tastes were inclined towards the literature and learning of his age. His reign was a time “of very learned and acute men, and of culture enough to appreciate and conserve the fruits of their labours” (Stubbs 1887:136). Henry, a king that has been defined as “probably the most scholarly man ever to occupy the throne of England” (Swanton 1987:18), 6 was always surrounded by men of erudition (Kelly 1950:99). Besides, Henry II could not help but feel seduced by the figure of King Arthur, a kind of British messiah, as Geoffrey of Monmouth had depicted him in his Historia Regum Britanniae: this Breton chief became a model for all Christian knights, his fabled court the materialization of the feudal ideal of social harmony. The Plantagenet was particularly seduced by the Arthurian legend, so much so that some excavations were carried out in Glastonbury at his command. Indirectly, he sparked the interest of his people for those stories that narrated the deeds of the Knights of the Round Table, deeds that would soon be adorned with love adventures and refined manners in the pages of Chrétien de Troyes’ romances, the very core of the Arthurian canon.
5. Translation by James: “with no polite accomplishment was he unacquainted; he had skill of letters as far as was fitting or practically useful, and he had a knowledge of all the tongues used from the French sea to the Jhordan, but he spoke only Latin and French” (James 1994:477). 6. Haskins provides a list of all the authors and works which might be, in one way or another, related to Henry II (1925:74-6).
THE QUEEN OF TROUBADOURS GOES TO ENGLAND 23
In London, therefore, with a second husband who was more in sympathy with her ideals, Eleanor’s influence was to be certainly considerable (Parry 1969:13).
THE QUEEN’S INFLUENCE ON ANGLO-NORMAN LITERATURE
Eleanor’s role as a promoter of literary activities has always been located, both in time and space, in the period when she held her court at Angers (1153) (Kelly 1950: 83-84) 7 and particularly, in Poitiers, ruling the duchy in the name of Richard Coeur de Lion, her younger son (1170-1174). There she welcomed the most reputed troubadours and propitiated the combination of those elements that best define the roman courtois: fin’amors, chivalry and Celtic myths (Pernoud 1995:116). And so, the presence of the Queen of Troubadours in England did not pass unnoticed in the literary circles of Henry II’s court during the period that goes approximately from 1154 to 1170, and maybe from 1189 to the end of her life (1204), years in which, nevertheless, her visits to the continent were frequent (Lejeune 1954: 50-57).
The Court of Henry II
It is generally agreed that Anglo-Norman literature reached its maturity and zenith in the reign of Henry II. Though much has been said about Henry’s patronage of the arts, the changes that took place in this new artistic milieu represent “strains of influence the queen was uniquely prepared to bring together” (Kelly 1950:99), mainly the courtly tradition of the troubadours and the Matter of Britain. London’s society was shaken out of its insular isolation, turning its eyes to France: “It seems that there grew up at the time in which the famous Countess of Poitou presided in the courts of the Plantagenets, a notable change in social patterns” (Kelly 1950:98- 99). Exactly as it would happen in Poitiers, Eleanor was a patroness, a source of inspiration and an influence in poetic creation.
Philippe de Thaon
Among the earliest Anglo-Norman authors, the cleric Philippe de Thaon – “probably born on this [English] side of the Channel” (Legge 1963:18) – might well be singled out as the first to write under Eleanor’s influence. Philippe wrote one of the first examples of scientific works in Anglo-Norman literature: the Cumpoz or Comput, a kind of ecclesiastical calendar. He also wrote a lapidary and a bestiary (Liber de Creaturis), both allegorical. Bestiaries were a typical Romanesque genre; but the one by Philippe de Taon, written between 1121 and 1135 (Legge 1963:22), was conveniently adorned with knights and ladies (Pernoud 1995:117), surely to make it more fashionable for the new courtly tastes. This text was originally
7. “Poets, artists, annalists, and other foot-loose professional who require a measure of bread and tranquillity for the flowering of their gifts, found hardly a patron in the western world” (Kelly 1950:84).
24 EUGENIO M. OLIVARES MERINO dedicated to Henry I’s second wife, Adeliza or Adelaide of Louvain (Kelly 1950:101; Legge 1963:22; Barron 1987:48; Burnley 1998:126), whom he had married in 1121. According to Kelly (1950:101), it seems that the poet revived his interest for the bestiary under Henry II’s patronage, adding to it an offertory to the new Queen, Eleanor:
Dus gart ma dame Alienor, La reïne chi est censor De sens, de onur e de beuté. De largesce e de b[on]té! Dame, a bone ure futis née Ey al rei Hanri espusé (Lejeune 1954:28). 8
Legge’s opinion (1963:25) about Philippe’s authority of this second dedication is not so conclusive: only one of the manuscripts in which the Bestiary has been preserved (Merton College 249) contains the rededication and, what is more, “it seems unlikely that Philippe was still active about 1152”; any anonymous praiser might have done it.
Wace
Born in Jersey, Wace (c.1100-after 1174) was soon sent to France for his upbringing. In 1155 he finished his Roman de Brut, a redaction of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, which he presented to Eleanor. None of the extant copies of Wace’s text show traces of this (Foulon 1959:95). However, in the prologue to his Brut (1190) – a Middle English adaptation of Wace’s work – Layamon refers to his sources:
Boc he nom þe þridde, leide þer amidden, þa makede a Frenchis clerk, Wace wes ihoten, þe wel couþe written. and he hoe ȝef þare æðelen Ælienor þe wes Henries queen, þes heȝes kinges. (ll.19-23) 9
There is, however, no agreement about the date in which Wace supposedly presented his text to Eleanor. Layamon refers to her as quene and so Foulon (1959: 95) claims that “a copy was presented to Eleanor, the new Queen of England”. 10 This seems to be possible, as much as Henry and his wife were crowned on 19 December 1154, and Wace finished his text in 1155. Kelly (1937:7; 1950:100), on
8. “God save lady Alianor / Queen who art the arbiter / Of honor, wit, and beauty ,/ Of largess and loyalty. / Lady, born were thou in a happy hour / And wed to Henry King” (Kelly 1950: 101). For an edition of this text, see: Walberg, E. 1900. Le Bestiaire. Lund and Paris. 9. “[T]he third book he [Wace] took, and laid there in the midst, that a French clerk made, who was named Wace, who well could write; and he gave it to the noble Eleanor, who was the high King Henry’s queen” (Mason 2007:9). 10. This opinion is also shared by Madden (1847:i.3).
THE QUEEN OF TROUBADOURS GOES TO ENGLAND 25 the other hand, assumes that she received the text before the coronation of Henry Plantagenet. Be it as it may, Wace certainly knew the tastes of Eleanor and his text is adorned with the elements of the new courtly fashion (Loomis 1963:40); as Barron (1987:134) puts it, Wace coloured his text “faintly as roman courtois”. Thus, it seems reasonable to infer that Wace’s Brut was, not only presented, but also dedicated to Eleanor, an assumption that even Broadhurst is ready to accept (1996:71). 11 Eleanor’s presence behind the Roman de Brut might not be simply that of the receiver, but of its promoter. In fact, when the text was begun (c. 1152) – in clear support of Henry’s claim to the English throne –, it was but a hope that the crown of England would be for the young Plantagenet. The future king was at the time engaged fighting against his rival, to pay any attention to literary affairs: “Il faut donc admettre qu’Aliénor a non seulement reçu le Brut mais qu’elle l’avait commandé” (Lejeune 1954:25). Broich shared this same view (1962:69-70, 77), while Broadhurst remains sceptical about it (1996:70-71). In 1160, this time at the invitation of Henry II (Foulon 1959:95), Wace begun his Chronique ascendante des Dics de Normandie – or Roman de Rou –, a narration in which the Plantagenet was also presented as the legitimate heir. Right at the beginning of this text, Wace shows his favourable opinion of Henry and his wife; one cannot help feeling that the poet was particularly concerned about Eleanor:
Del rei Henri voil faire ceste premiere page, Ki prist Alianor, dame de halt parage. Deus duinst a ambedous de bien faire corage! Ne me funt mie rendre a la curt la musage: De duns e de promesses chascun[s] d’els m’ausage. Mais bousins vient suvent, ki tsot sigle e tost nage. E suvent me fait metre le denier e le gage. Franche est Alienor e de bon aire e sage. Reïne fu de France en sun premier aage: Loëwis l’espusa, ki out grant mariage, En Jerusalem furent en lune pelegrinage; Asex i traist chascun[s] travail e ahange. Quant repairié s’en furent, par cunseil del barnage, S’en parti la reine od riche parentage. De cele departie n’out ele nul damage: A Peitiers s’en ala, sun naturel menage: N’i out plus prochain heir, qu’el fu de son lignage. Li reis Henri la prist od riche mariage. (ll. 17-34) 12
11. In her article, Broadhurst claims that Eleanor’s role as a promoter of literary activities has been overstated (1996:70). 12. “I want the subject of this first page to be King Henry / Who took as his wife Eleanor, a lady of noble birth / May God give both the courage to make good wprks! / They did not let me waste my time at court / with gifts and promises they both reward me. / But need, that sails and rolls swiftly, often presents itself. / And makes me to pledge for money. / Eleanor is noble, as well as kind and wise. / She was Queen of France in her first age. / Louis took her as wife in a great marriage / They went to Jerusalem in a long pilgrimage. / Each them suffered there great hardships and pain. / When they returned, after the advice of the barons, the Queen parted from him because of their kinship. /
26 EUGENIO M. OLIVARES MERINO
Later on, Wace’s devotion for Eleanor had consequences. In 1174, when the Queen had fallen out of her husband’s favour, Henry II commanded another history of the Normans not to Wace, but to Benoît de Sainte-Maure (Chronique des Ducs de Normandie).
Thomas of Britain
The Anglo-Norman poet known as Thomas of Britain (or of England) wrote a version of the Tristan story in French (1150-1170), which is clearly adorned with the topics and conventions of courtly literature. Loomis was the first to establish the link between Thomas’ Tristam and Ysolt and “the brilliant entourage of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, or of their son Richard I” (1919:39). 13 Thomas’ attempt to resolve the tragic conflict between fateful love and feudal loyalties in favour of the sovereignty of passion, turning the magic potion into a mere symbol, seems to suggest Eleanor’s complicity rather than her husband’s. Still in Angers, she was probably seduced by the story of Tristram and Ysolt in some earlier form (Loomis 1931:xi; Kelly 1950:87). In this same vein, Lejeune (1954:33) was very much inclined to think that Eleanor might well have inspired the composition of Thomas’ Tristam, either in Poitiers (from 1163 to 1173) or, much more probably, from 1154 to 1158, in her English court (Lejeune 1954:35). 14 A Queen in her thirties, she would enjoy “the dialectical nature of Thomas’s version” of the Tristan story (Legge 1963:49). This connection, on the other hand, was rejected as conjectural – since no reference is made to either Henry or his Queen in Thomas’ text – by Broadhurst (1996:1976). Other prominent scholars have echoed Loomis’ claim, bringing no conclusive arguments to prove their views. 15
Marie of France
Marie de France (+1216?), 16 was probably of French birth and might very well have known English (Larrington 1995:20). 17 Ernst Hoepffner claims that
But this departure did no harm to her: / She went to Poitiers, her home land: there was no other heir who belonged to her family. / King Henry took her in a great marriage” (my translation). For an edition of this text, see: Andresen, H. (ed.). 1877-1879. Roman de Rou et des Ducs de Normandie. Heilbronn. 13. See also Loomis (1922:24; 1963:84). 14. See also Bezzola (1958:3.1.294). 15. This is the case of Dronke (1976:188) and Owen (1993:40, 165-66). 16. In the conclusion to her Ysopet, she refers to herself as “Marie ai nom, si sui de France” (Roquefort 1820,vol II:401). What little is known about her is taken or inferred from her writings and from a possible allusion or two in the works of contemporary authors. The most plausible identification of her historical identity is that she was the illegitimate daughter of Godefroy d’Anjou. If this is really the case, Loomis (1959:116, n. 3) wonders, “how could a daughter of Geoffrey of Anjou say she was ‘de France’?”. 17. Dinah Hazell has challenged all these “traditional assumptions, several of which have become so inculcated in the scholarship that they are no longer seriously questioned and cloud the search for
THE QUEEN OF TROUBADOURS GOES TO ENGLAND 27 she passed her childhood in France, but spent some time in England, where she probably wrote her literary works, all of them in French (Hoepffner 1959:116): the Lais, the Fables (Ysopets) and a version of St. Patrick's Purgatory (Espurgatoire of Saint Patrice). 18 From her surviving texts, the twelve brief Lais are relevant for the present purpose: it has been claimed (Legge 1963:72; Barron 1987:49) that some (if not all) of these short stories were written in England. The question to elucidate is whether or not a connection with Eleanor can be established. The composition date of the Lais is hard to establish. Lejeune (1954:39-40) held to M. Hoepffner’s opinion: 19 the first six were composed before 1167 and the last three, after that year. Hopffner (1959:116) extended the date of redaction from 1155 to 1189, on the basis that Marie must have read Wace. Legge (1963:72) simply stated that they were written in the same period as Thomas’ Tristam. In any case (and leaving aside the years of imprisonment), the referred dates coincide with Eleanor’s heyday of literary activities. Still, Marie dedicated his Lais not to the Queen, but to that “noble Roi, pieux et courtois” (Lejeune 1954:39), who has been generally identified as Henry II (Lejeune 1954:39; Loomis 1959:116; Barron 1987:49). 20 And yet, Lejeune (1954:39) states that it is natural to assume that she was writing for a female audience, that is, Eleanor and the ladies at her court; this claim is convincingly rejected by Broadhurst (1996:62). In any case, Marie most probably contributed to the splendour of Eleanor’s court at Poitiers, in the period that goes from 1170 to 1173 (Kelly 1950:165). In the light of this, it is reasonable to suppose that she was also with the Queen at her English court, moving with Eleanor in many of her frequent crossings of the Channel: “la géographie de plusieurs de ses lais coïncide avec celle de certains déplacements d’Aliénor” (Lejeune 1954:39). After smashing down the rebellion of his sons and their mother, Henry put an end to the activities of this royal academy of Poitiers, sending his wife and other highborn ladies to England in the early summer of 1174: “And if Marie de France was, as some now suppose, the king’s sister, she too may have been of that company” (Kelly 1950:184). That would put an end, at least until Henry II’s death, to the relationship between Eleanor and her sister-in-law. The next historical reference to Marie could be around 1181, if she was the Abbess of Shaftesbury (Kelly 1950:192), a woman who died in 1216 (Hoepffner 1959:116). other possibilities” (2003). According to this scholar, Marie of France would not have been writing in England, although she said “Marie ai num, si sui de France”; all her works are preserved in Anglo- Norman manuscripts; and she includes English words in her texts. In my opinion, it takes more faith to accept her views than those of the other scholars that she refutes. 18. Another Anglo-Norman poem has been recently attributed to Marie de France, Vie seinte Audree, written by a woman named Marie in the late 1100s or early 1200s. This poem is based on Latin sources, as the Espurgatoire. Besides, its conclusion is reminiscent of Isopet (McCash 2006). See also: McCash, J.H. 2002. “La vie seinte Audree: A Fourth Text by Marie de France?”. Speculum, 77(3):744-777. 19. This M. Hoepffner, quoted by Lejeune, is not to be confused with Ernst Hoepffner, to whom I am also referring. 20. However, it is a matter of dispute that the king to which she refers is Henry II, his son the Young King (died in 1183) or King John Lackland (Lejeune 1954:35, 39; Loomis 1959:116; Legge 1963:72).
28 EUGENIO M. OLIVARES MERINO
Benoît de Sainte-Maure
Benoît de Sainte-Maure was patronized by Henry II, “perhaps for the benefit of the Young King and queen” (Legge 1963:75). He was the author of an Old French poem in about 30,000 octosyllabic couplets, the Roman de Troie (ca. 1165). 21 Its subject was provided by Henry II, and the poet dedicated his work to Eleanor (Barron 1987:49). Benoît was probably from Sainte-Maure, a village in the way from Tours to Poitiers. Besides, he had taken an active part in the Queen’s literary circles in her court of Aquitaine, sharing with her and other poets (mainly Bernart de Ventadorn and Chrétien de Troyes) a particular predilection for Ovid (Lejeune 1954:22). As Bernart, Benoit never explicitly mentioned the name of the Queen. Approximately in the middle of the Roman de Troie, he inserted a special dedication praising the “riche dame de riche rei”, a phrase that has been generally attributed to Eleanor (Cowper 1930:379-382; Kelly 1939:7 and 1950:100-101; Lejeune 1954:22; Pernoud 1995:117):
De cest, veir, criem g’estre blasmez De cele que tant a bontez Que hautece a, pris e valor, Honesté e sen e honor, Bien e mesure e sainteé, E noble largece e beauté; En cui mesfait de dames maint Sont par le bien de li esteint; En cui tote sciënce abonde, A la cui n’est nule seconde Que el mont seit de nule lei. Riche dame de riche rei, Senz mal, senz ire, senz tristece, Poisseiz aveir toz jorz leece! (ll.13457-13470) 22
It must be admitted that these lines do not imply that the poem was necessarily dedicated to the Queen, or that it was written at her command (Broadhurst 1996:73). However, it is more than reasonable to assume that Eleanor is the “riche dame” whom the poet praises, an impressive presence that surely shaped the form of Benoît’s poem. The author clearly adapted the theme of his story, the so-called Matter of Rome (legends from classical antiquity), as well as its style to please Eleanor (Lejeune 1954:22; Legge 1963:106). The result is a story of passionate love, full of knights and ladies in an aristocratic and courtly
21. For an edition of this text, see: Constans, L. (ed.). 1904-1912. Le Roman de Troie. 6 vols. Paris: SATF. 22. “For this, truly, I fear to be blamed / by her who has so much kindness/ who has nobility, esteem and merit, / honesty, wisdom and honour, / goodness, temperance and cleanness, / noble generosity and beauty; / in whom the misfits of many ladies / are by her goodness extinguished; / In whom all science abounds, / and she is second to none / who may be in the world in any law. / The great lady of the great king, with no evil, wrath, or sadness, / may you always have joy” (my translation).
THE QUEEN OF TROUBADOURS GOES TO ENGLAND 29 setting. Benoît introduces his praise just at the right place – after an antifeminist outburst –, knowing for sure that the Queen would certainly read his poem. To point at Eleanor’s conscious and official patronage of Benoît’s work, as Lejeune does (1954:24), is certainly going too far; but she is right in establishing a parallel between the Queen and the Greek princess Helen: “une vie assez ardente, et se passionne, plus que toute autre, pour les histoires dámour” (Lejeune 1954: 23).
1170 and after
This period is characterised by the Queen’s capture in 1173, which was followed by ten year imprisonment; most authors “turned from fairy-tales to truth” (Legge 1963:75).
Jordan Fantosme
This is the mysterious name for an author whose identity is by no means clear. From 1174 to 1182 he was working in a text, conventionally named Chronique, 23 which covers the years 1173 and 1174. Jordan Fantosme was a “clericus reginae Alienorae”, as Robert W. Eyton described him (Lejeune 1954:27), in 1187 and very possibly English born (Legge 1963:76). Lejeune (1954:27) suggests that Eleanor would have commanded Jordan to write his Chronique in order to exalt her husband’s deeds of arms – a subtle attempt to regain her freedom. Some months before the crushing of the revolt in 1174, Eleanor was taken prisoner north of Poitiers and sent first to the tower of Chinon, then to Winchester and finally to a tower in Old Sarum Castle (Lejeune 1954:55; Pernoud 1995:171). According to Legge (1963:74), Eleanor’s withdrawal had a direct effect on the literary circles. On July 6 1189, Eleanor’s husband died and she freed herself from fifteen years imprisonment. The truth is, nevertheless, that she was not a prisoner in the modern sense of the word: on several occasions she moved to Berkshire or Nottinghamshire, always under the strict surveillance of De Glanville or Fitz- Stephen (Lejeune 1954:55); the amounts of money paid for her maintenance are also telling. Besides, after the death of her son Henry (1183), Henry II softened gradually the severity of Eleanor’s situation: she was visited by her daughter Matilda (1184), a visit Eleanor payed back the following year going to Winchester; besides, she used to spend Easter at Berkhampstead (Lejeune 1954:55; Pernoud 1995:180-181). It seems reasonable to assume that she enjoyed some degree of freedom to occasionally resume her patronising activities, being visited by poets. Chroniclers have left no specific mention of this, but they do report that her years of imprisonment had not been squandered:
23. Michel, F. (ed.). 1840. Jordan Fantosme. Chronicle of the War Between the English and the Scots in 1173 and 1174. London: J.B. Nichols and Son.
30 EUGENIO M. OLIVARES MERINO
She had had her occasional traffic with bishops and barons and with emissaries from her sons, with whom she had never lost her authority. Even in utmost penury she had known the ministrations of chaplains and clerks, of keepers and serving folk. (Kelly 1950: 249)
Although Broadhurst rejects the idea that Jordan Fantosme had dedicated his text to Henry II (1996:60), she omits any reference to a possible connection between this author and Eleanor, as made explicit by Rev. Eyton. Fantosme, in his capacity as clerk of the Queen, could have possibly visited her.
Mestre Thomas
One last name could still be included, Mestre Thomas, a clerk associated with the court of Henry II. 24 He is the author of the Anglo-Norman Romance of Horn. An explicit connection with Eleanor has not been made. However, in her edition of the romance, M.K. Pope (Legge 1963:97) suggested that Thomas (or his family) was connected with Poitiers, an indication that might suggest Eleanor’s influence on the Romance of Horn. The rich texture of Thomas’ text and its detailed descriptions of courtly life and accomplishments – both lacking in thirteenth century King Horn – (Fellows 1993:ix) indicate a movement towards a more courtly and refined conception of chivalry. Some other features are equally telling: the excellence of Horn’s beauty and its effects on women; the hero’s musical accomplishments; Horn’s genuine unworthiness to accept Rigmel’s love; etc. (Fellows 1993:267ff). For Broadhurst, the lack of an explicit reference to Eleanor in Thomas’ text rules out any possibility of the Queen’s interference in the work (1996:76).
The End of the Twelfth Century
After her release, Eleanor played a greater political role than ever before. It seems indeed that this was probably the busiest time of her life: as Queen Mother she assumed the responsibility of trying to keep together the Angevin empire. This she did, first by assuring the coronation of Richard; then in his absence, thwarting the intrigues of his brother John Lackland and Philip II Augustus, king of France, against him; finally, after Richard’s death (1199), by insuring peace between the Plantagenets of England and the Capetian kings of France.
Béroul
Béroul is the name of a Norman author who wrote a Tristan poem, in true Norman dialect, but very likely for an Anglo-Norman audience and in England, where he might have been residing for some time (Legge 1963:59; Barron
24. This Thomas is not probably to be identified with the author of Tristam or with that other Thomas of Kent, who wrote Roman de Toute Chevalerie (Legge 1963:96).
THE QUEEN OF TROUBADOURS GOES TO ENGLAND 31
1987:49). 25 The terminus a quo of this text, 1190 or 1191 (Lejeune 1954:35; Whitehead 1959:135), 26 creates some problems when trying to assert a direct patronage on the part of the Queen. Although “there is no clue to the writer’s patron” (Legge 1963:59), Lejeune seems to leave the door open for this possibility:
“Ne serait-ce pas pour elle [Eleanor] que Béroul reprend, dans ces mêmes ann’ees (‘apr’es 1190’), une fois de plus, l’histoire qu’elle a tant aim’ee, celle de Tristan et Iseut?” (Lejeune 1954:49)
CONCLUSION
The courtly romance tradition rapidly spread in the late 12th century (Brooke 1989:xxiii). The great courts of Europe had become very cosmopolitan thanks no doubt to the periods of peace Europe was enjoying:
In the twelfth century it is significant that the two most advanced states from the point of view of administrative organisation, England and Sicily, should be precisely those in which literature and learning are most fully developed in relation to the royal court. (Haskins 1925:71-72)
During the first fifteen years of the reign of Henry II and Eleanor there was a period of calm and literary activity on both sides of the channel. In the case of Anglo-Norman literature, it would be fallacious to think her responsible for the composition of this corpus at the time she was Queen of England. In the majority of cases presented here, explicit textual links are missing, whereas in others the author himself mentions the Queen. It does not follow from this that only the latter are to be taken into consideration: if a conclusive reference to Eleanor is absent, we should not too easily assume she was not relevant for the genesis of the work; equally, an explicit dedication might mean nothing but obligation or a formal requirement. What I am trying to state is that Eleanor was not only a patroness but a living icon of beauty, the perfect embodiment of all the qualities that adorned the duenna of fin’amors, all in all a source of inspiration for those (courtiers and poets) around her. Textual proofs of this influence are very rarely found. We are not dealing with intertextuality or sources, but with the birth of a literary work. “Better to say nothing, then,” somebody could reasonably argue. However, I think it is worth recreating the setting in which this or that poet met the Queen. I am not totally legitimated to conclude Eleanor was the patroness of all the texts I have
25. Whitehead (1959:134) is not so sure about Béroul’s stay in England: his unusual knowledge of Cornwall might very well be that of his source. 26. Béorul’s poem cannot be dated with certainty. The so-called German school places its various redactions near the close of the twelfth century; therefore, the Béroul is dated in 1190. The French school, on the other hand, places the different versions of the Tristan story in the middle of that century, Beroul’s poem being dated in 1165 (Deister 1922:287). See also, Whitteridge, G. 1959. “The date of the Tristan of Béroul”. Medium Aevum 28:167-171.
32 EUGENIO M. OLIVARES MERINO referred to, but the presumption is very largely in favour of the supposition that she was, at least, behind many.
REFERENCES
Barron, W.R.J. 1987, Englih medieval romance. London: Longman. Barron, W.R.J. and S.C. Weinberg (eds.) 1989, Brut. Layamon’s Arthur. The Arthurian section of Layamon's Brut (Lines 9229-14297). Harlow: Longman. Bezzola, R.R., 1954-1963, Les origines et la formation de la littérature courtoise en Occident (500-1200). Paris: Champion. Broadhurst, K.M. 1996, “Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine: Patrons of Literature in French?” Viator, 27:53-84. Broich, U. 1962, “Heinrich II. als Patron der Literatur seiner Zeit”, in W.F. Schirmer and U. Broich (eds.). Studien zum literarischen patronat im England des 12. Jahrhunderts. Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Forschung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, 23. Köln: Westdeutscher Verlag. 25-216. Brooke, C.N.L.1989, The medieval idea of marriage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Burnley, D. 1998, Courtliness and literature in medieval England. London: Longman. Constans, L. 1904-1912, Benoît de Sainte-Maure. Le roman de Troie. 6 vols. Paris: Librairie de Firmin Didot et Cie. McCash, J.H. 2006, The life of Saint Audrey: A text by Marie de France. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company. Cowper, M.F.A.G. 1930, “Date and dedication of the Roman de Troie”. Modern Philology, 28:379-382. Deister, J.L. 1922, “Bernart de Ventadour’s reference to the Tristan Story”. Modern Philology, 20:287-296. Dronke, P. 1976, “Peter of Blois at the court of Henry II”. Medieval Studies, 38:185-235. Fellows, J. (ed.) 1993, Of Love and chivalry: An anthology of middle English romance. London: Everyman. Foulon, C. 1959, “Wace”. In R.S. Loomis (ed.). Arthurian literature in the Middle Ages. A collaborative history. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 94-103. Haskins, C.H. 1925, “Henry II as a patron of literature”. In A.G. Little and F.M. Powicke (eds.). Essays in medieval history presented to Thomas Frederick Tout. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 71-77. Hazell, D. 2003, “Rethinking Marie”. Medieval Forum, 2.
THE QUEEN OF TROUBADOURS GOES TO ENGLAND 33
James, M.R. (ed. and trans.) 1994, Walter Map. De Nugis Curialium (Courtiers’ Trifles). Rev. by C.N.L. Brooke and R.A.B. Mynors. Oxford Medieval Texts. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Kelly, A. 1937, “Eleanor of Aquitaine and her courts of love”. Speculum, 12:3- 19. Kelly, A. 1950, Eleanor of Aquitaine and the four kings. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Larrington, C. 1995, Women and writing in medieval Europe. A sourcebook. London: Routledge. Legge, M.D. 1963, Anglo-Norman literature and its background. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lejeune, R. 1954, “Rôle littéraire d’Aliénor d’Aquitaine et de sa famille”. Cultura Neolatina, 14:5-57. Loomis, R.S. 1909, “Notes on the Tristan of Thomas”. Modern Language Review, 14:38-43. Loomis, R.S. 1922, “Tristram and the house of Anjou”. Modern Language Review, 17:24-30. Loomis, R.S. 1931, The Romance of Tristram and Ysolt by Thomas of Britain, translated from Old French and Old Norse. New York: Columbia University Press. Loomis, R.S. 1956, Wales and the Arthurian Legend. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Loomis, R.S. 1959, “Layamon’s Brut”, in R.S. Loomis (ed.). Arthurian literature in the Middle Ages. A collaborative history. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 104- 111. Loomis, R.S. 1963, The development of Arthurian romance. London: Hutchinson University Library. Madden, F. (ed.) 1847, Brut. London: The Society of Antiquaries. Mason, E. (ed. and trans.) 2007, Arthurian Chronicles: Roman De Brut by Wace. Electronic Classics Series. Hazleton, PA: Pennsylvania State University. Owen, D.D.R. 1993, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Queen and legend. Oxford: Blackwell. Parry, J.J. (ed.) 1969, Andreas Capellanus. The art of courtly love. New York: W.W. Norton. Pernoud, R. 1995, Leonor de Aquitania, la reina de los trovadores. Barcelona: Salvat Editores. Richardson, H.G. 1959, “The Letters and charters of Eleanor of Aquitaine”. The English Historical Review, 74:193-213. Roquefort, B. de (ed.) 1820, Poésies de Marie de France. 3 vols. Paris: Chasseriau. Sanders, A. 1994, The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Stubbs, W. 1887, Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Swanton, M. 1987, English literature before Chaucer. London and New York: Longman.
34 EUGENIO M. OLIVARES MERINO
West, C.B. 1938, Courtoisie in Anglo-Norman literature. Medium Aevum Monographs 3. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Whitehead, F. 1959, “The early Tristan poems”, in R.S. Loomis (ed.). Arthurian literature in the Middle Ages. A collaborative history. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO AND FREUD’S MOST PREVALENT FORM OF DEGRADATION IN EROTIC LIFE
JESÚS LÓPEZ-PELÁEZ CASELLAS Universidad de Jaén
Although Othello criticism has occasionally focused on sexuality in the play – and more especifically on the potentially homosexual resonance of Iago and Othello’s relation – the episode of IV.1 in which Othello collapses has been traditionally explained away as a common case of epilepsy. Stemming from Freud's "The Most Prevalent Form of Degradation in Erotic Life" (1912), this work suggests an interpretation that emphasizes Othello's disintegrating psyche in the context of the condition known as psychological impotence.
Much of the academic criticism on William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Othello (ca. 1603-1605) (together with theatrical approaches to this play by a diversity of directors and actors) from the late 1970s onwards has proved to be increasingly concerned with the presence of an erotic and sexual subtext that is linked to most of the play’s negotiations: namely, the construction of identities, of gender, and of ethnicities. 1 However, the episode of IV.i in which Othello collapses in front of Iago has been traditionally explained away (both from literary and medical perspectives) as a common case of epilepsy – the “sacred disease” –, a diagnosis that somehow seems to place it away from the erotic discourse of the play. As we will see, there certainly is dramatic evidence that sustains this kind of explanation for Othello’s fit. However, I am persuaded that this episode can also be fruitfully linked to the aforementioned sexual subtext, as
1. A succinct although representative sample of this criticism – with various different emphases on feminism and patriarchy, and heterosexual or homosexual love – should include Dusinberre’s Shakespeare and the Nature of Women (1975); Snow’s “Sexual Anxiety and the Male Order of Things in Othello” (1980); Stallybrass’s “Patriarchal Territories: The Body Enclosed” (1986); Neely’s “Women and Men in Othello” (1987); Callaghan’s Woman and Gender in Renaissance Tragedy (1989); Rolls’s “Othello and the Body in Transformation” (2002)”; Saunder’s “Purgation, Anality, and the Civilizing Process” (2004). For an excellent and comprehensive account of the theatrical and performance history of the play see Neill’s “Introduction” to his 2006 edition of Othello (esp. 36-113). 36 JESÚS LÓPEZ-PELÁEZ CASELLAS the play seems to address Othello’s breakdown from a – simultaneously – social, psychological and – more specifically – sexual dimension. In this essay I will stem from Sigmund Freud's “The Most Prevalent Form of Degradation in Erotic Life” (1912) in order to question the privileged status of the “epilepsy interpretation” of IV.i as the only acceptable reading, suggesting instead an additional (and complementary) approach to this episode that – paying attention to what I will call the early modern semiosphere – 2 emphasizes Othello's disintegrating psyche and conflicting identity in the context of the condition known as psychological (or psychic) impotence. The increasing concern with sexuality in the play mentioned above has historically focussed on a restricted number of motifs, latent or repressed homosexuality on the part of either Othello, Iago, or both, being one. Indeed, the potentially homosexual resonance of Iago and Othello’s relation as presented at the end of the so-called “temptation scene” (III.iii), 3 when both characters kneel in a grotesque pseudo-betrothal, has acquired a new centrality in Othello criticism (III.iii.456-472). 4 Previous to this concern with homoeroticism in the play (evidently encouraged by the development of queer studies), influential and relatively canonical approaches to sexuality in this tragedy had addressed the less controversial issue of Othello’s “jealousy”, which having been diagnosed as a pathology has been interpreted – within so-called “realist” psychological criticism – as having a narcissistic fixation or failure at its root (Holland 1964:251). Norman Holland in the 1960s emphasized other (to him also pathological) dimensions of marital infidelity, suggesting that Othello could be projecting “his own impulses towards heterosexual infidelity onto an innocent partner” (Holland 1964:250-251). Outside any specifically psychological critical approach the late Tony Tanner emphasized in the 1990s in his Prefaces to Shakespeare (only published in 2010) the “invisibility” of Othello’s actual marriage to Desdemona in the play, a ceremony which took place off-stage before the dramatic action begins and which is barely mentioned at all; as additional evidence of this invisibility, Tanner argues that Iago’s and Cassio’s questions (“Are you fast married?”, I.ii.11; and “To who? [is Othello married]”, I.ii.52) are not answered, or – at best – given vague explanations. For Tanner, the actual “marriage” in the play is the one that we do see (that of which we have an “ocular proof”), that is, the one evoked by Othello and Iago’s kneeling act (2010:532-533). Tanner goes even further by suggesting that “it is not clear that
2. I borrow this term from the cultural semiotic work of Jüri Lotman, who developed it in the 1980s: “By analogy with the biosphere […] we could talk of a semiosphere, which we shall define as the semiotic space necessary for the existence and functioning of languages” (Lotman 1980:123). In other words, the semiosphere is the abstract but real space outside of which semiosis (that is, the production and transmission of meaning) is not possible. 3. All quotations and references from this and other Shakespearean plays are from Stephen Greenblatt’s The Norton Shakespeare. 4. See Edward Snow’s seminal “Sexual Anxiety and the Male Order of Things in Othello”; see also Rolls 2002. On homosexuality in the play see Saunder 2004. Before them, Gordon Ross had already interpreted the temptation scene as one modelled in the form of a ritual of courtship (1959:155-167); see also Holland 1964:248-250.
SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO AND FREUD’S DEGRADATION IN EROTIC LIFE 37 he [Othello] is, in fact, drawn to her [Desdemona] sexually” (ibid.:532). It must be incidentally noted that Tanner emphatically rejects a reading of Iago and Othello’s relation as homosexual (ibid.:532-533). Although this is just a very succinct account of some relevant criticism dealing with sexuality in the play in the last fifty years, I think that it effectively shows to what extent Shakespeare’s Othello has been amenable to an interpretation that places sexuality as an important subtext. However, and as I already mentioned, the equally disturbing episode of IV.i, in which Othello collapses before Iago and seems to lose his self-control for some time, has been either relatively overlooked or simply explained away, following Iago’s pseudo- diagnosis, as a common case of epilepsy. 5 As we know, this episode is given a clear prominence (as suggested by its physical centrality within the play), and surprisingly enough (since it has rarely been linked to any sexual subtext) it follows Othello’s visualization of Desdemona and Cassio’s intercourse, as pictured by Iago’s evil falsification of reality. Indeed, immediately before that vision (IV.i. 1-18), Iago insinuates a clearly eroticized picture of Desdemona into the General’s mind: the “unauthorized kiss” between Cassio and Desdemona (IV.i. 1-2); the tragically comic image of both naked in bed “not meaning any harm” (IV.i. 3-5), which makes Othello produce the paradoxically subversive notion of “hypocrisy against the devil” (IV.i. 6); or the problematization of an essential notion of female honour (IV.i. 16-18). Thus, right after the apparently nonsensical speech in which Othello puns on “lie” (“Lie with her? Lie on her? We say ‘lie on her’ when they belie her” IV.i.34-35), epistemologically confuses cause and effect (IV.i. 38-40), and considers various types of revenge (IV.i. 41- 42), we witness the falling down of the man “whom passion could not shake” (IV.i.263):
[He falls down in a trance] IAGO. …. What ho, my lord! My lord, I say. Othello! [Enter Cassio] How now, Cassio! CASSIO What’s the matter? IAGO My lord is fallen into an epilepsy. This is his second fit: he had one yesterday. CASSIO Rub him about the temples. IAGO No, forbear. The lethargy must have his quiet course. If not, he foams at mouth; and by and by Breaks out to savage madness. Look, he stirs. Do you withdraw yourself a little while:
5. According to the OED online “epilepsy” is a “disease of the nervous system, characterized (in its severer forms) by violent paroxysms, in which the patient falls to the ground in a state of unconsciousness, with general spasm of the muscles, and foaming at the mouth”. This being the standard definition of epilepsy, it may adopt different forms, to the extent that medical episodes such as fainting under strong emotion, vasovagal syncopes, or myoclonic jerks are frequently misdiagnosed as epilepsy (Heaton 2006:1338).
38 JESÚS LÓPEZ-PELÁEZ CASELLAS
He will recover straight. (IV.i. 43-54)
To be sure, Shakespeare had already made dramatic (and semiotic) use of “epilepsy” in at least two other plays, namely King Lear (ca. 1606; II.ii.75) and Julius Caesar (ca. 1599; I.ii.246-252). In the former, although it has been presented as the first reference in English to “a person affected with epilepsy” (OED), what we very likely have is a form of metaphorical epilepsy, as no character is actually presented as suffering from this condition and Cornwall simply shouts to Oswald: “A plague upon your epileptic visage!”, very probably meaning just a distorted, or grimacing visage, as the Norton Shakespeare editors inform us (Shakespeare 1997b:2369). Indeed, T. Betts and H. Betts have explained that this is “a reference to the pock-marks of syphilis, endemic in Elizabethan England, and is not actually a reference to epilepsy itself.” (1998:407). In Julius Caesar, on the contrary, Shakespeare’s Caesar appears to suffer an actual epileptic fit offstage, which is described by Casca to Cassius in detail: Caesar collapsed after refusing for the third time the crown (or ‘coronet’) offered to him by Mark Anthony in front of the crowd (I.ii.235-267). Brutus and Cassius make an explicit and unambiguous reference to Caesar’s condition, to which they refer with its medieval and early modern English term, the “falling sickness”. As it seems, epilepsy fulfils an important semiotic function in this Roman tragedy, as it both metonymically alludes to the greatness of the sufferer (rather than pointing to the nature of the disease, or its causes and consequences), and it also proleptically suggests Caesar’s imminent (metaphorical and physical) downfall at the hands of the conspirators. Evidently, we must assume that for this episode Shakespeare necessarily drew both on Julius Caesar’s historically documented epileptic fits, and also on the ancient description of this condition as the “sacred disease” which was believed to affect dignified and great-souled men. Interestingly, one of Shakespeare’s great-souled men par excellence – the Aristotelian megalopsychòs – is Othello, “the nature/whom passion could not shake” (IV.i.262-263). As we know, in the case of Othello there seems to be a general consensus regarding the nature of the Venetian General’s collapse both from literary scholars and psychologists approaching Shakespeare’s work: a diversity of critics (Heilman 1956:95-98; Hecht 1987:135-138) and therapists and psychoanalists (Blumberg 1996:407; Breuer 2002:5-19; Jones 2000:169- 172) have identified this collapse of IV.i as a case of epilepsy that could be explained by the situation of Othello’s psyche, dangerously bordering madness by the end of the “temptation scene” of III.iii. This approach is again reinforced by some textual references that seem to suggest some kind of psychological disorder; namely, Desdemona’s description of Othello rolling his eyes (V.ii.40), and Othello’s references to a “pain upon [the] forehead” in III.iii.288, and his mentioning “a salt and sorry rheum” in III.iv.48. All these elements, namely, Iago’s apparently informed medical opinion, the historical and semiotic function of epilepsy (and the presence of epilepsy in Shakespeare’s work), and finally the
SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO AND FREUD’S DEGRADATION IN EROTIC LIFE 39 relatively minor dramatic details mentioned by both Desdemona and Othello, all of them have sustained, with little disagreement and reasonably solid textual evidence, the epilepsy explanation of Othello’s collapse in IV.i.34-56. However, plausible as this general consensus seems, it must be noted: that the “diagnosis” of that episode comes from the ensign Iago, whom we know to be absolutely unreliable; that – surprisingly enough – we would have to assume that Othello’s lieutenant and best friend Cassio 6 ignores that his general suffers (or has recently suffered) from that condition (IV.i.46); and that there are no other specific references to Othello’s epilepsy from any character in the play. In this sense, I would like to note that Othello’s aforementioned “pain upon [the] forehead” and “rheum”, although conventionally offered as evidence of the first uncertain symptoms of an epileptic fit (Shakespeare 2005:299, n.287) may actually serve very different dramatic functions, such as – respectively – that of announcing the apparition of a cuckold’s horns (conventionally thought to be betrayed by a headache) 7 and an excuse not to receive Cassio. From a cultural semiotic approach, this semiotic density of signs would simultaneously fulfil various functions, that of sustaining the epileptic fit possibility being only one of them. Yet, that no single character (Brabantio, the Duke, or Gratiano), when referring to his personality, greatness, unmoved passions, or eventual moral degradation, makes any reference to that supposed condition, so fitting to the Aristotelian megalopsychós persona that Othello appears to embody for much of the play, seems as an unlikely unwilling omission, one which would allow or call for an alternative and/or complementary explanation of Othello’s psychic state. As early as 1959 the therapist John Emery seriously questioned the epileptic nature of Othello’s collapse: in his pioneering “Othello's Epilepsy” Emery claimed that this fit should rather be related to some psychological disorders of a sexual kind, which would have been intensified by both Iago’s and Othello’s bluntly voyeuristic references to Cassio and Desdemona in act IV.i.1-33 (1959: 30-33). Interestingly, Emery mentions that he was not the first to raise serious doubts on Iago’s diagnosis of Othello’s fit, as a similar questioning of the “official” explanation had already been raised as early as 1860 in The Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare by J.C. Bucknill, who questioned that Othello’s collapse could be attributed to epilepsy (ibid.:30). 8
6. That Cassio is closer to Othello than any other character is not only based on Othello’s evident sadness when he demotes him (II.iii.231-232), or on Desdemona’s description of their friendship when she tries to appease Othello (III.iii.48-51), but on the information – disclosed by Desdemona herself – that Cassio served as a go-between in Othello’s wooing of Desdemona: “Michael Cassio,/ that came a-wooing with you, and so many a time,/ When I have spoke of you dispraisingly,/ Hath ta’en your part” (III.iii.71-75). Also, Othello confirms that Cassio knew of his wooing of Desdemona “from first to last” (III.iii.98). 7. Indeed, Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy explains that headaches follow, not precede, an epileptic fit (I.iii.II.i). 8. Bucknill wrote in 1860: “Iago’s designation of this as an epilepsy, of which it is the second fit, appears a mere falsehood” (274).
40 JESÚS LÓPEZ-PELÁEZ CASELLAS
In his 1912 essay “The Most Prevalent Form of Degradation in Erotic Life” 9 Sigmund Freud developed a concise but illuminating reflection on the condition known as “psychical impotence” and on the psycho-sexual processes involved. For Freud, this special type of sexual dysfunction was caused by an inhibition in the developmental history of the libido, which causes that the affectionate and the sensual currents, both present in all human beings and whose union is necessary to ensure a completely normal attitude in love, fail to combine. According to Freud, two factors determine whether these two currents will or will not split:
First, there is the amount of frustration in reality which opposes the new object- choice and reduces its value for the person concerned. […] Secondly, there is the amount of attraction which the infantile objects that have to be relinquished are able to exercise, and which is in proportion to the erotic cathexis attaching to them in childhood. (Freud 1997:51)
In Othello we soon learn that there exists an actual interdiction over Desdemona (developed by Brabantio and – indirectly – by Iago), based on the class (or rank), age and ethnic differences between herself and Othello, as Othello himself makes explicit: 10
Haply, for I am black And have not those soft parts of conversation That chamberers have, or for I am declined Into the vale of years. (III.iii.267-270)
Actually, the play in more than one way seems to revolve around the dramatization of the various mechanisms of exclusion of Othello from white, Christian, high-class Venetian society, as several authors have noted (Bartels 1990; Neill 1998). With respect to Freud’s second condition, significantly the only allusion to Othello’s family in the play clearly involves some childhood token related to his mother (and later indirectly to his father) and invested with – precisely – an erotic significance, namely the handkerchief, which appears right when Othello suspects Desdemona’s sexual behaviour (Kirsch 1979:736): 11
9. “Über die Allgemeinste Erniedrigung des Liebeslebens”, also translated into English as “On the Universal Tendency to Debasement in the Sphere of Love”. 10. There are abundant references to Othello’s own interiorization of his “difference” in terms of ethnicity or age, although Iago’s “clime, complexion and degree” speech of III.iii.32-42, in which he alludes to “natural” differences between Othello and Desdemona which would make her an indicted object of desire for Othello, encapsulates these ideas (Hadfield, 1998: 227-228; 230). 11. According to Kirsch it would be unreasonable to describe Othello as lustful or impotent, as – for this author – he truly desires to consummate his marriage with Desdemona and very probably does according to I.iii.257-262; II.ii.246-47; and III.iii.75-76 (Kirsch 729-730). However, there is not a consensus on this, as for some authors one of the keys of the play resides in Othello and Desdemona never actually consummating marriage (Shakespeare 2005: 35, n.2; 137, n.2). One of these authors is Tony Tanner, who – as we saw above – has recently given some textual evidence that apparently
SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO AND FREUD’S DEGRADATION IN EROTIC LIFE 41
[…] that handkerchief Did an Egyptian to my mother give; She was a charmer and could almost read The thoughts of people; she told her, while she kept it, 'Twould make her amiable and subdue my father Entirely to her love – but if she lost it, Or made gift of it, my father's eye Should hold her loathèd and his spirits should hunt After new fancies. She dying gave it me And bid me, when my fate would have me wived, To give it her. I did so; and, take heed on't, Make it a darling like your precious eye: To lose’t or give’t away were such perdition As nothing else could match. (III.iv.54-67; my emphasis) 12
Othello’s magical narrative not only establishes an association between his parental origins and his present marriage (through the topos of marital jealousy, infidelity and trust, and punishment), but directly connects his mother with the very object that stands for female sexuality and the loss of virginity, an object transmitted right before Othello’s birth, namely, the handkerchief (Boose 1975:361; Snow 1980:390-393). For all the above, I am persuaded that the play seems to suggest the existence of a sexual disorder in Othello’s behaviour towards Desdemona which strongly resembles the one described by Freud as a form of degradation of erotic life. Firstly, and according to Freudian theory as exposed in “Degradation”, an inhibition in the development of the libido prevents males from relating to women both physically and psychically in a healthy manner, to the extent that sensuality can only be freely expressed and pleasure experienced through the debasement or degradation of the female “to the level of a prostitute” (Freud 1997:53), which leads to episodes of impotence with women to whom males feel sentimentally attached. Significantly, critics have largely discussed whether the play offers clear evidence of the consummation of the marriage or not, and whether this bears any relevance to Othello’s increasing degradation of the image of Desdemona from saintly wife to depraved prostitute (the “cunning whore of Venice” of IV.ii.93) that has so significantly disturbed audiences and critics. Thus, Desdemona is categorized by Othello as “whore” (III.iii.364; IV.ii.74;89), “devil” (IV.i.235;239), “false as hell” (IV.ii.41), “public commoner” (IV.ii.75), “strumpet” (IV.ii.84), and “cunning whore” (IV.ii.93). Indeed, Freud explains that this disturbance (ie. the aforementioned failure to combine the affectionate and the sensual currents) leads males to the “psychical contradicts that provided by Kirsch above: II.iii.10, and V.ii.13-14 (529). On the psycho-sexual implications of the handkerchief, see Boose 1975. 12. Although it must be noted that in V.ii.223-224 Othello seems to diminish the importance of this item by describing it as “an antique token / My father gave my mother”, this may well be a consequence of dramatic economy once the actual magical explanation of the handkerchief and its importance in the play has been well established.
42 JESÚS LÓPEZ-PELÁEZ CASELLAS debasement of the sexual object” (Freud 1997:52) of the kind that Othello, as we have seen, progressively shows towards Desdemona throughout the play. Significantly, given the abundance of animal imagery shown in the play, and especially in light of Iago’s racist allusions to animal coition in I.i, Freud explains that
the whole sphere of love in such people [ie. those unable to combine the two currents] remains divided in the two directions personified in art as sacred and profane (or animal) love. (ibid.)
As long as the object chosen to avoid incest (i.e. Desdemona) leads to the object intended to avoid (a function fulfilled by the eroticized handkerchief of Othello’s mother given to and lost by Desdemona) no full erotic union will be achieved (remember the uncertain consummation of marriage in the play noted above, or Tanner’s emphasis on its “invisibility”). In these cases we find a degradation or debasement of erotic love, and a quest for “a debased sexual object, a woman who is ethically inferior” to whom the other partner can “devote his sexual potency” (Freud 1997:55). According to the play’s evolution, Othello – for the abovementioned reasons: interdiction over Desdemona and erotic attachment to objects related to his mother – seems to proceed to an unwilling and unconscious degradation of Desdemona in order to be able to satisfy his (very likely) delayed sexual appetite. The episode that most criticism of the play has traditionally considered Othello’s epileptic fit appears right after the General’s “visualization” of Desdemona with Cassio, who would be “lying on her” and “with her”, all this interspersed with inarticulate references to the handkerchief, to confessions of infidelity and promiscuousness, and to “unnatural” passions:
OTHELLO Lie with her? Lie on her? We say lie on her when they belie her. Lie with her! Zounds, that’s fulsome! Handkerchief – confessions – handkerchief! To confess and be hanged for his labour. First to be hanged and then to confess! I tremble at it. Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing passion without some instruction. It is not words that shakes me thus! Pish! Noses, ears, and lips! Is’t posible? – Confess? Handkerchief! O devil! [He falls] (IV.i.34-42)
In short, I suggest that Othello experiences an uncontrollable sexual arousal before the degradedly erotic image of Desdemona created by Iago throughout act III and in IV.i, and that this leads not necessarily to an epileptic fit (although this is the standard explanation that Iago has at hand) but to an episode that resembles an orgasm. Significantly, and although he does not relate it to Freud’s disorder, John Emery concludes that Othello’s collapse “seems to imply an image of coition”, while he reminds us that in neurological sciences one symptom of epilepsy is “seminal ejaculations” (1959:31). Emery explains the relations between epilepsy and orgasm:
SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO AND FREUD’S DEGRADATION IN EROTIC LIFE 43
The extreme rigidity which develops in the build-up to orgasm […] provides an especially close parallel to the states of tension in epilepsy. On at least some […] occasions orgasm may occur during epilepsy. The electroencephalograms which are now available show a striking resemblance between sexual response and epileptoid reaction. (ibid.)
Norman Holland coincides that “an epileptic seizure resembles a sexual ecstasy”, and holds that Othello’s fit seems to suggest some kind of sexual arousal after having visualized Desdemona with Cassio (Holland 1964: 257). Interestingly, Bucknell already noted in the 19th century how Iago applies to Othello’s state a more appropriate “designation of his morbid state” (1860:274), namely the sexually charged term “ecstasy” (IV.1.77). Actually, and although suffering from epilepsy was not a dishonourable condition, Iago explains to Othello that the “epilepsy explanation” was an excuse to send Cassio away and hide Othello’s “ecstasy”: “Cassio came hither. I shifted him away,/And laid good ‘scuse upon your ecstasy” (IV.i.76-77). Already in 1953 A. B. Feldman had alluded to Othello’s “jealousy” as stemming from doubts of his own virility, which were a consequence of the racist abuses we may assume he had suffered at least since he first tried to integrate within Venetian society judging from Iago’s comments (Feldman 1953:147-163). Although Feldman does not allude to the epileptic fit, he considers that the key to Othello’s conflict has to do with – in Norman Holland’s words – “the split of affectionate and sensual aspects of love” (Holland 1964: 252). Likewise, for Holland, “Othello’s jealousy proceeds from some inner weakness, a fear of impotency, homosexuality, castration or a lack of self- esteem” (Holland 1964:253). Later, in the 1980s, Stanley Cavell also focussed on this sexually-related disgust or fear on the part of Othello: “Othello, the immaculate soldier, dreads sexual ‘contamination’” (1987:133). Equally, in his Prefaces to Shakespeare Tony Tanner very significantly concentrates on desire and sexuality in the play, which – he believes – revolves to a great extent around this weakness:
[I]f anything, Othello seems to dread the idea of the sexual act (he gives the impression that he regards copulation as something which loathsome toads do) […] Part of him responds to the ‘jewel’ which is Desdemona, but not to the female, sexual body. (Tanner 2010:531)
Furthermore, for Tanner, “what he [Othello] ‘loved’ in Desdemona […] was the way she listened to his adventures and her ‘pity’ (I.iii.167); it is not clear that he is, in fact, drawn to her sexually” (ibid.:532). To be sure, the occasional perception of the erotic or sensuous as degraded was a commonplace in biblical exegesis: indeed, for Augustine, intercourse within marriage for the satisfying of lust was considered a venial sin, and for Aquinas sex was only accepted if it had procreation as its goal (Fitzgerald 1999:10, Aquinas 2010:II-II, 153, 2). Also, we find a similar approach to the erotic in early modern medical and proto-psychological treatises, and in much
44 JESÚS LÓPEZ-PELÁEZ CASELLAS scholarly thought, as Montaigne’s essay Upon Some Verses of Virgil (which almost certainly Shakespeare knew) seems to prove. 13 Most notably, a diversity of classical authorities to whom Shakespeare very likely had access (as T.W. Baldwin’s William Shakespeare’s Small Latin and Lesse Greeke indicates) had already suggested a close connection between epilepsy and sex. Clementius of Alexandria (an author included in King James’ library) describes coition as “small epilepsy”; also, Areteus of Capadocia compared epilepsy with orgasm, and the sophist Democritus of Abdera described coition as an attack of apoplexy (Emery 1959:31-32; Baldwin 1860:532). Without necessarily discarding the epilepsy explanation, the sexual implications of Othello’s fit (epileptic or not) in IV.i.34-57 appear to be evident. Freud emphasizes that this psychological disorder “is much more widespread than is supposed”, and that “a certain amount of this behaviour does in fact characterize the love of civilized man” (Freud 1997:54). Likewise, for Arthur Kirsch, Iago “attacks in Othello not just his frailty but the frailty of all men” (1978:737). In my view, Kirsch’s “frailty” coincides with Freud’s “degradation” in being part of the psyche of the unconscious life of certain men. This vulnerability, namely Othello’s frailty and his degraded erotic life, basically underlines what recent approaches to this play have emphasized: the simultaneously social and personal process of destruction of Othello’s identity (as Venetian, white – or more-fair-than-black – Christian), monitored and executed by Iago and eventually accepted by Othello himself, and which now also affects Othello’s masculine role in the play.
REFERENCES
Aquinas, T. 2010, Summa Theologiae.
13. Montaigne wonders: “what has rendered the act of generation, an act so natural, so necessary, and so just, a thing not to be spoken of without blushing and to be excluded from all serious and regular discourse?”, only to add that “it is a kind of incest to employ in this venerable and sacred alliance, the heat and extravagance of amorous license, as I think I have said elsewhere. A man, says Aristotle, must approach his wife with prudence and temperance, lest in dealing too lasciviously with her, the extreme pleasure make her exceed the bounds of reason” (Montaigne 2011).
SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO AND FREUD’S DEGRADATION IN EROTIC LIFE 45
Breuer, J. 2002, “Images of epilepsy in Shakespeare”. Medizinhist Journal, 37(1):5-19. Burton, R. 2010, The anatomy of melancholy.
46 JESÚS LÓPEZ-PELÁEZ CASELLAS
Rolls, A. 2002, “Othello and the body in transformation”. Renaissance Forum, 6(1):1-14. Ross, G. 1959, “Iago the paranoiac”. American Imago, 16:155-167. Saunders, B. 2004, “Purgation, anality, and the civilizing process”. Shakespeare Quarterly, 55(2):148-177. Shakespeare, W. 1997 (1623), Julius Caesar, in S. Greenblatt (ed.). The Norton Shakespeare. New York: Norton, 1525-1590. Shakespeare, W. 1997 (1623), King Lear, in S. Greenblatt (ed.). The Norton Shakespeare. New York: Norton, 2307-2553. Shakespeare, W. 1997 (1623), Othello, in S. Greenblatt (ed.). The Norton Shakespeare. New York: Norton, 2091-2174. Shakespeare, W. 2006 (1623), Othello, in M. Neill (ed.). The Oxford Shakespeare. Othello. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 191-398. Snow, E.A. 1980, “Sexual anxiety and the male order of things in Othello”. English Literary Renaissance, 10(3):384-412. Stallybrass, P. 1986, “Patriarchal territories: The body enclosed”, in M.W. Ferguson, M. Quilligan and N. Vickers (eds.). Rewriting the Renaissance: The discourses of sexual difference in early modern Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 123-142. Tanner, T. 2010, Prefaces to Shakespeare. Cambridge, Massachussets and London: Harvard University Press.
HUGH BROUGHTON’S CENSURE TO THE KING JAMES BIBLE
ROCÍO G. SUMILLERA Universidad de Granada
“The New edition crosseth me, I require it be burnt” is one of the blunt expressions the renowned Hebraist Hugh Broughton (1549-1612) used in his pamphlet A Censure of the late translation for our Churches (1611) to criticize the new print first edition of the King James Bible (1611). Studies exploring the invaluable impact of the Authorized Version upon the English language and literatures in English logically proliferate in the year of the 400th anniversary of the KJB. With a view to contributing to the celebration, this paper schematically goes through the history of the translations of the Bible into English before focusing on the production of the KJB and its early reception by unimpressed scholars such as the choleric and controversial Hugh Broughton. As the following pages will show, the beginnings of the KJB were no bed of roses, a rather surprising revelation given the unanimous acclamation the book has received ever since the second half of the seventeenth century.
In the year of the 400th anniversary of the first appearance in print of the King James Bible, it is inevitable to repeatedly read laudatory speeches justly praising the language and style of the Authorized Version commanded by King James I, and remarking the book’s overwhelming influence in subsequent centuries. However, this deserved and understandable praise often obscures the fact that the King James Bible was not the immediate success one would expect it to have been, given its posterior impact upon English language and letters. D. Norton, author of the insightful study A History of the Bible as Literature, has in this respect remarked that “the King James Bible was generally scorned or ignored as English writing for a century and a half after its publication” (Norton 1993:xiii), and that it did not even manage to replace the Geneva Bible until mid- seventeenth century. Similarly, R. Carroll and S. Prickett note that the KJB’s “present reputation and status was not immediate or even automatic – indeed, for a long time it was highly unpopular in some quarters”; “[n]or is it the Bible of Spenser, Shakespeare, or Donne” (Carroll and Prickett 1998:xxv). More recently N.H. Hamlin and W. Jones have affirmed that the “new Bible was not a runaway 48 ROCÍO G. SUMILLERA success” and that “ironically, the KJB translators themselves quote from the Geneva, rather than their own translation, in the KJB preface” (Hamlin and Jones 2010:8). One of the most authoritative voices against the Authorized Version was Hugh Broughton’s (1549-1612), an eminent English Hebrew scholar that had not been called to form part of the committee of translators responsible for the new version – most likely due to his well-known (and much feared) irascible character. After a quick overview of previous translations of the Bible into English and of the origins and early history of the KJB, the pages that follow will give an account of Broughton’s criticism of the new official version of the Bible as explained in his eight page-long pamphlet A Censure of the late translation for our Churches: sent vnto a Right Worshipfull knight, Attendant vpon the King (1611). The usual accounts of the history of the translations of the Bible into English typically begin with that of the Oxford professor John Wyclif, who between 1382 and 1384, and along with a cadre of Bible teachers under his direction, rendered into English (and into manuscript form) the Latin Vulgate. Thus, it is too frequently overlooked that before Wyclif there already existed Anglo-Saxon versions of the Gospels and of the Psalters. 1 The first printed English translation of the Bible appeared in 1526 and was the work of William Tyndale, who, following Martin Luther’s German translation of the New Testament in 1522, decided to render the New Testament into English from the Greek text, taking Luther’s German version and the Vulgate in Latin as guides for his own translation. Tyndale’s enterprise to render the Old Testament into English was interrupted shortly after he finished the Pentateuch, as he was then caught, accused of heresy, and burned at the stake in 1536. Both Tyndale’s New Testament and Pentateuch were banned by King Henry VIII and therefore only printed in the continent. Shortly after Tyndale’s death, King Henry VIII broke with Rome, and then, the idea of having a translation of the Bible in the vernacular seemed no longer abhorrent. In this situation, the English churchman Miles Coverdale created his own edition by blending his own work with the Vulgate, Luther’s German version, and of course, Tyndale’s work, and as he did not know Hebrew or Greek, he heavily relied upon all these sources. Coverdale’s Bible, entitled Biblia: The Bible, that is, the holy Scripture of the Olde and New Testament, faithfully and truly translated out of the Douche and Latyn into English, was printed in 1535 at Zurich and contained fewer notes. In England, it was allowed to be printed and sold, although it did not become the official Bible for use in English churches. Coverdale’s work was followed in 1537 by another version of the Bible signed by a Thomas Matthew, in reality the pseudonym of the associate of Tyndale John Rogers. Tyndale in fact had continued translating the Bible while in prison, and managed to give the manuscript to Rogers before dying. Rogers, probably making use of Coverdale’s version, completed what remained to be
1. For more on pre-Wycliffite versions of the Bible, see Pope 1952:3-88.
HUGH BROUGHTON’S CENSURE OF THE KJB 49 translated of the Old Testament, and, to be on the safe side, published it under a false name. Archbishop Cranmer, deeming it a better translation than Coverdale’s, allowed Matthew’s Bible to circulate in England. Two years later, in 1539, there appeared a version that came to be known as “Cranmer’s Bible” or the “Great Bible”, due to its large size. In a second edition of the same published in 1540, a preface by Cranmer was included and at the foot of the title page it was declared that the Bible was appointed to the use of the churches, which makes it the first English Bible officially approved. The reason behind this new version was simply that Coverdale’s Bible had not been translated from the Greek and Hebrew, and so, a revision seemed pertinent. Coverdale then revised the Old Testament taking Matthew’s 1537 version (that is, Tyndale’s) as one of its major guides. In 1539 Richard Taverner published his own version, which was essentially a revision of Matthew’s Bible (1537). The year 1560 saw the publication of the so-called Geneva Bible, an undertaking by English Puritans that had fled to Geneva on the accession to the throne of Mary Tudor, who died a year before its printing. In Geneva, these exiles became tremendously influenced by Calvinism. With deep knowledge of Hebrew and Greek, they strove for accurateness and provided many explanatory notes. The Geneva Bible soon became the most popular version, partly due to factors such as its handy size and its clearer type, which contrasted with the large size of the Great Bible and its painful-for-the-eye black letter. Because of the Calvinist overtones of the Geneva Bible, it seemed appropriate to commend a new version of the Bible in the vernacular; hence, the printing in 1568 of the Bishops’ Bible. Leading this major enterprise was Matthew Parker, Elizabeth I’s Archbishop of Canterbury, who in 1561 had circulated a proposal for a new version among the bishops. Although the Bishops’ Bible was appointed as the version to be read in church services in England, it did not manage to eclipse the widespread use of the Geneva Bible in religious instruction and private reading. The 1602 edition of the Bishops’ Bible (the last edition to appear) became the real basis for the KJB, which eventually superseded the former. Between the publication of the Bishops’ Bible and the KJB, the complete Catholic version of the Bible in English was published in the Continent: the New Testament was translated and published at Rheims in 1582, and the Old Testament, – and also translated at Rheims and even before the New Testament – was published in 1609-1610 at Douay. Due to the generalized thought that the Geneva Bible was more accurate than the Bishops’ Bible, which was the version authorized in church services, King James I was asked to commission a new official version, the KJB, eventually published in 1611. Miles Smith, author of the preface to the KJB, discusses in the following terms the reasons behind the new translation enterprise:
And what can the King command to be done, that will bring him more true honour than this? And wherein could they that have been set a work approve their duty to the King, yea, their obedience to God, and love to his Saints, more, than by yielding their service, and all that is within them, for the furnishing of the work? But besides all this, they were the principal motives of it, and therefore ought least
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to quarrel it. For the very historical truth is, that upon the importunate petitions of the Puritanes at his Majesty’s coming to this crown, the conference at Hampton- court having been appointed for hearing their complaints, when by force of reason they were put from all other grounds, they had recourse at the last to this shift, that they could not with good conscience subscribe to the communion book, since it maintained the Bible as it was there translated, which was, as they said, a most corrupted translation. And although this was judged to be but a very poor and empty shift, yet even hereupon did his Majesty begin to bethink himself of the good that might ensue by a new translation, and presently after gave order for this translation which is now presented unto thee. Thus much to satisfy our scrupulous brethren. (Smith 1998:lxii) 2
In other words, Miles Smith points out as the main two reasons for commissioning a new translation of the Bible a public demonstration of King James’s virtuous religious zeal, as well as “petitions of the Puritanes” wishing a new authorized version that replaced the previous and “most corrupted” one. Indeed, this new Protestant version of the Bible was the result of a tangle of both religious and political factors, as Miles Smith evinces at the beginning of the preface when stating the following:
It doth certainly belong unto kings, yea, it doth specially belong unto them, to have care of religion, yea, to know it aright, yea, to profess it zealously, yea, to promote it to the uttermost of the power. This is their glory before all nations which mean well, and this will bring unto them a far most excellent weight of glory in the day of the Lord Jesus. (Smith 1998:lv)
The project to produce the new Authorized Version of the Bible was undertaken by a team of revisers organized in three clusters, each of which was then subdivided into two companies: there was one group at Westminster (supervised by Lancelot Andrewes and Barlow, subsequent bishop of Lincoln), one at Oxford (led by Dr. Liveley and Dr. Bois), and a final one at Cambridge (headed by Harding and Miles Smith, author of the Preface). The group at Westminster was assigned from the Genesis to II Kings, plus from Romans to Jude; the one at Cambridge, from I Chronicles to Ecclesiastes, plus the Apocrypha; 3 and the one at Oxford, from Isaiah to Malachi, and, additionally, the Gospels, Acts, and Apocalypse. In total, around fifty translators got involved in the project, all of them under the ultimate supervision of Lancelot Andrewes, Dean of Westminster and chaplain to the Chapel Royal. The idea behind this distribution was that every company sent their work to the other two to debate
2. The Hampton Court conference mentioned in the text was held on 14, 16, 18 January 1604, and the puritan Rainolds, Broughton’s old adversary, participated in it proposing that a new English translation of the Bible should be made. 3. As G. Campbell explains, “After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Bibles used for reading in churches contained the Apocrypha, as did some Bibles produced for private study, but in the nineteenth century the decision of the British and Foreign Bible Society to exclude the Apocrypha from their Bibles dealt a mortal blow to their inclusion, and thereafter the Apocrypha disappeared from Bibles on sale to the general public” (Campbell 2010:46).
HUGH BROUGHTON’S CENSURE OF THE KJB 51 over the most controversial points and, finally, reach a consensus on the translation that each of them put forward. In other words, the new Bible was to be a carefully designed collective piece. The work of the committees began around 1607 and in 1611 the KJB was in print, in black letter and measuring 16 inches by 10 inches, which made it larger than the Great Bible. Another peculiarity of the KJB version is that, unlike Tyndale’s contemporary vernacular translations, “the language of the new translation was often deliberately archaic and Latinized”, and as a result of “its careful distancing from the immediate present it was less liable to go quickly out of date” (Carroll and Prickett 1998:xxviii). Supposedly, James I himself drew fourteen rules for the revisers that essentially indicate a willingness to follow closely the Bishops’ Bible altering it as little as possible, thus sticking to tradition (in terms of proper names and chapter divisions, for example), and inserting no notes unless it was strictly necessary to explain problematic Hebrew or Greek terms. What is more, it was made explicit that Tyndale’s, Matthew’s, Coverdale’s and the Geneva Bible could be used whenever they offered better renderings than the Bishops’ Bible. Nonetheless, the popularity of the Geneva Bible remained very high although the KJB was the one read in churches, and indeed the Geneva Bible continued being printed and imported (chiefly from Amsterdam) until 1644. 4 Given all this, David Norton demystifies in the quotation below the idea that the KJB had an immediately successful and revered reception matching the general admiration that it enjoys in our days:
The truth is probably this: for all the significance 1611 now has in the history of the English Bible, the publication of the KJB was not an event. Publication then was not the kind of occasion it is usually made into now. Moreover, there was no mechanism for the critical reception of new work. […] But there are more particular reasons why the publication of the KJB, if an event at all, was not much of one. First, the KJB was left to make its way in competition with existing Bibles, especially the Geneva, which continued to be highly popular. Second, and perhaps more important, most people were not concerned with the precise verbal form of their Bible: one translation was as good as another. This, of course, presents a paradox: it appears to go against the abundance of evidence that the KJB translators were pressured to be, and indeed tried to be, as literally accurate as reasonably possible. […] Lastly, the KJB did not appear initially in a popular
4. As H. Hannibal and N.W. Jones explain: “Although the monopoly [the royal monopoly to print the English Bible] broke down along with the monarchy itself in the 1640s, English (mainly London) printers continued to prefer the KJB to the Geneva, perhaps because so many editions of the Geneva continued to be printed across the channel. Although one might think that the Puritan Commonwealth would have been committed to the Bible most associated with English Puritans (the Geneva), even Oliver Cromwell now favored the KJB (…). Even before the end of the Commonwealth, no one was printing anything but the KJB, and its domination of the English Bible market was assured for the next 250 years” (Hamlin and Jones 2010:8). Finally, S. L. Greenslade remarks that, “Strictly speaking, the Authorized Version was never authorized, nor were parish churches ordered to procure it. It replaced the Bishops’ Bible in public use because after 1611 no other folio Bible was printed” (Greenslade 1963:168).
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form but as a large and expensive folio. This too muted the impact of its publication. A consequence of this lack of reception for the KJB is that the year 1611 is hardly a truer historical dividing-point than, say, the turn of a century. The same Bibles continued to be read. The Roman Catholic Bible and attitude to Bible translation continued to be a matter of controversy. The Psalms and other poetic parts of the original Scriptures continued to rise in reputation, and they continued to be translated. Nobody was interested in the merits of the new Bible as a piece of English writing. (Norton 1993:160)
The same year the KJB was published, one of the most prominent Hebrew scholars of his time, Hugh Broughton (1549-1612), complained of the mistakes of the translation in a pungent eight-page pamphlet entitled A Censure of the late translation for our Churches: sent vnto a Right Worshipfull knight, Attendant vpon the King. Broughton had been for some time a Cambridge fellow in Christ’s College and, from 1589 onwards, spent many years of his life abroad, mainly in Germany and the Netherlands. Broughton did not figure in the long list of revisers of the KJB despite the fact that, years before, in An Epistle to the Learned Nobilitie of England, Touching Translating the Bible (1597) and in An Advertisement of Corruption in our Handling of Religion to a Member of the Royal Court (1604), he had argued in favour of a new version of the Bible in English due to the mistakes of the previous renderings. 5 What is more, Broughton himself had translated into English some Old Testament books: Daniel (1596) into Latin and English (1596), and Ecclesiastes (1605), Lamentations (1606), and the Book of Job (1610) into English. In addition to this, Broughton (unsuccessfully) wrote to King James I in 1609 asking him to fund his project of translating into Hebrew the New Testament with the final objective of converting the Jews to Christianity. In 1611 Broughton was sent a copy of the new Bible to Middelburg, where he was residing at the time. Broughton was stricken by the translation of the Authorized Version, and wrote a review to it where he proved categorical; the opening of his critical pamphlet in fact asserts the following:
The late Bible, Right Worshipful, was sent me to cēsure: which bred in me a sadnes that will greeve me while I breath. It is so ill done. Tell his Maiest. that I had rather be rent in pieces with wilde horses, then any such translation by my consent should bee vrged vpon poore Churches. (Broughton 1611:A1r) 6
Immediately afterwards, Broughton begins enumerating and briefly discussing ten different mistakes he has identified in the new version. He takes them as a sample of the many more that ought to be corrected. The selected errors are not of a linguistic or stylistic nature, but rather have to do with the
5. Campbell (2010:278-295) lists all the known translators of the 1611 Bible and accompanies names with brief biographical sketches. 6. The pamphlet is unnumbered; however, for convenience’s sake, I take the first page as A1r and ‘number’ the rest as A2v-r, A3v-r, A4v-r, and A5v.
HUGH BROUGHTON’S CENSURE OF THE KJB 53 accuracy of the translation and faults in chronology. For instance, error three is explained as follows:
It denyeth David ever to have bene in the worlde, and so by a consequent Christ him selfe, Act. chap.13. vers.20. where they say: God gave them Iudges about the space of foure hundred & fiftie yeares. It is but foure hundred and foure score yeares from the Lambe to the Temple. Now David was not borne before Elies death, but ten yeares after. About 30. of the fourty yeres in the Wildernes, with about foure hundred and fiftie yeares, will make foure hundred and foure score yeres. So by our Bishops all the holie storie should bee a lye. (Broughton 1611:A2r)
Similarly, error four, also of a chronological nature, is explained in the following manner:
I warned how Baasa K. of Israell was a warrier against Asa, being ten yeres dead: and Ochozias was made two yeares elder then his Father, and twentie yeares elder then him selfe. (…) The K. can iudge” (Broughton 1611:A3v).
Error five is of a different nature, though. Consider, in this respect, the following extract:
Abraham bought no sepulcher in Sichem. And the sepulcher there was bought for sheep. Thrise the terme Keshita is vsed, and still in the Chaldie and Greeke for sheepe. The margent note for sheepe burneth the hart of the Translatours: who bade them put the errour in the text, and right in the margent? (Broughton 1611:A3r)
To these errors Broughton is, without exception, merciless. Regarding one of them he affirms that “This stubburne errour deserved all punishment” (Broughton 1611:A1r), and, on a different occasion, Broughton states: “The New edition crosseth me, I require it be burnt” (Broughton 1611:A2r). In contrast with the fallibility of the KJB’s translators, Broughton praises his own knowledge, expertise and translation abilities:
And two and twentie yeares agoe admired by French in London, and by them to Zurick, how by Iewes I cleared the text: and by my enemies in London, as my friends wrote vpon the advertisement, to super-admirable report: that none before me did, nor would after match my heed. (Broughton 1611:A2r)
Shortly after this statement, Broughton again repeats his wisdom: “I will suffer no scholer in the world to crosse me in Ebrew and Greek, when I am sure I have the trueth” (Broughton 1611:A4v). The fact that the KJB team of translators did not contact him must have felt insulting for Broughton; and in a way he must have taken it as an official underestimation of his knowledge and skills. Broughton’s rage as a result of what he felt was a clear personal attack combines with his feeling that a bad translation of the Bible associated to the King’s name
54 ROCÍO G. SUMILLERA left the monarchy in an almost ridiculous position. In other words, a flawed rendering of the Scriptures would not only imply disrespect to God, but also to the King himself: “And what a prank is this: That translaters sould so mocke with the King” (Broughton 1611:A2r). The fact that a group of supposed scholars working for the king not only disregard his worth as a Hebraist, but also dare submit a faulty translation of the Scriptures that becomes a nation’s official version makes Broughton interpret it as a cheeky insult to God, the King, and himself. The idea that God, King James I, and himself had been laughed at by a group of scholars that for Broughton were halfwits easily explains that a choleric man like him demanded the KJB to be immediately burned and replaced by a decent translation. Broughton closes his pamphlet with a somewhat reconciling epilogue that, after all, recognizes a positive quality of the KJB: the preservation of the general features of past translations to avoid confusion among readers:
I blame not this that they keepe the vsual style of former translations in the Church: that the people should not be emazed. For the learned the Geneva might be made exact: for which paynes whole 30 yeres I haue bene called vpon, and spent much time to my great losse by wicked hinderance. When you find the K. at leasure shew his M. this short advertisement. And if his Highnes bid me again as once by the Earle of Pembroke, the faultie places I will in a few sheetes translate what I blame most: that they may be sent to all Churches, that haue bought Bibles. So all may be well pacified. (Broughton 1611:A5v)
In this manner, Broughton shows his willingness to be of some use to the King and improve the errors of the translation for the benefit of readers across the country. Nevertheless, Broughton probably would not have been able to maintain his promise even if he had been asked by the King himself to amend the mistakes, for in November 1611, Broughton was already very ill and embarked for England knowing his end was near; he died in August 1612. In the end, as D. Norton states, “Much of Broughton’s work was ignored” (Norton 1993:143). 7 One of the reasons why, despite his erudition, Broughton was not called for the project could have very well been his strong and highly irritable character, and the confrontations he had had with some of the coordinators of the teams of translators. For instance, he had argued with John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, upon biblical matters, and also with Thomas Bilson, bishop of Winchester, and Richard Bancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury; additionally, John Reynolds, president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and Edward Lively, regius professor of Hebrew at Cambridge, attacked Broughton’s first book A Concent of Scripture (1588) upon the matter of biblical chronology. His disputes with Lively continued throughout the years, and, unfortunately enough, Lively was appointed one of the three men in charge of finding appropriate translators for what would later become the KJB.
7. D. Norton in fact dedicates some pages to Hugh Broughton’s ideas on translation and literary matters additionally drawing from other titles by him. See Norton’s “The excluded scholar: Hugh Broughton” (Norton 1993:139-144). For more on Hugh Broughton’s life, see his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
HUGH BROUGHTON’S CENSURE OF THE KJB 55
John Lightfoot (1602-1675), a man of extensive learning particularly devoted to Rabbinic and Talmudic literature, 8 collected Broughton’s works and published them under the title of The vvorks of the great Albionean divine, renown’d in many nations for rare skill in Salems & Athens tongues, and familiar acquaintance with all rabbinical learning (1662). In a biographical note about Broughton that Lightfoot prefaces to this collection, he discusses Broughton’s indignation towards his exclusion from the KJB project, and devotes some words to Broughton’s strong character, as the ultimate cause of his marginalization:
He was of an indefatigable Studiousness, which swayed his temper a little towards austerity. And yet among his Friends he was of a very sweet, affable, and loving Carriage. Sharp, and severe, and exceeding bold against Errour, and Impiety, and would reprove it, whatsoever it cost him. He was once travailing here in England, and being in his Inn, a Royster, in the next room to him, was swearing most horridly, and at no measure; in goeth he boldly to him, and, Who art thou, saith he, thou wretch, that darest thus to profane the glorious Name of the great God? and some other like words, which he set on with so great an aw, and boldness, that the Roarer became calm, and took his castigation, especially, when he understood who he was, in very good part. He was free, and communicative to any, that desired to learn of him; but would withal be very angry with Scholars, if they did not readily understand him in his discourse, as thinking it a shame to them to be ignorant of such things. Among his Friends he would be very pleasant, especially at his Meals. (Lightfoot 1662:C2v)
Of course, Broughton was not the only outstanding scholar excluded from the KJB teams of translators, or the only objector to the new official translation of the Bible into English. For example, neither was the well-known Hebraist and Cambridge scholar Andrew Willett (1562-1621), Doctor of Divinity and Prebend and Rector of Ely, taken into account for the KJB translation. It seems that the fact that Willett worked for a time as tutor to Henry Prince of Wales and had preached on several occasions before King James court made no difference in this respect. Neither the publication of his Emblematum Sacrorum Centuria (1592), the first religious emblem book in England, nor of Hexapla, or Six-fold Commentary upon Genesis (1605), which insisted that the original and only language of humankind was Hebrew, were enough to convince the KJB translators-recruiters to count him in. Also, Ambrose Ussher (1582-1629), the young brother of James Ussher, Bishop of Armagh and specialist in biblical chronology, translated by himself most of the Bible; unluckily enough, the KJB got published when his own work was very advanced. As a result, it was not taken into consideration at all, and the fact that his work remains in Trinity College Dublin in the form of a manuscript has made scholars think that it was never even sent to the King (Norton
8. For more on Lightfoot, see Edwards (1837).
56 ROCÍO G. SUMILLERA
1993:215). 9 In his preface, Ussher indeed made some remarks on the KJB accusing it of being a hasty undertaking. Then, in 1645, the Hebraist John Lightfoot called for a revision of the KJB in a sermon in the House of Commons, explaining that there were some occasional flaws related to accuracy. Effectively, in 1657 the Parliament approved of a subcommittee that reported points to revise in the KJB, although the meetings eventually came to nothing and the revising project was not undertaken. Two years later, Robert Gell (1595- 1665) wrote his long Essay toward the Amendment of the Last English Translation of the Bible (1659), where he also argued that the KJB should be improved: “though I think our last Translation good, […] yet I doubt not but Ours may be made much better then it is” (Gell 1659:D1v). However, it would not be until 1885 that the English Revised Version, the first major revision of the KJB, appeared.
REFERENCES
Broughton, H. 1611, A censure of the late translation for our churches: sent vnto a right worshipfull knight, attendant vpon the king. Middleburg: R. Schilders. Campbell, G. 2010, Bible: the story of the King James version 1611-2011. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carroll R. and S. Prickett 1998, “Introduction”, in The Bible: authorized King James version. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, xi-xlvi. Edwards, B.B. 1837, Biblical repository and classical review. American biblical repository. Vol. 9, nº 25. New York: Gould and Newman, publishers; Boston: Perkins and Marvin and Crocker. Gell, R. 1659, An essay toward the amendment of the last English-translation of the Bible, or, A proof, by many instances, that the last translation of the Bible into English may be improved: the first part on the Pentateuch, or five books of Moses. London: Printed by R. Norton for Andrew Crook. Greenslade, S. L. 1963, “English versions of the Bible, 1525-1611”, in S.L. Greenslade (ed.). The Cambridge History of the Bible: The West from the Reformation to the Present Day. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 141-174. Hamlin, H. and N.W. Jones 2010, The King James Bible after four hundred years: literary, linguistic, and cultural influences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lightfoot, J. (ed.) 1662, The vvorks of the great Albionean divine, renown’d in many nations for rare skill in Salems & Athens tongues, and familiar acquaintance with all rabbinical learning, Mr. Hugh Broughton: collected
9. G. Campbell discusses some of the interesting features of Ussher’s translation: “its language does provide a revealing contrast to the KJV: he uses contemporary personal pronouns (‘you’ instead of ‘ye’) and has a distinct preference for Anglo-Saxon words rather than Latin ones, so he uses ‘lust’ rather than ‘concupiscence’; on the other hand, he tries to follow Hebrew word order in the Old Testament, and so his prose is sometimes clunky” (Campbell 2010:124).
HUGH BROUGHTON’S CENSURE OF THE KJB 57
into one volume and digested into four tomes. London: Printed for Nath[aniel] Ekins. Norton, D. 1993, A history of the Bible as literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pope, H. 1952, English versions of the Bible. Revised and amplified by S. Bullough. St. Louis and London: B. Herder Book Co. Smith, M. 1998, “The translators to the reader”, in The Bible: authorized King James version. Introduction and notes by R. Carroll and S. Prickett. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, liii-lxxii.
II
NARRATIVA CONTEMPORÁNEA
ANN RADCLIFFE: UN BEST SELLER DEL S. XVIII
MARY GLEESON Universidad de Granada
La novela llamada “gótica” gozó de gran popularidad en la Inglaterra del S. XVIII. En este trabajo se examinan los métodos empleados por una de las exponentes más celebradas de este género, Ann Radcliffe, para descubrir cómo supo mantener el interés de los lectores y llenar de terror, miedo y expectación el ambiente, sin tener que apoyarse en lo sobrenatural como hicieron sus coetáneos Walpole o Lewis.
“Present ills are less than horrible imaginings”. Esta frase mal citada, tomada de Macbeth y que encabeza el capítulo VII de The Romance of the Forest, publicada en 1791, podría ser el lema de los novelistas que hicieron estremecer de aprensión y horror a los lectores y lectoras ingleses de la segunda mitad del S. XVIII. Uno de los fenómenos de la literatura inglesa de la época fue la eclosión de la novela llamada “gótica”. Es un género que tiene nombre y fecha, ya que fue inaugurado por Horace Walpole en 1764, con su novela The Castle of Otranto. Pocas veces un tomo tan delgado tendrá una resonancia tan grande. Con apenas cien páginas, el éxito del libro desató una sucesión sin fin de historias muy parecidas donde se reunieron los típicos ingredientes del género, desde los consabidos castillos y calabozos hasta las apariciones, cadenas, esqueletos y, cómo no, doncellas en peligro. Parte del éxito de esta clase de literatura estriba en el hecho de que tiene lugar en países por entonces lejanos. Desde la Reforma hasta el S. XVIII Inglaterra había vivido de espaldas a los países del sur de Europa, y su imaginación se había cebado en historias de la Inquisición y en macabros hechos acaecidos en lúgubres conventos. Por ende, estos lugares se les antojaban impregnados de un aire de misterio y horror. Es también el momento en que se introduce la ópera italiana en Inglaterra, denunciada por algunos como una trampa para introducir la liturgia romana en un país protestante. Pero al mismo tiempo, estos países ofrecían un cierto atractivo, por su misma lejanía y por sus degeneradas costumbres “romanas”, por ser lugares donde se podía escapar de las trabas sofocantes de la moralidad inglesa de la época. Y, al ubicar sus obras en estos países, los autores podían sentirse hasta cierto punto liberados 62 MARY GLEESON de la obligación de conformarse al buen gusto de los clásicos de la época anterior. Un ejemplo es la “chocante” novela de Beckford, Vathek (1786) que se desarrolla en el Medio Oriente, entremezclando la descripción de costumbres decadentes con horrores sobrenaturales, incluido el culto a los demonios y el sacrificio de niños. El auge del discurso femenino del S. XVIII quedó en gran parte plasmado en los diversos tipos de literatura “frívola”, aunque, como siempre, hubo honrosas excepciones. Es un tópico decir que los mejores exponentes de la novela gótica fueron mujeres. Hasta los críticos más acérrimos aceptaban el hecho de que, en el campo de la literatura de la imaginación, existían escritoras que nada tenían que envidiar a sus congéneres masculinos. En la obra de Maria Edgeworth, Letters for Literary Ladies, publicada en 1798, se afirma: “in the art of imposing upon the understanding by means of the imagination, [the ladies] have excelled”, aunque, acto seguido se sentencia: “but to useful literature they have scarcely turned their thoughts” (1993:3). Sin embargo, otros fueron menos complacientes hacia la avalancha de novelistas femeninas de esta época, como demuestran los versos citados por Napier:
Ye female scribes who write without a blot Mysterious warnings of – the Lord knows what, O quit this trade, exert your proper skill. Resume the needle, and lay down the quill. (1987:vii)
El enriquecimiento de la burguesía inglesa impulsado por la revolución industrial había creado una capa social mejor instruida y con mucho tiempo libre. He aquí el origen del aumento de un público ávido de entretenimiento en la forma de historias sentimentales donde la falta de autenticidad histórica fue ampliamente compensada por el don del autor en evocar circunstancias tremebundas. La despreciada maestría de las mujeres en “sus labores” les sirvió también para la literatura. Es precisamente en este tejer y entrelazar para formar tramados complejos – knitting together – donde brillan las mujeres. Huelga señalar el gran éxito aun de la mujer en el género de misterios – hoy en día policíacos – con nombres tan conocidos como Agatha Christie o Patricia Highsmith y que son tan populares como lo fueron las autoras “góticas” en su día. Una de las novelistas más competentes y apreciadas tanto por la crítica como por sus contemporáneos fue Ann Radcliffe. Si bien es verdad que construyó su obra sobre los cimientos del Otranto de Walpole, no es menos cierto que aportó al género ciertos valores y técnicas que la distinguen. Interesa saber hasta qué punto fue innovadora, es decir, si existen aspectos de su discurso literario que la diferencian de sus colegas masculinos: por ejemplo, el uso de un tono más moralizante, o una mayor sensibilidad hacia la condición femenina, o bien un retrato más realista de la mujer como protagonista. También examinaremos el uso del terror imaginario en la metodología empleada por Ann Radcliffe para mantener el interés de sus lectoras y llenar el ambiente de miedo y expectación tan importante en el desarrollo de este tipo de novelas. Es un aspecto a desarrollar no carente de interés, porque las técnicas
ANN RADCLIFFE: UN BEST SELLER DEL S. XVIII 63 empleadas por ella fueron imitadas por otros exponentes del género; y escritores de la importancia de un Coleridge o un Scott no dudaron en alabar la maestría con que ella supo despertar en su público los sentimientos de miedo y terror. Un aspecto destacable de la obra radcliffiana, y que la diferenció de las novelas más o menos terroríficas que la precedieron, es que dotó la novela gótica con una seriedad, o mejor dicho, un fondo ético del que antes había carecido. El S. XVIII, la época de Rousseau, fue una era moralizante en lo concerniente a la protección a los jóvenes (Dwyer 1987). Radcliffe, con lo que hoy en día sería tachado de “moralina pequeñoburguesa”, supo unir sus altos criterios morales con historias trepidantes para producir unos relatos que satisfacían a sus lectores masculinos, pero que al mismo tiempo se podían considerar, por su tratamiento de cuestiones morales, perfectamente adecuados para la delicada sensibilidad de un público femenino. Radcliffe supo guardar el equilibrio entre satisfacer y fascinar a su público, manteniendo el tono de las novelas dentro de los límites edificantes que ella se había propuesto. Pudo conseguir esto porque creía implícitamente en la victoria moral de lo bueno sobre lo malo en cuanto a la naturaleza humana se refiere. En sus novelas, Radcliffe demuestra que la voluntad humana debe poner límites a sus pasiones, porque, si no, la capacidad del hombre para el mal se vuelve incontenible. Al contrario del autor de The Monk, ella confía en que el poder del bien puede con el mal: en sus historias los inocentes siempre vencen y los malos son siempre castigados. Al final de A Sicilian Romance (1790), nuestra autora declara:
those who do only THAT WHICH IS RIGHT, endure nothing in misfortune but a trial of their virtue, and from trials well endured derive the surest claim to the protection of heaven. (1993:199)
Esta filosofía condiciona tanto la temática como el tratamiento de su obra, y tan importante debe de ser para nuestra autora que repite este sentimiento en The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794):
though the vicious can sometimes pour affliction upon the good, their power is transient and their punishment certain, and that innocence, though oppressed by injustice shall, supported by patience, finally triumph. (1992:672)
Radcliffe también lanza un ataque contra los escritores de obras rivales, menos edificantes. En The Romance of the Forest, el pastor protestante La Luc, condena aquellos autores:
who by shewing only the dark side of human nature, and by dwelling on the evils only which are incident to humanity, have sought to degrade man in his own eyes, and to make him discontented with life. (1991a:269)
Aquí oímos la voz de la autora, que expone el móvil moralizante de su propuesta y su intención de presentar relatos que sean más edificantes de lo que a
64 MARY GLEESON veces la vida depara, y de evitar en lo posible el retrato del lado oscuro de la naturaleza humana. Es una actitud fundada en una piedad religiosa que ya había sido criticada y parodiada por Voltaire en Candide, pero que aún tenía una gran aceptación entre el público inglés. Esta característica contrasta con las escenas grotescas de sus contemporáneos masculinos y hace que, como principio general en sus obras, solo se salven los buenos. Es notable que varias veces en The Romance of the Forest Radcliffe nos recuerda que el malvado Marqué de La Motte es en el fondo una buena persona, pero débil y envilecido por las malas costumbres. De este modo, al final de la novela, Radcliffe le puede salvar de la pena suprema, pero aun así no le perdona del todo y le condena a refugiarse en el exilio. Esta postura de la autora, junto con el ejemplar comportamiento y alto sentido del deber de sus protagonistas, fue una de las razones por las cuales, al contrario de los novelas góticas de Walpole y Lewis que habían arrasado entre cierto público, las novelas que escribió tuviesen tanta aceptación entre un público compuesto tanto de mujeres como de hombres, que supo apreciar y agradecer el tono más elevado de estas obras. Las señoritas de la burguesía no corrían peligro moral ni al leerlas, ni por seguir el ejemplo de sus heroínas. Otro aspecto que distingue a Radcliffe de sus homólogos masculinos es el tratamiento de la mujer. Mientras éstos escribían novelas de capa y espada, en que prima la acción, ella trata con simpatía el dilema femenino. A primera vista, puede parecer que Radcliffe sigue muy de cerca las pautas fijadas por otros escritores en la delineación de sus personajes femeninos literarios. Es verdad que estas heroínas pueden parecer algo lacias y remilgadas a ojos de la mujer emancipada del S. XXI: con frecuencia contribuyen a la ralentización de la narración con su exceso de delicadeza y su repugnancia por herir los sentimientos de las personas que las rodean. Es cierto que en su obra no hay ningún ápice de la actitud crítica y desgarradora ante la condición femenina contemporánea que encontramos en la obra de Mary Wollenstonecraft. Radcliffe acepta la situación de la mujer de su época y los tópicos paternalistas acerca de ésta. Su sumisión al hombre es completa. El respeto que Adeline expresa hacia el que cree ser su padre, a pesar de su cruel tratamiento, lo evidencia. Es el mismo sentimiento filial expresado por la desdichada protagonista de Mary, Maria and Matilda (1991) hacia su padre moribundo, pero no encierra la autocrítica que encontramos en esta obra. De forma similar, Julia en A Sicilian Romance pierde a un padre bueno y cariñoso, pero no falta al respeto a su cruel y caprichosa tía ni al marido maquiavélico de ésta. Las mujeres que aparecen en las novelas de Radcliffe reflejan el espíritu de la época: al igual que Walpole y Monk, ella las pinta como físicamente débiles. Se desmayan con facilidad, y con frecuencia aparecen bañadas de lágrimas. Igual que sus hermanas novelescas, estos desmayos ocurren en situaciones límite, pero parecen hacerlo adrede, para escapar de un mal mayor. Al contrario de lo que pasaría en la vida real, la acción de desmayarse, lejos de dejarlas a la merced del malhechor, aquí frena la narración. Afortunadamente, en las novelas de Radcliffe, la belleza desvanecida suele despertar en el hombre (porque, huelga decir, el malhechor en estos casos suele
ANN RADCLIFFE: UN BEST SELLER DEL S. XVIII 65 ser hombre), sentimientos de protección y piedad, por más insensible que sea. O al menos esto es lo que pretende nuestra autora. En el mundo más realista de un novelista masculino como Lewis, los lloros de Antonia no hacen desistir a Ambrosio en su primera tentativa de seducirla (1990:262) ni la segunda vez cuando logra su propósito (382-384). Pero al mismo tiempo no son bonitas marionetas manipuladas por el autor como lo son una Antonia o una Virginia en The Monk de Matthew Lewis, donde incluso una mujer tan decidida como Agnes, se deja seducir por su amante. Siempre actúan con decoro y son celosas de su buena reputación. Siempre se ha dicho que la mujer aprovecha su belleza para compensar su debilidad física, y Radcliffe brinda a sus heroínas la posibilidad de influir en su destino a través de su indiscutible atractivo físico. Por fortuna, todas son bellísimas, dulces, delicadas e inocentes. Pero si hurgamos un poco encontramos que estas heroínas no son meras víctimas impotentes como lo son las protagonistas en Otranto y The Monk. Toman sus propias decisiones que pueden ser más o menos acertadas, pero que inciden en las circunstancias y en las personas que las rodean. Desarrollan su historia dentro de un marco dominado por los hombres y acatan a aquellos a quienes la sociedad o las circunstancias han dado tutela sobre ellas, pero conservan cierta autonomía. Tanto Adeline en The Romance of the Forest, Julia en A Sicilian Romance y Emily en The Mysteries of Udolpho rechazan el futuro que el mundo les tiene preparado, y se lanzan hacia lo desconocido. Como Belinda, Adeline y Emily niegan casarse con pretendientes que consideran moralmente inadecuados. De hecho, Adeline es tan artífice de su propio destino como de su triunfo final, ya que con su empeño rompe con el destino que el asesino de su padre le tiene preparado. Gracias a su tesón, escapa de los intentos de seducción de éste, descubre su verdadero lugar en el mundo, y encuentra la felicidad casándose con el hombre a quien ama. Lo mismo se puede decir de Julia que finge hacerse monja, para evitar un matrimonio que no desea, y de Emily, que huye del castillo del malvado Montoni. Pero no se oponen a sus enemigos con la fuerza. Las heroínas radcliffianas saben valerse de aquellas armas que están a su alcance como mujeres – disimulo y subterfugio. Se aprecia un fondo de premeditación en sus actos, lo que subraya que no son estereotipos de la mujer pasiva tan típica de la literatura de esa época y sobre todo de las novelas góticas escritas por los hombres. Al contrario, tienen sentimientos propios de las mujeres de su época. No se puede decir de ellas, como Lewis dice del malogrado personaje de Antonia, que “[s]he thought of a Husband with all a Virgin’s terror” (1990:260). Sin embargo, como autora responsable y burguesa, uno de los principales alicientes de la novela terrorífica le estaba vedado: el uso de cierto tipo de voyeurismo, en que la mujer era víctima de torturas y vejaciones. Por otra parte, sus lectores y lectoras podían hojear sus libros con la conciencia tranquila, porque sus valores religiosos anglicanos le impedían el recurso al concepto de lo sobrenatural de su esotérico precursor en el género, Walpole. Gran parte de la importancia de Radcliffe consiste en que supo comunicar en una forma permitida las sensaciones ansiadas por un público deseoso de estremecerse de miedo.
66 MARY GLEESON
La sensibilidad prerromántica de la segunda mitad del S. XVIII se había valido de las descripciones de la naturaleza, ya sea cruel y abrupta o hermosa y rupestre, para reflejar el estado de ánimo de sus protagonistas o pintar como telón de fondo el ambiente que se deseaba presentar a los lectores. Radcliffe utiliza esta técnica precursora del romanticismo en sus novelas, que suelen desarrollarse en lúgubres castillos, conventos siniestros, bosques inhóspitos y montañas amenazadoras, tan típicos de la novela gótica. Con estos medios crea el ambiente necesario para inspirar expectación y miedo en sus lectores. Pero su obra se distingue de la de otros autores en el tratamiento que da a algunos aspectos de los lugares en donde las heroínas están recluidas. El tema de la reclusión en conventos era casi un tópico en esta clase de novelas. Radcliffe mantiene una actitud ambivalente: por un lado, como buena anglicana, ve en ellos tristes prisiones donde languidecían desdichadas doncellas encarceladas por sus familias o enemigos. Por otro, como mujer, veía en ellos lugares protegidos en que las mujeres vivían en una especie de sororidad y, afligidas, podían encontrar cobijo y consuelo entre sus hermanas, al resguardo del mundo exterior. No debemos olvidar la triste situación de la mujer soltera sin medios en Inglaterra, tan cruelmente retratada por Mary Wollenstonecraft, y más tarde por Charlotte Brontë en Jane Eyre. Tanto Julia (A Sicilian Romance), Emily (The Mystery of Udolpho) y Ellena (The Italian) buscan refugio en monasterios o conventos, ya sea para esconderse de sus perseguidores, o para encontrar una tranquilidad difícilmente alcanzable en el mundo seglar. Y lo mismo hace Adeline tras huir con su amado Theodore. Otra de las aportaciones de Radcliffe es la de dotar sus relatos con cierta ambigüedad. En vez de describir fantasmas y monstruos, sugiere acontecimientos que producen angustia en el lector, haciéndoles creer que algo sobrenatural e inexplicable está a punto de ocurrir, para aumentar su aprensión. Las sensaciones exteriores en la oscuridad, de ruidos y de voces fantasmales hacen surgir temores ante lo desconocido: el gemir del viento semejante a sollozos, el crujir de las vigas como pasos, las sombras que pueden o no ser personas o fantasmas y las voces que pueden resultar imaginarias… De hecho Radcliffe pone en práctica esta cita de Macbeth, “Present fears are less than horrible imaginings”, y la autora hace así frecuentes alusiones al poder de la imaginación para provocar miedo y terror. Tal vez también recuerda el verso del poeta, James Thomson (uno de sus autores predilectos) acerca del poder de la noche oscura: “full of pale fancies and Chimera huge” (Adams 1962:2473; verso 1147). Radcliffe utiliza esta técnica para suplir las limitaciones autoimpuestas que sus novelas experimentan en cuanto a la representación del horror y lo terrorífico. Pero, en vez de sobrenaturales, las “apariciones” de fantasmas y seres monstruosos en sus obras no son, como cabría esperar, del otro mundo. De hecho, proporciona una explicación racional para todos los acontecimientos por más inverosímiles que parezcan. Es verdad que estas explicaciones que a menudo aparecen en las últimas páginas, cuando la autora tiene prisa para dar clausura al relato, a menudo pueden parecer rebuscadas y poco convincentes.
ANN RADCLIFFE: UN BEST SELLER DEL S. XVIII 67
Los ruidos nocturnos que parecen de ultratumba resultan ser de búhos, las sombras amenazantes son un efecto de la luz o de la imaginación miedosa, los gemidos y sollozos, el soplar del viento. Es un queja compartida por los críticos literarios de la época, que profesaban cierta sensación de desazón cuando la escritora desvelaba al final de cada novela las claves del misterio que había impulsado la historia: “Curiosity is raised more often than it is gratified, or rather it is raised so high that no adequate gratification can be given it”. Esta es la opinión de un escritor, tal vez Coleridge, recogida en el Critical Review de 1794 (Napier 1987:362). Tal vez este crítico subestime la ávida curiosidad de un público menos exigente. Esta técnica “dudosa” de la autora no le resta un ápice a su popularidad que se mantuvo durante varias décadas. Incluso a mitad del siglo siguiente, Charles Dickens y Thackeray daban por hecho que sus lectores habían leído las novelas de esta autora. Radcliffe también se dio cuenta de que las técnicas empleadas podían producir cierto rechazo. En las citas que emplea y en algunos de los versos intercalados en su prosa, proporciona las razones subyacentes que motivaron el empleo de estas técnicas que luego fueron imitadas por otros escritores del género terrorífico, y más tarde en el género cinematográfico. La existencia de fantasmas y otros fenómenos parecidos era negada por la iglesia anglicana, que consideraba que formaban parte de las creencias supersticiosas y milagros engañosos de la Iglesia “romana”. Es verdad que en un primer momento Radcliffe aventura una tímida justificación de algunas de las manifestaciones y creencias en lo sobrenatural, cuando Madame de Menon, en A Sicilian Romance, pregunta: “Who shall say that anything is impossible to God?... He therefore can make unembodied spirits” (1993:36). Pero por lo general, sigue la práctica de atribuir los fenómenos terroríficos y supuestamente inexplicables a la autosugestión o al estado de ansiedad que experimentan los protagonistas en momentos particularmente difíciles. El miedo o la agitación en la mente de los personajes ejercen un efecto de distanciamiento – la ostraneie de Sklovoski – de manera que los fenómenos más cotidianos están transformados y adquieren aspectos irreconocibles. Con la excepción de los sueños, los efectos que parecen sobrenaturales son fruto de la imaginación de los personajes. La misma Madame de Menon es propensa a estas “visiones”:
Wild and terrific images arose in her imagination. Fancy drew the scene, she deepened the shades; and the terrific aspect of the objects she presented was heightened by the obscurity which involved them. (1993:103)
La heroína, Julia, también es presa de este terror inexistente: “Her heart beat with apprehensions which her reason could not justify” (1993:37). En The Mysteries of Udolpho Emily, encerrada en el lúgubre castillo que evoca en ella “more terrors than her reason could justify” (1992:226) ve en la oscuridad formas humanas, y aunque lucha contra estos “temores imaginarios”, se siente “forlorn and apprehensive of – she scarcely knew what”. Adeline cree oír gemidos y suspiros, ya que “her fancy, which now wandered in the regions of terror, gradually subdued reason” (1991a:134); todos ellos ejemplos de la lucha entre la
68 MARY GLEESON fantasía y la lógica, típica de la técnica de Radcliffe. Vale la pena citar en su totalidad los sentimientos y sensaciones experimentadas por Adeline, ya que resumen el método empleado por Radcliffe para apodarse de la imaginación de sus lectores, sin admitir la existencia de lo sobrenatural:
such a combination of circumstances she believed could only be produced by some supernatural power operating for the retribution of the guilty. These reflections filled her with awe, which the loneliness of the large old chamber in which she sat, and the hour of the night, soon heightened into terror… Her imagination, wrought on by these reflections, again became sensible to every impression, she fared to look round, lest she should again see some dreadful phantom, and she almost fancied she heard voices swell in the storm, which now shook the fabric. (1991a:141)
Sin embargo, no ha ocurrido nada. La narrativa se ha estancado, pero no se puede decir que todo sigue igual. La autora ha producido en los lectores sentimientos de aprensión y miedo y de esta manera, sin indicar un peligro material, consigue comunicar el desasosiego de los personajes. A veces, sin embargo, estos fenómenos resultan ser reales, como si la autora jugara con sus lectores: las voces imaginadas son voces de verdad, y una sombra resulta ser una persona de carne y hueso. Y cuando, acto seguido, Adeline, al creer oír una voz que pronuncia su nombre, se desmaya, es lógico pensar que se trata de otra fancy. Solo al día siguiente se revelará que no ha sido producto de su imaginación, sino la voz del criado que quiere advertirle del peligro que corre. Aquí, la autora mantiene la inseguridad del lector y le impide confiar en que las apariciones y efectos terroríficos sean siempre ficticios. Ha despertado nuestro miedo, y cómo no, nuestra curiosidad, para luego aclarar que se tratan de una serie de hechos completamente racionales. Radcliffe ejerce aquí la estrategia del privilegio de que goza un autor: el de la omnisciencia que le permite “engañar” al lector, silenciando las explicaciones lógicas hasta el último momento para que todo sea compatible con un reacción racional hacia los fenómenos misteriosos. Los desenlaces a menudo agrupan toda una lista de revelaciones, los verdaderos engranajes del relato, que conducen a una clausura precipitada que no siempre convence. Suelen ser muchos datos para asimilar en poco tiempo y sobre todo cuando proceden de la pluma de una autora capaz de mantenernos en vilo durante diez o doce páginas con la descripción de alguna aparición o sonido extraño que luego tiene una explicación totalmente racional. Al lector perspicaz, no le habrá pasado desapercibido el que estos miedos imaginarios, que le hacen sentir expectación y terror a la vez, contienen un delicioso frisson de sexualidad. De hecho, se puede atribuir parte del éxito de la novela gótica a la picardía de insinuar posibilidades que, sin llegar a ser explícitas, subyacen a muchas de las situaciones en que se encuentran las heroínas indefensas. Se acerca a lo que parece ser un momento culminante, sin escapatoria, pero sigue el anticlímax de una realidad y una explicación mucho más banal, como si el autor quisiera hacernos sufrir, demorando el desenlace temido una y otra vez. Esta parece ser la técnica mayormente empleada en la
ANN RADCLIFFE: UN BEST SELLER DEL S. XVIII 69 obra de Radcliffe, ya que un autor como Lewis (muy criticado en su momento, pero muy leído también) en The Monk no tiene remilgos a la hora de dejar patentes las humillaciones sexuales sufridas por las mujeres en su obra, desde los actos de fornicación hasta la violación e incesto, en una forma que sería impensable en Radcliffe. Basta con comparar el tratamiento morboso por Lewis del primer intento de seducción de Antonia por Ambrosio, y de su segunda y exitosa tentativa, con el desenlace de la escena entre Adeline en poder del Marqués de la Motte: en ambos casos el lector se estremece ante la percepción de una posible violación incestuosa que solo se lleva a cabo en The Monk. Las heroínas radcliffianas suelen salvar su honor y su vida segundos antes de que el malhechor de turno pueda conseguir su propósito. De esta manera la autora puede dotar sus novelas con una buena dosis de sexualidad, y al mismo tiempo mantener los relatos dentro de los límites del decoro exigido por las buenas costumbres. Cabe preguntarse quién era más hipócrita en este negocio: ¿la escritora o su público? La actitud de Radcliffe no es nada inocente: los desmayos a que sus heroínas son tan propensas son la maniobra de un ser débil que desea evitar una confrontación, pero también contienen una alta carga de erotismo. La doncella yace a merced del malvado, sin posibilidad de defender su honor, pero al mismo tiempo será inocente de todo lo que le pueda suceder. El desmayarse también tiene la ventaja de que el ser inocente puede ser contemplado de una manera abiertamente sexual, sin compartir la lascividad del hombre que mira (the male gaze). De esta guisa se nos presenta Adeline, cuando es entregada a La Motte:
Her habit of grey camelot was thrown open at the bosom, on which part of her hair had fallen in disorder, while the light veil, hastily thrown on, had in her confusion been suffered to fall back. (1991a:7)
En The Italian, en una escena muy larga e insinuante, el clérigo corrupto Schedoni, al acercarse a una Ellena sumida en el sueño, decide quitar la fina batista que le cubre el pecho, para matarla mejor. Felizmente, la autora desvela que hay un motivo que justifica este momento moralmente peligroso, porque al quitar la ligera tela, Schedoni descubre, no los relucientes “orbs” que Ambrosio revela en The Monk, sino la miniatura que Ellena lleva al cuello, y, horrorizado, comprende que ha estado a punto de apuñalar a su propia hija. También la heroína de A Sicilian Romance se encuentra indefensa ante un desconocido (que afortunadamente resulta ser su pretendiente Hippolitus) de la siguiente manera:
the long auburn tresses which fell in beautiful luxuriance over her bosom, served to veil a part of the glowing beauty which the disorder of her dress would have revealed. (1993:163)
Pero aunque estas descripciones pueden suscitar emociones encontradas en la imaginación de los lectores, estas heroínas nunca son intencionadamente provocativas. Por el contrario, todo es el resultado de un descuido, de las prisas, de la fuerza del viento: o, a menudo, la víctima está inconsciente o dormida y,
70 MARY GLEESON por ende, resulta moralmente intachable. Tan celosas son estas heroínas de su honor que incluso una de las más decididas, Adeline, ante el miedo de arriesgar su buen nombre por confiarse a la protección de su amado (aunque la alternativa es de ser desflorada por el Marqués), vacila tanto que falta poco para que éste logre su propósito… Claro, mientras leían estos párrafos trepidantes las lectoras dieciochescas, experimentaban “the pleasing dread” del que Radcliffe habla en sus novelas. Más tarde, sin embargo, ante la amenaza de una muerte segura, nuestra heroína no duda en huir con su fiel criado Peter, confirmación obvia de la percepción del sirviente como ser asexuado en la literatura contemporánea. A menudo en las novelas de Radcliffe la mera contemplación de la doncella desmayada es suficiente para ablandecer el corazón masculino. Otras, solo les salva la aparición de un deus ex machina: ya sea el descubrimiento de que la víctima le es conocida, la llegada inoportuna de algún sirviente o la irrupción de un pretendiente salvador. Otra característica de sus novelas es cierto trasfondo que podría llamarse, anacrónicamente, freudiano. Cuando la heroína huye del peligro, suele hacerlo a través de galerías o pasillos interminables y oscuros, al final de los cuales por fin vislumbra una tenue luz que retrocede siempre y que ella se esfuerza por alcanzar. O bien, desembocan en una caverna o cripta de donde arrancan escaleras cuyo extremo permanece en la oscuridad, hasta llegar a una habitación iluminada por una apertura o tragaluz. En sus lectores estas descripciones inspiraban una sensación de desasosiego y trepidación, o un recuerdo que no sabían identificar. Hoy en día se puede ver en ellas una clara alusión al trauma del alumbramiento y la angustiada búsqueda de la luz y la vida. Estos sinsabores (las huidas desesperadas, las luces misteriosas y túneles oscuros, los gemidos del viento y sollozos humanos, los ruidos de origen desconocido, los términos “dreary”, “dark”, “melancholy” que se emplean con tanta frecuencia, y las sensaciones experimentadas por los protagonistas de aprensión, miedo y terror) tienen el propósito de desorientar y sembrar de pavor el ánimo del lector. Da igual que al final la luz del día y las aclaraciones de la autora despejen sus temores y le revelen que todo ha sido fruto de su imaginación y de lo que Radcliffe llama “fantasía”. En su mente quedará la sensación incluso agradable de la excitación experimentada. Una sensación tan grata que se le perdona un final algo ingenuo. De este modo, la autora logra su objetivo sin tener que emplear las ocurrencias prodigiosas de Walpole ni las escenas “sensacionalistas” de Lewis, y tampoco los seres sobrenaturales que estos dos autores presentan. Todo ha sido fruto de la insinuación, la alusión, la imaginación y la fantasía. En este breve examen de las claves utilizadas por Radcliffe hemos podido constatar los principales ingredientes que contribuyeron al éxito de sus relatos. Las técnicas de la sugestión para crear ambientes en apariencia terroríficos, la manipulación de los datos para mantener el suspense, unidos al certero tono moralizante de su obra, fueron los indudables artífices de la aclamación de la que gozó en su día. Es verdad que las novelas pecaban de cierta falta de originalidad. De hecho, en cuatro de ellas (A Sicilian Romance, The Romance of the Forest,
ANN RADCLIFFE: UN BEST SELLER DEL S. XVIII 71
The Mysteries of Udolpho y The Italian) tanto el lenguaje como las imágenes y situaciones se repiten una y otra vez. Es como si, después de haber encontrado las teclas que despertaban en su público los sentimientos de miedo y expectación, no se atreviese, o no quisiera, salir de aquellos esquemas que tanto éxito le iban a brindar. O tal vez existe una explicación más sencilla, a saber: las imágenes que emplea para evocar situaciones de terror son las que encontraba más satisfactorias dentro de su propio subconsciente. Sin embargo, no hubiera conquistado su lugar en el canon literario inglés, a pesar de su capacidad de evocar miedos ancestrales, si no hubiera contado con el poder de captar la imaginación de sus lectores. Sea como fuere, es indiscutible que ella, una mujer que nunca viajó a los lugares que describe, y que tuvo una vida muy tranquila y casera, sabe sugerir con una loable parsimonia de recursos, comparados a los autores masculinos, las circunstancias que sostienen el interés del público lector. Supo demostrar, si falta hacía, que, como sugiere la cita de Macbeth, cuando se presentan al ser humano situaciones donde la razón no encuentra explicaciones lógicas, su imaginación se dispara y sufre mucho más ante acontecimientos grotescos que por su naturaleza son claramente ficticios.
REFERENCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS
Adams, M. H. (ed.). 1962, The Norton Anthology of English Literature.5ª ed. Vol.2. New York & London: Norton. Dwyer, J. 1987, Virtuous discourse: sensibility and community in late 18th century Scotland. Edinburgh: Donald. Edgeworth, M. 1993, Letters for Literary Ladies. London: Dent. Lewis, M. 1990, The Monk. Oxford: Oxford University Press Napier, E. 1987, The failure of gothic. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Radcliffe, A. 1993, A Sicilian Romance. E. A. Milbank (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Radcliffe, A. 1991a, The Romance of the Forest. C. Chard (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Radcliffe, A. 1991b, The Italian. F. Garber (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Radcliffe, A. 1992, The Mysteries of Udolpho. B. Dobrée (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Walpole, H. 1998, The Castle of Otranto. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wollenstonecraft, M. and M. Shelley 1991, Mary, Maria and Matilda. J. Todd (ed.). London: Pickering and Chatto.
CORRESPONDENCIAS ENTRE SAMUEL RICHARDSON Y RICHARD B. WRIGHT: LA NOVELA EPISTOLAR ENTONCES Y AHORA
MERCEDES DÍAZ DUEÑAS Universidad de Granada
El presente ensayo estudia ciertos aspectos de la novela epistolar partiendo del clásico de Samuel Richardson Pamela y centrando el análisis en la novela Clara Callan de Richard B. Wright. Son muchos los cambios acaecidos desde la fecha de publicación de Pamela hasta nuestros días, por lo que el contexto sociocultural en el que se escriben, así como el que reflejan ambas obras, son muy distintos. Sin embargo, resulta ilustrativo observar cómo ambos escritores crean universos de ficción femeninos, en los que se plantean cuestiones morales, de clase y género, aunque su tratamiento difiera sustancialmente. También el afán de presentar las historias narradas a través de las cartas que contienen estas obras de ficción como reales ha subsistido a través de los siglos desplegando rasgos estilísticos dignos de análisis.
INTRODUCCIÓN
La profesora Mª Luisa Dañobeitia deleitó a los que tuvimos la suerte y el privilegio de ser sus alumnos no sólo abriéndonos los ojos al teatro isabelino en la licenciatura de Filología Inglesa, sino también ayudándonos a comprender todo lo que encerraba la obra de Samuel Richardson en los cursos de doctorado. La lectura crítica y en profundidad de los clásicos que asumimos durante esta formación académica nos permite afrontar el estudio de las obras de autores contemporáneos con mayor perspectiva y capacidad de análisis. Las páginas que siguen comparan dos obras sobresalientes del género epistolar: partiendo del clásico de Samuel Richardson Pamela analizan la creación de un nuevo universo femenino por parte de Richard B. Wright en su obra Clara Callan, centrando el análisis en cuestiones morales, de clase y género.
74 MERCEDES DÍAZ DUEÑAS
LA NOVELA EPISTOLAR
Pudiera parecer que en la era digital, el género epistolar no tiene ya capacidad para hacer grandes contribuciones a la literatura universal contemporánea pero, según pretende demostrar este ensayo, no es así. La novela epistolar ha sido un género que ha gozado de gran popularidad a lo largo de los siglos. Aunque alcanzó su momento álgido entre finales del siglo XVII y principios del XIX, sigue cosechando éxitos hoy en día. Podemos buscar sus orígenes en autores clásicos, tales como Ovidio o Alcifrón, pero, sin duda, Pamela (1740) de Richardson marcó un hito tanto en la literatura inglesa como universal. Según Ian Watt, Richardson, al igual que Fielding, se veían a sí mismos como creadores de un nuevo género al que, sin embargo, no pusieron nombre (1957:9-10), lo cual no ha sido obstáculo para que Pamela se considere a menudo la primera novela inglesa. Para comprender la importancia del género epistolar no hay más que recordar algunas de las obras de su época dorada: Cartas de una peruana (1747) de Madame de Graffigny, Julia o la Nueva Eloísa (1761) de Rousseau, Werther (1774) de Goethe, Las amistades peligrosas (1782) de de Laclos, Las últimas cartas de Jacopo Ortis (1802) de Foscolo, etc. Posteriormente, incluso autores tan influyentes para el desarrollo de la novela como Jane Austen o Fedor Dostoievski se acercaron en la juventud a este género. Asimismo, el clásico Dracula de Bram Stoker de la tradición vampírica, que tan de moda está en la actualidad, adoptó la forma epistolar. También en lengua española encontramos grandes representantes de este género desde las Cartas desde mi celda de Bécquer, pasando por Pepita Jiménez de Valera hasta las obras de Miguel Delibes – Cartas de amor de un sexagenario voluptuoso – o Carmen Martín Gaite – Nubosidad variable –, entre otros. También conviene no olvidar la gran acogida que tuvo el género epistolar desde primera hora en Canadá, país de origen de Wright. Los comienzos de la literatura canadiense son difíciles de delimitar ya que la definición de literatura canadiense varía según se considere que son canadienses las obras escritas por autores nacidos en Canadá, o que sean publicadas en Canadá, o, finalmente, cuya trama transcurra en dicho país. En cualquier caso, Frances Brooke publicó en 1769 la que se ha considerado la primera novela canadiense, The History of Emily Montague, novela epistolar basada en sus experiencias en la nueva colonia británica de Quebec tras la firma del tratado de París de 1763. Fue esta una novela de gran éxito de ventas durante el siglo XVIII, a lo largo del cual vieron la luz cuatro ediciones londinenses y tres irlandesas (Sellwood 2002:156-157). Brooke había traducido previamente al inglés las Lettres de Milady Juliette Catesby, à Milady Henriette Compley, son amie de Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni. También había publicado en 1763 otra novela epistolar con el título de The History of Lady Julia Manderville. Asimismo, una de las primeras obras de ficción que transcurren en Canadá adoptó esta forma. Se trata de The Stepsure Letters de Thomas McCulloch, que aparecieron por entregas en el Acadian Recorder durante los años 1821 y 1822, y fueron publicadas en un volumen en
SAMUEL RICHARDSON Y RICHARD B. WRIGHT 75
Halifax en 1862 (Mathews 1982). Sin embargo, este volumen difiere de las obras en las que se centra este artículo, puesto que como anota la editora de su versión más reciente, Gwendolyn Davies (1990), forman parte de la tradición humorística que se desarrollará en Canadá con Stephen Leacock y otros autores, puesto que son una sátira de las costumbres de los habitantes de la Nueva Escocia del siglo XIX. Así pues, mientras que Richardson carecía de una tradición en la que basarse, ya en el siglo XXI Richard B. Wright con su obra Clara Callan retoma el género epistolar – que ya había utilizado en su novela Farthing's Fortunes (1976), en la que juega con las convenciones de los géneros literarios cuando presenta las memorias de un viejo canadiense como si hubieran sido grabadas en cinta e incorpora viñetas gráficas – para hacer aportaciones interesantes.
CLARA CALLAN
Clara Callan no es la primera obra de Richard B. Wright, pero sí la que mayor éxito y repercusión ha tenido. 1 A pesar de ser un gran éxito de ventas y de haber recibido un asombroso número de premios literarios, entre los que se cuentan los más prestigiosos de Canadá, 2 no se encuentran muchos artículos académicos dedicados a esta obra. El reconocido crítico literario canadiense W. H. New (2002), en un artículo para la revista Canadian Literature, destacó entre otras virtudes de esta novela la forma que el autor tiene de manejar el género epistolar y su destreza para conjugar las tres voces femeninas centrales. El presente epígrafe tratará estas características, entre otras, más en profundidad. En cuanto a los aspectos formales podemos observar algunas coincidencias y divergencias entre Clara Callan y Pamela. En términos generales difieren estructuralmente, ya que la novela de Wright se divide en cinco capítulos correspondientes a los años 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938 y un epílogo datado en el año 2000, mientras que la de Richardson no presenta tales divisiones. El hecho de situar la trama de forma tan explícita en un momento histórico concreto hace que la obra de Wright aparente tener un afán mucho menor de presentar un modelo de comportamiento universalmente válido. Por otra parte, la figura del narrador que aglutina o comenta las cartas recopiladas en Pamela – como en tantas otras novelas epistolares de las arriba citadas – no aparece en Clara Callan. Richardson se asegura desde la primera página que sus lectores estén convencidos de que lo que van a leer está basado en una historia real, ya que supone que así serviría mejor de ejemplo moral. 3 Tanto
1. Recientemente la página The savvy reader (http://thesavvyreader.ca/2011/top-10-books-to- celebrate-canada/) incluyó esta novela en la cuarta posición de las diez mejores novelas con motivo de la celebración del día de Canadá, diciendo de ella que se ha convertido en un clásico de la literatura canadiense de obligada lectura. 2. The Arts Governor General's Literary Award 2001, The Giller Prize 2001, Trillium Book Award 2001, CBA Libris Awards Book of the Year. 3. En el volumen de 1811 digitalizado por Google el título reza así: “PAMELA; OR VIRTUE REWARDED, IN A SERIES OF FAMILIAR LETTERS FROM A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG
76 MERCEDES DÍAZ DUEÑAS la veracidad como la moralidad de estas obras merecen epígrafes aparte, pero sí corresponde aquí una breve explicación del epílogo de Clara Callan. La veracidad de la historia de Clara Callan se constata al final de la novela, en un epílogo firmado por Elizabeth A. Callan, hija de la protagonista, a fecha del año 2000 en British Columbia, lo cual supone una variación muy original respecto al recurso estilístico tradicional de comenzar la obra con un escrito del supuesto editor o compilador de las cartas que se ofrecen en el volumen. Respecto a las similitudes, podemos observar que tanto en Pamela como en Clara Callan se intercalan cartas y anotaciones de diario. No obstante, en la obra de Wright la alternancia entre el diario y la correspondencia de la protagonista con diversos personajes sirve tanto para aportar un punto de vista narrativo múltiple y generar una polifonía de voces, como para permitir que la novela avance a un ritmo mucho más vivo y variado que otras novelas epistolares clásicas, tales como la de Richardson. Mientras que Wright hace que el lector progrese en la novela sin demora, Richardson a menudo recapitula lo anteriormente ocurrido, 4 o introduce aclaraciones 5 por parte de un narrador ajeno a la trama, que el lector contemporáneo encuentra algo innecesarias. Ambos escritores, en ocasiones, rompen la secuencia de carta escrita y a continuación respuesta recibida por la protagonista. En el caso de Pamela ocurre desde el principio, cuando el señor intercepta las cartas que Pamela escribe a sus padres y, por lo tanto, no hay respuesta de estos. También Wright crea suspense poniendo a continuación dos cartas que recibe Clara, cuando el lector en realidad ansía saber la contestación que Clara dará a la primera misiva recibida (Wright 2001:353-356). Por otra parte, los escritos de Pamela a menudo resultan excesivamente laudatorios de su persona, ya que se recrea en todos los detalles de lo acaecido cada día que puedan presentarla a ella del modo más favorable. Pamela se acuerda y escribe todo lo dicho por los demás personajes y Richardson incluso justifica esta sorprendente memoria cuando Pamela refleja en sus páginas de diario lo que su futuro marido le dice acerca de lo que ella había escrito anteriormente:
But, said he, I must observe, as I have a hundred times with admiration, what a prodigious memory, and easy and happy manner of narration this excellent girl has! (Richardson 1958:316)
En contraposición, Clara refleja solo breves fragmentos de conversaciones y su diario facilita que el lector conozca poco a poco a la protagonista de la novela en profundidad, a través de los momentos clave de su vida, ya que en él se
DAMSEL TO HER PARENTES. A NARRATIVE Which has its Foundation in Truth; and at the same time that it agreeably entertains, by a variety of curious and affecting Incidents, is divested of those images which, in too many pieces calculated for amusement only, tend to inflame the minds they should instruct.”
SAMUEL RICHARDSON Y RICHARD B. WRIGHT 77 mezclan sucesos actuales con los recuerdos de la infancia. Además, Clara en su diario recoge artículos de periódico recortados por sus padres que encuentra en la biblia familiar, correspondientes a la boda de sus padres, los nacimientos y defunciones en la familia. Si nos centramos en los personajes podemos establecer también algunos paralelismos. El principal rasgo común, sin duda, es la creación de universos femeninos por parte de hombres escritores. Este hecho se refleja también en la elección de nombres de mujer como título. De nuevo, Pamela, al no incluirse su apellido, parece un personaje mucho más genérico, representativo de todas las jóvenes de su edad y condición, mientras que el nombre y apellidos de Clara Callan evocan un personaje mucho más particular. Jackson sostenía que las escritoras del siglo XVIII como Brooke utilizan las convenciones epistolares para representar la experiencia femenina suprimida por la mayoría de los escritores hombres que habían abordado este género (1989:154-155). Aunque desde una óptica contemporánea esta afirmación se pueda mantener respecto a la obra de Richardson, ciertamente no es válida para la obra de Wright. En Clara Callan vemos una pluralidad de voces (mayoritariamente femeninas) con una riqueza de matices amplísima que van desde la ternura al desgarramiento, pasando por la morbosidad, el cinismo y la esperanza. Clara Callan es una maestra de un pequeño pueblo situado en Ontario y esta faceta del personaje pudiera ser un pequeño homenaje a Anne of Green Gables (1908) de Lucy Maud Montgomery, novela de culto entre bastantes lectores canadienses y origen de las celebraciones conmemorativas anuales en Prince Edward Island. El personaje de Clara Callan no es ni la primera profesora, ni el primer outsider que crea Wright. Su primera novela para adultos, The Weekend Man (1970), retrata a Wes Wakeham, un hombre aislado de la sociedad no solo por su forma de ser sino también por voluntad propia. También en The Teacher's Daughter (1982), en Tourists (1984) y en Sunset Manor (1990) aparecen profesores como personajes principales. A lo largo de la novela el lector descubre que esta Clara no es una maestra rural al uso y profundiza en sus miedos, ilusiones y desengaños. Inicialmente la novela recoge la correspondencia entre Clara y su hermana Nora, que se ha trasladado a Nueva York para probar suerte como actriz radiofónica. A partir de la página 100 se incluye una nueva voz – la correspondencia de Evelyn – que permite al lector tener un enfoque distinto de otros personajes y de los acontecimientos que se narran. Por ejemplo, sus opiniones acerca de Lewis Mills (Wright 2001:124), uno de los novios de Nora, permiten comprender a este personaje mejor y abordarlo desde distintos puntos de vista, de modo que su semblanza aparezca más real y objetiva. Lo mismo ocurre con los comentarios que hace acerca de Nora: el lector se hace una idea de cómo es y se comporta la hermana de la protagonista, no solo por las descripciones de Clara y por las cartas de la propia Nora, sino por las explicaciones de una tercera persona. Por otro lado, desde la página 247 entra a formar parte del coro una voz masculina, la del amante de Clara. Con la aparición de este personaje se
78 MERCEDES DÍAZ DUEÑAS enriquece también el juego de intertextualidades, ya que las cartas de amor que intercambian Clara y Frank pueden recordar a Werther o Las amistades peligrosas. Es curioso que Clara empiece aquí a reproducir cartas que no llega a enviar y que por lo tanto nunca llegan a manos de su destinatario. Sería algo parecido a lo que ocurre al principio de Pamela con las cartas que son interceptadas por el señor y nunca llegan a sus destinatarios, los padres de Pamela. En ambos casos dan al lector más información acerca de los sentimientos y las sensaciones – generalmente de angustia – de las protagonistas. Por último, las cartas de la hija del amante de Clara y de otra de sus amantes sirven para descubrir la verdadera personalidad del hombre al que ama Clara. Resulta ilustrativo plantearse quiénes son los destinatarios, la audiencia o el lector implícito de cada fragmento de ambas novelas. En la obra de Richardson parece más ambiguo, puesto que aunque las cartas iniciales van dirigidas claramente a sus padres, en el diario en muchas ocasiones no queda muy claro qué audiencia pudiera tener en mente Pamela. Si es un documento privado, abruma la cantidad de detalles que presenta y el contenido propagandístico sobre sí misma que elabora. Además, llega un momento en el que el señor –que ya es su prometido – lee tanto las cartas como el diario. En cambio, la novela de Wright es mucho más coherente, ya que las cartas van claramente destinadas a sus corresponsales en exclusiva y su diario no da en ningún momento la impresión de contemplar otra función que la de desahogo de los sentimientos de la protagonista en momentos de soledad, desesperación – por ejemplo, cuando es violada – o alegría. Únicamente en la última entrada del diario y tras el nacimiento de su hija, se dirige por primera vez a ella con una interpelación directa: “I want so badly to help you realize, Elizabeth Ann, how difficult and puzzling and full of wonder it all is: some day I will tell you” (Wright 2001:406). Finalmente, es conveniente indicar que Clara Callan, además de ser una novela epistolar, tiene un fuerte componente de novela generacional y de culebrón. La primera generación es la madre de Clara, muerta en un accidente, pero Clara se pregunta si su madre no se suicidó en realidad. Las vidas de las hermanas, Clara y Nora, se desarrollan en más detalle y la vida de la hija de Clara se presenta más resumida, pero también aportando otra reacción femenina ante los imperativos morales y las restricciones y expectativas de la sociedad, que se tratan en el siguiente epígrafe. En Canadá la novela generacional es un género muy popular y Clara Callan, a pesar de ser una novela epistolar principalmente, también incluye esta vertiente, lo cual la hace desmarcarse de las convenciones del género y la hace más original.
CUESTIONES MORALES, DE CLASE Y GÉNERO
En ambas obras las protagonistas se enfrentan a imposiciones sociales marcadas por su condición de mujeres. En el caso de Pamela se trata de una joven de quince años que está inmersa en las relaciones jerárquicas del señor con sus sirvientes, en un momento en el que la clase media se está abriendo paso y
SAMUEL RICHARDSON Y RICHARD B. WRIGHT 79 está quedando obsoleto el antiguo orden social. De un modo similar, Clara – al igual que su hermana Nora y su amiga Evelyn – se debate entre la sociedad tradicionalista de las primeras décadas del siglo XX y el ansia de libertad y pleno desarrollo en todos los ámbitos de algunas mujeres de esa época. Wright, gracias a la incorporación de distintos personajes femeninos, presenta desenlaces diversos y que no se anuncian desde la primera página, tal y como sucede en la obra de Richardson, en la que el título Pamela or Virtue Rewarded deja muy claro que la conducta de la protagonista según las normas morales establecidas tiene su recompensa. Clara Callan comienza con la entrada del diario de la protagonista del 3 de noviembre de 1934, en la que relata que su hermana ha partido para emprender su carrera como actriz en Nueva York. Clara siente tanto la ausencia de su hermana como la de su padre fallecido poco antes. Las primeras páginas transmiten la sensación de soledad e incomprensión por parte de la sociedad que la rodea. También las cartas primeras que abren Pamela transmiten intranquilidad y angustia ante una situación nueva, pero de una naturaleza distinta. Mientras Pamela intenta actuar según le corresponde a su condición social y femenina, Clara tiene que hacerse cargo de las tareas “masculinas” del hogar de las que se ocupaba su padre – como mantener la caldera funcionando – y lo encuentra a la vez penoso y satisfactorio, en tanto que le proporciona autonomía personal (Wright 2001:10). Por su parte, Nora plantea el dilema entre tener trabajo, dinero y ser independiente o tener familia. Aunque disfruta lo primero, envidia lo segundo, como se constata en diversos pasajes de la novela, ya sea a través de sus propias palabras (ibid.:17-18) o las de su amiga (ibid.:386), quien le confirma a Clara que Nora lo que quiere es conocer a un hombre decente para formar una familia. Su vida amorosa, sin embargo, está jalonada de desengaños. También Clara a pesar de mostrarse díscola con las convenciones sociales y celosa de su libertad, en una carta dirigida a Evelyn, admite que pese a sus reticencias, en el fondo sí desearía verse casada, con hijos y realizando las tareas del hogar (ibid.:104). Clara admira la ambición y el entusiasmo de su hermana (ibid.:25) y se confiesa crítica, envidiosa y temerosa respecto a su vida. Incluso refleja la expresión de su padre que implica un juicio moral muy marcado admitiendo que temía que su hermana pudiera estar buscándose su perdición (“riding for a fall”, ibid.:103). Aunque pudiera parecer lo contrario, también Nora siente el peso de la moral imperante. Tanto es así que cuando Les, su compañero casado, se le declara ella se siente culpable por haber dado lugar a la situación saliendo con él como amigos. No obstante, la presión real que tiene Nora es menor, puesto que como la propia Clara apunta en otra ocasión:
Nora lives in an immense city where a woman can do whatever she likes with her life. Here it is “What will the neighbours think?” as father used to say. What indeed? And wouldn't it be restful not to care? (ibid.:298)
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Wright hace un juego de espejos metatextual con los personajes de la novela radiofónica en la que trabaja Nora, la hermana pequeña de Clara. En dicha novela – llamada “The House on Chestnut Street” – Nora actúa como la hermana mayor y más juiciosa de Effie, la cual siempre anda envuelta en líos de amoríos y necesita el apoyo y el consejo de la hermana mayor. Wright rompe así esa dicotomía maniquea que distingue una actuación que moralmente se considera intachable con consecuencias positivas de una actuación inmoral castigada con la desgracia y la deshonra. A lo largo de la obra, el lector poco a poco averigua que Clara, la hermana mayor, cauta y juiciosa supuestamente, sufre una violación y se ve obligada a abortar a causa de esta y más tarde acaba teniendo un hijo ilegítimo, lo cual le hace perder su empleo como maestra. Mientras tanto, la hermana menor, aventurera y alocada, que parece actuar en contra de lo que dicta la moralidad establecida, es recompensada con una vida llena de experiencias y un “final feliz” en el matrimonio. Sin embargo, antes de llegar a este feliz desenlace, sufre la ansiedad de llegar los treinta años sin haberse casado y formado una familia (ibid.:39). Llegado un punto (ibid.:317), los papeles de las hermanas se invierten y es Clara la que pide consejo a Nora. Sin embargo, la novela radiofónica sí refleja los valores tradicionales morales del bien y el mal que llevan a las mujeres a una u otra consecuencia en la vida (ibid.:86). La complejidad de las emociones y los pensamientos de los personajes de Wright se pueden ejemplificar con la descripción de la pérdida de fe de Clara, quien expone de forma bastante poética cómo una mañana se da cuenta de que ha dejado de creer en Dios (ibid.:38). Clara se plantea explícitamente la noción de inmortalidad, o más bien la ausencia de inmortalidad. En realidad, su apostasía se puede también interpretar como una manera de afirmar su individualidad y de singularizarse ante su comunidad (ibid.:51). En otra ocasión, Clara escribe en su diario que se siente “wayward” (ibid.:188), es decir, rebelde, caprichosa, díscola, incontrolable, y reproduce la definición de dicho adjetivo, según lo encuentra en su diccionario:
1. Disposed to go counter to the wishes and advice of others or to what is reasonable; wrong-headed, intractable, self-willed, perverse. 2. Capriciously wilful; conforming to no fixed rule or principle of conduct. (ibid.:189)
A partir de este momento, Clara se está afirmando frente a su pequeña comunidad rural. Nunca se ha sentido una persona “normal” (ibid.:192), pero después de sufrir la violación se siente cada vez más legitimada para no intentar acomodarse a las expectativas de su entorno. Luego, adopta una actitud muy valiente al tener el bebé fuera del matrimonio y no marcharse de su pueblo, aunque sabe que perderá su trabajo y que sus paisanos se volverán contra ella. Su hija más tarde lo comenta explícitamente: “Having a child out of wedlock in an Ontario village in 1938 was more than enough to set her apart from the community” (ibid.:409). El acercamiento de la novela a las cuestiones sexuales es abierto, aunque en la época no fueran cuestiones de las que se hablara sin tapujos, tal y como
SAMUEL RICHARDSON Y RICHARD B. WRIGHT 81 recuerda Elizabeth, la hija de la protagonista en el epílogo: “Rape. Abortion. Adultery. Such subjects were not so easily and openly discussed by women of my aunt’s generation” (ibid.:415). De hecho, Clara tarda tres años en contarle a su hermana que fue violada, meses en confesarle que tiene una relación con un hombre casado y no es capaz de llamarla cuando se vuelve a quedar embarazada, sino que le escribe una carta (ibid.:363). En el diario de Clara la palabra “fuck” no aparece escrita en su totalidad y la sustituye un guión largo (ibid.:57). Hacia el final de la novela, durante una visita de Nora a su hermana, ambas se sorprenden hablando abiertamente de sexo, de las preferencias – o desviaciones – de sus parejas (ibid.:392). Esta conversación llega a su fin cuando caen en la cuenta de que están discutiendo esos asuntos en casa de su difunto padre y no quieren ni imaginar qué pensaría de ellas si las pudiera oír. Así pues, frente a la obra de Richardson que desde el primer momento plantea que la finalidad de la ficción es instruir moralmente a través del entretenimiento, Wright expone la complejidad de los sentimientos, huyendo de dicotomías estancas y planteamientos morales estrictos y simplificadores.
ESTILO: REALISMO Y VEROSIMILITUD
Si uno de los rasgos que caracterizaron la novela del XVIII frente a las formas de ficción anteriores fue el realismo (Watt 1957:10), esta sigue siendo una característica que requiere atención. Tal y como anoté antes, la veracidad de la historia de Clara Callan se constata en el epílogo firmado por Elizabeth A. Callan, hija de la protagonista, a fecha del año 2000, mientras que Richardson aparece como editor de las cartas y el diario de Pamela desde el primer momento. Aunque el recurso estilístico ha sido utilizado hasta la saciedad en la historia de la literatura, no es frecuente encontrar esta confirmación de la veracidad de la historia al final de la obra. Generalmente, tal y como ocurre en El Quijote, el escritor deja claro en las primeras páginas que el material que presenta son unos legajos o fuentes reales. En el apéndice leemos que la hija de Clara ha conocido los hechos narrados del mismo modo que el lector, a través de las cartas y el diario de su madre. De este modo el lector implícito que normalmente es una entidad abstracta se materializa en un personaje, dando así una vuelta de tuerca a los esquemas narrativos a los que estamos acostumbrados.
CONCLUSIONES
Ha quedado expuesto aquí, por lo tanto, cómo el género epistolar ha sido capaz de mostrar con especial viveza los sentimientos que se producen en la confrontación entre los deseos individuales de las personas – especialmente de las mujeres, en los ejemplos analizados aquí – y los valores morales imperantes en determinada época. El realismo que imprime la forma epistolar a estas
82 MERCEDES DÍAZ DUEÑAS historias parece ser un medio especialmente efectivo para plantear estas cuestiones. Este breve ensayo, por falta de espacio, no ha podido desarrollar aspectos de gran interés, cuyo análisis valdría la pena completar. Por ejemplo, sería revelador contemplar los aspectos religiosos, de nacionalidad y de clase social abordados por la novela Clara Callan de Wright. No ha sido posible incidir en cuestiones tales como las referencias a la confrontación entre católicos y orangistas, estadounidenses y canadienses, zonas rurales y grandes capitales, actitudes hacia la monarquía británica y hacia la incipiente II Guerra Mundial que se plasman con gran sutileza en sus páginas. Estas páginas han pretendido resaltar cómo, formalmente, la obra de Richardson supuso una gran innovación para su época y la de Wright presenta determinados rasgos que suponen igualmente innovaciones interesantes respecto a los clásicos, entre las que cabe destacar la desaparición del supuesto editor al principio de la obra y la incursión de una heredera del material recopilado al final de la obra. Asimismo, la pluralidad de voces y de puntos de vista constituye un elemento estructural muy enriquecedor y que dota a la obra de un ritmo rápido y que cautiva al lector. Probablemente las novelas epistolares basadas en cartas sean un género que ha pasado a la historia, puesto que ya rara vez se mantiene correspondencia personal en el modo tradicional. Quizá se sigan escribiendo algunas novelas epistolares, cuya trama transcurra en algún momento anterior a finales del siglo XX. Seguramente las nuevas novelas epistolares tendrán que reflejar correos electrónicos y mensajes cortos de teléfono, en lugar de cartas, y entradas de blogs y participaciones en redes sociales, en lugar de páginas de diarios. Las técnicas narrativas deberán acomodarse a la inmediatez de los nuevos medios de comunicación, a su carácter multimediático, así como a los nuevos canales de relación interpersonal. Pero, si atendemos al desarrollo que hemos podido comprobar desde el siglo XVIII hasta nuestros días, podemos aventurarnos a pensar que el género epistolar seguirá dando sus frutos.
REFERENCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS
Jackson, S.K. 1989, “In search of a female voice: Les Liaisons Dangereuses”, en E. Goldsmith (ed.). Writing the female voice: Essays on epistolary literature. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Mathews, R. 1982, “The Stepsure Letters: Puritanism and the novel of the land”. Studies in Canadian Literature, 7(1). McCulloch, T. 1990, The Mephibosheth Stepsure letters. Ottawa: Carleton University Press. New, W.H. 2002, “Aftermath 2001”. Canadian Literature, 175:191-203. Richardson, S. 1957, Pamela or Virtue Rewarded. New York: The Norton Library.< http://journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/SCL/article/view/7978>. Fecha de consulta: 15 julio, 2011.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON Y RICHARD B. WRIGHT 83
Sellwood, J. 2002, “Brooke, Frances Moore”, en W. H. New,(ed.). Encyclopedia of literature in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 156-158. Watt, I. 1957, The rise of the novel. Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding. Berkeley y Los Angeles: University of California Press. Wright, R.B. 2001, Clara Callan. Toronto: HarperCollins Canada.
THE IRISH RURAL COMMUNITY IN EDNA O’BRIEN’S SHORT FICTION: NATIONALISM, RELIGION AND THE FAMILY AS ANDROCENTRIC TROPES 1
PILAR VILLAR ARGÁIZ Universidad de Granada
This article focuses on Edna O’Brien’s representation in her short fiction of Irish women’s experiences during the 1940s and 1950s (the time of Eamon de Valera’s Ireland). In particular, it examines the emotional paralysis and entrapment experienced by her female characters in the enclosed and bigoted setting of a small Irish village. O’Brien usually presents women as victims of a patriarchal society, always subjected to the pressure of restrictive gendered expectations. In particular, nationalism and religion are consistently depicted in her fiction as powerful ideologies determining women’s role in their rural communities.
Edna O’Brien is nowadays regarded as one of the most emblematic and prolific contemporary Irish women writers. Born in 1930, she is the author of nearly thirty books, which include eight collections of short stories, eighteen novels, five plays, several autobiographical essays, one collection of poetry, various screenplays and other miscellaneous works. This chapter approaches O’Brien’s facet as a short fiction writer, by particularly focusing on her 2008 edition A Fanatic Heart, which gathers a representative sample of five collections of short stories published between 1968 and 1981: The Love Object (1968), A Scandalous Woman (1974), A Rose in the Heart (1978), Quartet (1979-1981), and Returning (1981). I will particularly focus on the role that women play in those short stories set in the rural Ireland of the 1940s and 1950s, and which are largely drawn from the author’s childhood memories. O’Brien usually presents women as victims of a patriarchal society, always subjected to the pressure of restrictive gendered expectations. In particular, nationalism and religion are consistently depicted in her fiction as powerful ideologies determining women’s role in their rural communities.
1. The research for this essay was conducted in the framework of the research project Community and Immunity in Contemporary Fiction in English, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (grant reference FF12009-13244). 86 PILAR VILLAR ARGÁIZ
Indeed, a gender consciousness pervades O’Brien’s literary oeuvre. Together with Julia O’Faolain, Leland Bardwell and Maeve Kelly, she belongs to what Christine St. Peter (2000:8) identifies as “the most radical” generation of Irish women writers that emerged in the 20th century, “both in terms of experimental forms and in political perspectives”. While acknowledging “the competitive presence of her artistic predecessors”, most notably James Joyce (Gillespie 1996:110), O’Brien has made a place of her own in a male-dominated literary genre. As Gordon (1984) claims, one of her merits has been to tell “the Irish woman’s inside story”, by particularly bringing their real love experiences on to the page. This view is also shared by Irish feminist Mary Kenny (2000:240), who notes that her fiction is “certainly regarded as breaking new ground for women”. 2 In the stories selected for analysis, the rural setting acquires such an importance that it almost becomes a protagonist in itself. As Colletta and O’Connor (2006:6) claim, “[w]hen writing explicitly about Ireland, […] O’Brien depicts the constricted, hardscrabble life of the villages and farms of the west”. O’Brien’s concern with the conservatism experienced in the rural Ireland of her childhood has been the source of much controversy. For critics such as Darcy O’Brien (1982:189), in his article in Twentieth-Century Women Novelists, O’Brien is frozen in the past, and consequently, she lacks the “will or interest to seek out characters, stories or themes in the everyday world around”. Similarly, she has been accused of being “obsessed with an Ireland that no longer exists” (Cooke 2011) or, in Christine St. Peter’s words (2000:73), of showing “a tendency to essentialize the Irish and the Irish ‘soul’”. 3 In spite of these criticisms, it is important to bear in mind the contextual period in which O’Brien writes these rural stories. As Ingman (2009:230-233) explains in her survey of contemporary Irish short fiction, the 1980s was “outwardly a regressive period” in Ireland, characterized, among other things, by a “right-wing backlash” in
2. This does not mean, however, that O’Brien’s work can be easily labelled as ‘feminist’. Indeed, it is very difficult to pigeonhole her work. To start with, A. Greenwood (2003:8) claims that her fiction is not easily categorized as “women’s writing” due to its tendency to “transcend gender lines”. Others claim that it should not be considered feminist literature, because of its fondness for romantic love and women’s excessive dependency on men. As well-known literary critic Anne Owens Weekes (2003:x) claims, O’Brien’s “perspective is women centered but not feminist”, because “her works usually depict the traps of femininity rather than liberation”. O’Brien acknowledges this reluctance to consider her work as feminist in an interview with S. Guppy (1984): “I am not the darling of the feminists. They think I am too preoccupied with old-fashioned themes like love and longing”. Because of this, she has been accused of following “the sentimental and the ‘romantic novel’ formula” (ibid.), or of being too “repetitive” in her “chronicle of romantic love” (Greenwood 2003:1). Some other critics prefer to consider her work as somehow traditionalist or regressive, because of her conservative representation of Ireland, as a country everything but modern (Cooke 2011; Darcy O’Brien 1982:189). Finally, others relegate her work “to the realm of popular fiction” because of the ‘sensationalism’ implicit in her novels and short stories (Pelan 1993:67). 3. In light of such criticisms, it is important to note that O’Brien starts to explore different topics in a series of novels that she publishes since 1994 about modern Ireland, where she deals with contemporary social and political issues: House of Splendid Isolation (1994), about terrorism and the Troubles, Down by the River (1996), which addresses the controversial topic of abortion through the historical “X Case”, and In the Forest (2002), inspired by the case of the real murderer Brendan O’Donnell.
THE IRISH RURAL COMMUNITY IN EDNA O’BRIEN’S SHORT FICTION 87 political and sexual matters. Bearing in mind this contextual factor, it is not surprising that O’Brien returns in the short fiction she writes in this period to the settings and atmospheres of her Irish childhood. The Ireland of the 1980s still shows traces of the ideological conservatism experienced in that old Ireland that, according to Cooke (2011) “no longer exists”. Furthermore, it is also important to consider that O’Brien is not the only contemporary Irish writer evoking this rural aspect of Ireland. As well-known cultural critic Joe Cleary (2004:233) notes, the scenery of a small town in rural Ireland is also “the fictional territory” of writers such as Kate O’Brien, Sean O’Faoláin, John McGahern, Tom Murphy and William Trevor, among others. All these writers belong to a 20th century revolutionary movement that Cleary identifies as “Irish naturalism”, a literary tendency antagonistic to the Irish Literary Revival of the beginning of the 20th century in its dissociation from the romantic portrayals of rural life:
Like its French counterpart, Irish naturalism was also in its inception a dissident and reformist aesthetic: it measured the distance between the official stage ideology of Irish Ireland and its tawdry reality. The naturalist writers probed – with an intimate knowledge of the local terrain conspicuously absent in much of the literature of the Revival – the social and sexual traumas that official Irish culture would not acknowledge. (Cleary 2004:233)
Indeed, O’Brien’s raw descriptions of the harshness of rural life stand in sharp contrast with the Irish Revival’s portrayal of a romanticized, premodern Irish homeland exemplified, for instance, by William Butler Yeats’s famous poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”. She challenges the idealizing tendencies of this literary movement through her fierce critique of the androcentric foundations on which the rural Ireland of the 1940s and 1950s was constructed. In iconic short stories such as “Savages” and “A Scandalous Woman”, O’Brien describes with accuracy the communal identity of the Ireland that the writer left behind when she emigrated to England in the 1950s. In particular, her critique is oriented towards three interrelated forms of organicity which have determined the orthodoxies of her childhood upbringing in Ireland: a rigid parochialism; an insular, narrow-minded nationalism; and a restricted religious doctrine. 4 These three saturated communal forms are described as utterly patriarchal, and therefore, they act as powerful oppressive forces for O’Brien’s female characters. As Colletta and O’Connor (2006:8-9) claim,
4. The rural stories analysed could be partly autobiographical, bearing in mind Edna O’Brien’s childhood in Tuamgraney (a small Irish village in County Clare), in an environment she has described as “small, claustrophobic” and “ingrown” (Guppy 1984) and “fervid, enclosed and catastrophic” (O’Brien 1976:42). Indeed, O’Brien frequently uses sources of her own life for her fiction. Her 2006 novel, The Light of Evening, for instance, includes real letters her mother wrote to her. For an autobiographical reading of O’Brien’s fiction, see Darcy O’Brien (1982).
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[t]aught by mothers to submit to men and warned by the church to remain chaste, O’Brien’s women soon find themselves rejected by lovers and humiliated by husbands.
In their role as masculine archetypes, the depiction of male characters is usually consistent in her fiction: men are generally represented either as violent, callous and treacherous characters, or as lazy and incompetent ones. 5 On the other hand, there are two particular images of women that O’Brien bears in mind in her literary representation of female characters. As she asserts in an interview:
The Blessed Virgin and Caithleen Ní Houlihan were probably the two most dominant female icons in my thinking – the one being religious and the other poetic and romantic. (Thomson 2003:201)
The powerful influence that such gendered stereotypes exert in the rural Ireland O’Brien portrays is clearly reflected in the opening sentences of her short story “Courtship”. The sense of locality and provincialism that the writer describes in this collection is astonishing. In “Courtship”, O’Brien defines an Irish rural community centred on influential organic tropes, the most predominant ones being nationalism and religion. As is typical of O’Brien’s short fiction, this story is narrated in the first person by an adult woman who looks back at her childhood years in the Irish countryside. 6 In her recollection of her childhood, one of the first memories the narrator has is of a nationalist poem, “The Mother”, that she was bound to learn in her primary school:
A favourite school poem was “The Mother” by Patrick Pearse. It was a wrenching poem condoling the plight of a mother who had her two strong sons go out and die, ‘in bloody protest for a glorious thing’. (O’Brien 2008:97)
This nationalist poem stands as a powerful emblem of collective identity and community consciousness. It symbolizes the myth of blood sacrifice for the sake of nationhood. In poems such as this, the blood of the dead heroes is constantly recalled, their deeds endlessly recited in the present, in order to maintain the fictional essence of nationness. The romantic remembrance of a heroic (communal) death is a process that Jean-Luc Nancy (1990:9-12) has conspicuously analysed in his theorizations of the immanent community in The Inoperative Community. As Glowacka (2006) explains, in Nancy’s view,
5. O’Brien’s portrayal of men could partly stem from her vision of her father in real life, whom she describes as “the ‘archetypical’ Irishman – a gambler, drinker, a man totally unequipped to be a husband or a father” (Guppy 1984). 6. In this respect, as Barros del Río (2005:93) explains, O’Brien is a precursor of the fictional writing of “the Irish literary childhood” (“novela de la infancia”), in which the narrator looks back at his/her own childhood years, revealing much about the social and historical context at the time. Other writers which practice this genre are Clare Boylan, Maeve Binchy, Bernard MacLaverty and Frank O’Connor.
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the truth of death is the truth of the community that immortalizes itself through will to immanence. Community reveals itself through death, whereby the death of its members must be transformed into works, into operative immortality that perpetuates the life of the community.
This idealization of death through the encouragement of the martyrdom of heroes is also observed in “A Rose in the Heart of New York”, when the two main characters visit “the home of the liberator Daniel O’Connell, the man who had asked to have his dead heart sent to Rome, to the Holy See” (O’Brien 2008:397). For the protagonist’s mother, this was “the most rendering thing she had ever heard, and the most devout” (ibid.:397). As in Pearse’s poem, the patriotic topoi of fighting against the English oppressor and dying for the sake of nationhood are here infused with religious references. O’Connell’s decision to donate his heart to the Vatican recalls the sacrificial death of God and the Christian myth of salvation. This heroic myth provides common substance for the immanence of the community, who perpetuates itself by remembering its glorious birth in the past, with the presence of such selfless heroes. 7 As Glowacka (2006) claims, “[b]y infinitely (self)communicating the story of its inauguration, community ensures its own transcendence and immortality”. Such a strong link between nationalism and religion has important repercussions in the way women are represented and treated in the rural community O’Brien portrays. In “Courtship”, Pearse’s poem “The Mother” does not only symbolize the foundational myth of the Irish nation. This poem is also emblematic of the power of religion, as the maternal figure in the poem resembles, in her passive suffering, the Catholic iconography of the Virgin Mary. In this sense, womanhood is simplified and idealized for the sake of nationhood. In the particular context of Ireland, it is important to bear in mind that idealized motherhood has become a metaphor intrinsically tied up with national identity. Together with the Virgin Mary, pre-colonial images such as Mother Ireland and The Old Woman of Beare, among others, were repeatedly employed by nationalists in order to incite patriotic feelings. This image of the idealised mother sponsored by both nationalism and religion was later reinforced by the model of the mother officially endorsed by the 1937 Irish Constitution, particularly by Article 41:
2-1. In particular, the State recognizes that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved. 2-2. The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to neglect of their duties in the home. (Quoted in Innes 1993:9)
The effects of such links between nationalism and religion upon the lives of ordinary Irish women are reflected through various ways in “Courtship”. To start
7. The related trope of the patriot prepared to sacrifice his life for the sake of nationhood also appears in O’Brien’s novel House of Splendid Isolation, which deals with the violence in Northern Ireland.
90 PILAR VILLAR ARGÁIZ with, it is remarkable that the first remembrance the narrator has when recalling her childhood years in the Irish countryside is her learning at school of Patrick Pearse’s poem “The Mother”. Such legacy symbolizes the organic immanence of the Irish Catholic community in which the narrator was brought up. According to Colletta and O’Connor (2006:6), the image of the remote village or hometown “where the whole of Irish culture and history is preserved” can function “metonymically for the nation in O’Brien’s fiction, which insists on the link between domestic and political colonization and between obsessions about the control of land and the control of women”. It is precisely this link between nationalism and patriarchy, or between “domestic and political colonization” that we find in the community O’Brien describes. Furthermore, the strong effect that the model of the Virgin Mary exerts on the ordinary lives of Irish women is clearly acknowledged as the narrator introduces the first female character in the story. Interestingly enough, the archetype of femininity represented in Pearse’s poem is immediately followed by the description of the widow Mrs Flynn, for whom the narrator worked as an assistant in a shop:
Mrs Flynn had also known tragedy, her husband having died from pleurisy and her youngest son, Frank, having drowned while away on holiday. For a time she wept and gnashed, her fate being similar to the poor distraught mother’s in the poem. (O’Brien 2008:97)
By comparing both figures, the narrator (unconsciously or not) offers a projected vision of this character through patriarchal eyes, as “the idealized mother in the hierarchical family structure” (Pelan 2006:60). As a selfless, all- sacrificing, pious widow, Mrs Flynn resembles Pearse’s idealised figure in “The Mother”. She is institutionally imprisoned in her role of motherhood and domesticity, feminine archetypes which have been raised to iconic status in Ireland by both nationalism and religion. 8 Nevertheless, the general tendency in O’Brien’s short fiction is to depart from the conventional notions of femininity endorsed by Irish nationalism and Catholicism, by depicting characters who openly challenge sexual repression and the authority of the State and the Church. 9
8. In her autobiography Mother Ireland, O’Brien describes the maternal figure of her childhood community in similar terms to the stereotypical view of the Irish mother: Only mothers were safe to be with. Mothers were best. Mothers worked and worried and sacrificed and had the smallest amount on their plates when the family sat down to eat, mothers wore aprons and slaved and mothers went to the confraternity on a Sunday evening and whispered things to each other in the chapel grounds about their wombs and their woes. (O’Brien 1976:50) For an interesting study of the characterization of women in the short stories of Edna O’Brien from the perspective of the suffering Madonna stereotype, see Shumaker (1995). This author particularly studies O’Brien in relation to Mary Lavin’s short fiction. 9. Given the unconventional development of some of her female protagonists in their gradual distancing from traditional notions of femininity (i.e., Baba and Kate in The Country Girls), O’Brien’s fictionalized work has often received the nomenclature of “anti-Bildungsroman”, “truncated” or “failed Bildungsroman” and “novel of disillusionment” (Barros del Río 2005:94).
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In this sense, O’Brien describes an Irish rural community chiefly determined by convention and by the authority of religious doctrine. Her short stories usually portray religion as a habit or superstition: her characters pray rosaries every night (“My Mother’s Mother”, O’Brien 2008:23; “A Scandalous Woman”, 245) and they go to church regularly to devotions and mass (“The Small-Town Lovers”, 341). The priest is portrayed as an authority within such a local community: while in “The Bachelor” he is presented as someone in charge of arranging the marriages, in “The Creature” he intercedes with the local authorities in favour of a widow to have a reduction of the fees when sending her boy to boarding school (286). In “The Connor Girls”, religion is also depicted as an influential force deeply embedded in the lives of all the rural characters. In particular, the story reflects the polarization of religious identity in Ireland, by portraying the tensions arising between the two separate communities of Catholics and Protestants, exemplified in the story by the narrator’s family on the one hand, and on the other by the Connor girls, the daughters of a local Protestant landowner. When Miss Amy, one of the Connor girls, falls in love with a local bank clerk who turned out to be “a lapsed Catholic” (8), the reaction of the parish is immediate and drastic. The narrator’s mother, in her inflexible disapproval of this marriage, exemplifies the narrow-mindedness of her community: “She could not abide it, she said that Catholics and Protestants just could not mix” (9). In this sense, this story defines a conservative community clearly compartmentalized on account of religion and social class. Being brought up in a convent (in particular, the Sisters of Mercy), Edna O’Brien also experienced as a child a strict Catholic education, which she now defines as “coercive and stifling” (Cooke 2011). That is why O’Brien denounces in her fiction the inordinate influence of Catholicism upon the lives of Irish women. Usually, religion comes into conflict with the sexual behaviour of most female characters. In such an organic society, hidebound in traditions, pregnant women outside marriage are viewed as “sinful people” (“The Rug”, O’Brien 2008:204). The Magdalene Laundries are mentioned several times in her short fiction as accomplice institutions where these “fallen” women are sent in order to atone for their sins (“Savages”:83-84; “The House of My Dreams”:299). Furthermore, O’Brien also reveals the hypocrisy of religious standards. Whereas in “Savages” the priest and the locals at Mass shun Mabel for being pregnant outside wedlock (91-92), in stories such as “Ghosts” we are shown through the eyes of the innocent narrator a sexual scene between a priest and a woman (118).10 The strict religious doctrine that O’Brien portrays is usually accompanied by an oppressive sense of habit and routine. As James Joyce did in his portrayal of Dublin, O’Brien depicts the emotional and spiritual paralysis experienced by those living in the parish. In “Savages”, for instance, the only sense of excitement is brought by Mabel’s arrival from Australia. Given the sense of
10. This theme is also briefly touched in Edna O’Brien’s 1970 novel A Pagan Place, which tells the story of a girl who is seduced by a priest.
92 PILAR VILLAR ARGÁIZ routine experienced in the village, Mabel brings “hope and renewal” to the lives of her relatives and neighbours (74). In this story, as in many others, there is a striking absence of contemporary references which enhance the timeless (and almost ahistorical and mythical) effect. As in Joyce’s “The Dead”, the lives of the inhabitants here seem to be suspended in time, paralysed by habit and by a destructive, narrowly conventional morality. According to the narrator, this “godforsaken townland” was defined by routinized acts: “Nothing happened except the land was plowed, the crops were put down, there was a harvest, a threshing, then geese were sent to feast on the stubble, and soon the land was bare again” (74). This air of claustrophic provinciality is also portrayed in “Ghosts”, a story set in a town where “[m]otorcars were still a novelty” (119). Here, the daily life of Mrs Keogh “had no variety. They said the Rosary every evening after their tea. They were in bed while it was still bright in summer, and she was up at five or six washing” (120). The sense of paralysis experienced in the Irish countryside also extends to the convent, where the nuns’ lives are defined by customary daily tasks (“Sister Imelda”, 130-131). 11 Indeed, “habit” is a recurring word in A Fanatic Heart (see for instance, pages 178 and 206), and it is sometimes used purposely in order to suggest women’s enclosure into a claustrophic, patriarchal rural community. 12 Apart from religion and nationalism, O’Brien also presents the family as the framework for the consolidation of patriarchal values and the perpetuation of conventional gendered roles. Her rural stories focus predominantly on the private lives of women and the repressive influential force of their families. Challenging the idealization of this “institution” in Irish culture, O’Brien’s short stories are overloaded with images of broken homes, brutal fathers and inefficient mothers. In “My Mother’s Mother”, the narrator’s mother and grandmother are both subjected to the violence of their husbands (18,24-25). Similarly, in “A
11. The paralysis experienced at the rural parish is also caused by the importance of the past and the influence of the dead, a presence which still determines the lives of the living (as in Joyce’s “The Dead”). That is why the narrator in “Ghosts” is still haunted by three women she met in her childhood years. As she says towards the end of the story, even though they are long dead, “I still can’t imagine any of them dead. They live on; they are fixed in that far-off region called childhood, where nothing ever dies, not even oneself” (O’Brien 2008:123). In “The Small-Town Lovers”, O’Brien also depicts a provincial world in which the dead still linger in the mind of the living. Here, the narrator is haunted by the presence of past memories: for herself, Hilda “has become a ghost, and the trouble with ghosts is that no one but oneself knows how zealously they stalk the everyday air” (353). Similarly, in “The Bachelor”, Jack’s life is marked first by the death of his brother and later by the death of his sister Maggy. The traumatic deaths of beloved ones also monopolize the life of Mrs Flynn in “Courtship”. The identity and image of this ordinary shop owner is irremediably determined by the death of her husband and later one of her sons (97). 12. “The Rug”, for instance, ends by portraying the narrator’s mother undoing “her apron strings, out of habit”, and then retying “them slowly and methodically, making a tighter knot” (O’Brien 2008:206). This gesture coincides with her disappointment when she discovers that the parcel that she received was not meant for her. In “Irish Revel”, Mary’s thoughts at the party centred on what her family, her parents and siblings would be doing at that time, and she concludes that “[i]n another hour they’d be saying the Rosary in her house and going to bed; the rhythm of their lives never changed, the fresh bread always cool by morning” (ibid.:186).
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Scandalous Woman”, Eily’s father is depicted as a “gruff” man with “an atrocious temper” (248), from whose thrashings she is constantly forced to escape (239). This aggressive image of masculinity in relation to husbands and fathers also appears in “The Bachelor” (59,61), “Savages” (74-75,76), “Ghosts” (120), “Tough Men” (43), and “A Rose in the Heart of New York” (380,382). Fathers are not only presented as alcoholic and violent figures. They are also lazy characters. In “The Bachelor”, the speaker’s father is most of the time absent, playing cards, “though it was something we could not afford, being heavily in debt” (57). In “The Rug”, the narrator’s father is portrayed as “foolish” and “idle” (199); he is always sick and consequently useless at home (200). In “A Scandalous Woman”, it is Eily’s mother the one who has to go into town to draw her husband’s pension (242). O’Brien’s mothers are also represented as non-idealized figures, challenging the conventional view of maternity sponsored by nationalism and the Church. In “My Mother’s Mother”, the speaker’s idealization of her mother is counteracted by the cold attitude she encounters when returning home after a long stay at her grandmother’s house: “All I thought was that the homecoming was not nearly as tender as I hoped it would be, and there was no embrace and no reunion” (32). Similarly, in “The Doll”, the speaker’s mother is presented as an imperfect, limited character. Suffering from constant “dizziness and suffocations” (51), she is unable to help the narrator when she is constantly bullied by the teacher at her school. Therefore, the protection that the family could afford her is thwarted: “Everyone agreed that it was monstrous, but no one talked to the teacher, no one tackled her. The truth is, they were afraid of her” (51). In this sense, O’Brien questions the sacred institution of the family by disrupting its portrayal as an idealized unit between a devoted, selfless mother and a protective, responsible father. If the mother exerts any agency at all in these stories, this is entirely dedicated to support the androcentric system of the community. In “The Bachelor”, for instance, the speaker’s mother acts as a repressive figure, complicit with the saturated community in her secret arrangement of her daughter’s marriage with Jack Holland, the owner of a wine shop. Overall, and as Thomson (2003:198) asserts, O’Brien “undermines the sanctity of the family by exposing its dysfunctions, highlighting its subsequent disintegration, and showing its repressive and, therefore, debilitating effects on women’s psyches”. O’Brien’s negative portrayal of the family is also accompanied in her work by her scathing critique of marriage. Matrimony is portrayed as a prison for women, an institution which delimits their freedom and determines their lives of submission and service. As the protagonist of “A Rose in the Heart of New York” claims when thinking about her mother:
When she married she had escaped the life of a serving girl, the possible experience of living in some grim institution, but as time went on and the bottom drawer was emptied of its gifts, she saw that she was made to serve in an altogether other way. (O’Brien 2008:376)
94 PILAR VILLAR ARGÁIZ
Furthermore, O’Brien disrupts the ideal institution of marriage by describing mothers and fathers who should never have married. In “The Small-Town Lovers”, for instance, the Donnellys marriage turns out to be destructive for both husband and wife. At first sight, Jack and Hilda are identified by everyone in the village as an ideal couple, and as such they are called “the town lovers” (339). Their matrimony is, to the outside, a flawless relationship exhibiting true love: “It astonished everyone how they had not got bored with one another” (340); they were “a model couple, known to love one another, not to eat meat on Friday” and “to pay more than enough for their church dues” (341). Nevertheless, their marriage is not as ideal as it seems. To start with, the narrator’s mother gradually discovers, through her friendship with Hilda, that their marriage is unhappy (345). Furthermore, various events later unfold in the story: there is a strong suspicion that Jack has killed his wife with the gun he hid at home (348); towards the end of the story he does not appear at the wake and funeral of his wife (349-350), and he sexually seduces the narrator, who is just a girl at the time. This deconstruction of matrimony as a sanctified institution is emphatically illustrated at the end of the story by the portrayal of Hilda and Jack’s house, covered by dust and shadows. In this sense, and overall, it could be arguably claimed that O’Brien portrays a rural Irish community constructed upon the foundations provided by nationalism, religion, and the institutions of the family and marriage. Her female characters feel oppressed by the force exerted by all these institutions. By stressing the emotional paralysis and entrapment of these women, O’Brien denounces the pervasive influence, in the Ireland of the 1940s and 1950s, of traditional passive and subservient images of femininity (i.e. the Virgin Mary and Cathleen Ní Houlihan).
REFERENCES
Barros del Río, M.A. 2005, “Nombrar lo innombrable: Mujeres y literatura en Irlanda”, in I. Praga Gerente (ed.). La novela irlandesa del siglo XX. Barcelona: PPU, 69-110. Cleary, J. 2004, “Toward a materialist-formalist history of twentieth-century Irish literature”. Boundary2, 31(1): 207-241. Colletta, L. and M. O’Connor (eds.) 2006, “Introduction”. Wild colonial girl: Essays on Edna O'Brien. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 3-13. Cooke, R. 2011, “Edna O’Brien: A writer’s imaginative life commences in childhood”, interview The Observer, 6 February 2011.
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Glowacka, D. (ed.) 2006, “Community and the work of death: Thanato-ontology in Hannah Arendt and Jean-Luc Nancy”. Community. Culture machine Vol. 8. Open Humanity Press, 2006.
CHANGES IN IDEOLOGY IN MARGARET DRABBLE’S FICTION
CELIA M. WALLHEAD Universidad de Granada
I have chosen to contribute to this homage to Dr. María Luisa Dañobeitia with an essay on English writer Margaret Drabble for three reasons. Drabble was born just a few months before María Luisa, so they are of an age. Secondly, Drabble came to the University of Granada and visited us at the Department of English and German in 1994. Thirdly, and most pertinently, María Luisa has always been interested in women’s writing or writing about women, which is one of the focuses of Drabble’s fiction and critical writing. Author of seventeen novels to date, also short fiction and journalistic writing, Drabble was successful with her very first novel, A Summer Bird Cage (1963), written at the tender age of twenty-three. Her more mature focus was brought to bear on English Literature in 2000, when, to great acclaim, she made the first major revision of the Cambridge Companion to English Literature. We hope that her creative and critical corpus is far from closed.
MARGARET DRABBLE: CHRONICLER, MORALIST, ARTIST
The title of this section is that of Mary Rose Sullivan’s chapter on Drabble in British Women Writing Fiction (Sullivan 2000:191–212). From the first novel, which made her name:
[…] each successive novel has been eagerly greeted, both by women who felt they had found a spokeswoman for their concerns and expectations and by a wider audience who found in her a chronicler of modern consciousness, a George Eliot of contemporary Britain (ibid.:191).
Thus Drabble is a chronicler, and she is a chronicler on the large scale: as Penelope Lively indicated, her work will be a “godsend” for future social historians (Lively 1980:61-62), her trilogy (1987–1992) alone giving us a “panoramic view of British social life in the 1980s” (Sullivan 2000:193). But she is also the chronicler of the intimate, “most mundane aspects of domesticity” (ibid.:194). Apparently however, she did not set out with these two goals as part 98 CELIA M. WALLHEAD of her plan to become a successful novelist. In the later years of the century, feminists, particularly, have expressed their disappointment in the direction her work has taken:
Feminists, who wanted to regard her as one of their own, were dismayed by an increasingly ambivalent attitude toward women’s issues in Drabble’s 1970s novels and her virtual abandonment of the feminist cause by the 1980s. (ibid.:191)
Her reply on this as told to Sullivan was that:
[…] she writes not to provide a blueprint for women’s lives but to explore her own experiences, experiences that confirm her sense that our freedom to choose is limited and that the curious workings of fate, or coincidence, are inescapable. (ibid.:191-192)
The word “choice” is important here, as it forms a crucial part of her philosophy of art: “art is moral as well as aesthetic, being intimately connected with our judgements of life” (ibid.:194). In her championing of the moral aspect of art, she and her sister, A.S. Byatt, follow in the steps of their admired model, Iris Murdoch, who refused to allow Postmodernism’s rejection of metanarratives and single views and perspectives to deny an artist’s right to deal in issues that concern matters of right and wrong, however clear-cut, or alternatively fuzzy, they might be. Sullivan sets out Drabble’s beliefs concerning an individual’s needs and responsibilities towards the world at large: “One must first come to terms with the past; second, reach out beyond the self to connect with another; and last; respond to larger social and communal needs” (ibid.:195). Drabble creates characters who allow her an interplay on this theme of the individual in relation to the group or mass:
So often, her novels end in tragedy, and this is because her protagonists fail to observe these three requirements. Thus there is a moral conclusion concerning the success or failure to base one’s life on a related tripartite combination: the need for choice, compromise, and commitment. (ibid.)
In her 1995 work Tiempo de Mujeres, Pilar Hidalgo singles out Drabble’s The Middle Ground (1980) as a pioneer in typical postfeminist themes and situations. As Sullivan says, it “is less pessimistic about England’s social climate but more so about the situation of women in general” (ibid.:198). Its heroine, Kate Armstrong, has overcome obstacles like lack of a formal education, a failed marriage and an unwanted pregnancy, and in her mid-life crisis realises that she is no longer so passionate and radical in her feminist convictions as other friends or famous writers. Since in Western countries the most offensive forms of discrimination against women have been eliminated, some women writers reveal impatience with radical feminism (Hidalgo 1995:192–194). In this essay, I take the 1980s questioning of feminist ideals by Margaret Drabble as a starting point to study her ideas on the future of the woman question
CHANGES IN IDEOLOGY IN MARGARET DRABBLE’S FICTION 99 as formulated in her subsequent trilogy: The Radiant Way (1987), A Natural Curiosity (1989) and The Gates of Ivory (1991), as well as in The Witch of Exmoor (1996). But I begin with a consideration of Drabble as an inheritor of the “Condition of England” novel, as she shows in her late twentieth-century work that the moral and physical deterioration of English society has come to the forefront, taking over from women’s problems. However, the protagonists are all female and, like their creator, middle-aged, so in these novels women’s problems, while no longer privileged, are very far from being neglected, and we could say that global problems are seen from a mature woman’s point of view. As the 1960s and 1970s Women’s Movement and its protagonists grew to middle age, a reconsideration was made of many issues, recognising a new complexity. Core issues of feminist theory – institutions, the canon, conflict, the body, subjectivity and desire – within a male-female orientation involving sexuality, power, violence, political representation, class and discourse, are all either overtly or covertly included in Drabble’s representation of English life in Thatcher’s Britain of the 1980s and also after Thatcher in the early 1990s. Through portraying many examples of ordinary women, she finds herself working at the interface of theory and practice.
DRABBLE AND THE “CONDITION OF ENGLAND” NOVEL
In his recent editing of Drabble’s short fiction (Drabble 2011), José Francisco Fernández Sánchez comments in his Introduction on Drabble’s classification as an exponent of the social realist tendency in fiction:
It has to be said that Margaret Drabble has never disowned the tradition of the social realist novel and has always admitted the powerful influence on her work of the great English novelists of the nineteenth century, like George Eliot. She has often stated that in her writing she is arguing back, continuing their story. (ibid.:xviii)
The exponents of the Victorian “Condition of England” concept tended to be men: we think of the essays of such as Matthew Arnold, Walter Bagehot and John Stuart Mill, or the novels of Dickens which analyse the social evils of the day, Hard Times and Little Dorrit, or Disraeli’s novel Sybil and Anthony Trollope’s serial novels set in the fictitious “Barsetshire”. But some of the poets were female, Elizabeth Barrett Browning for example, and women novelists like the Brontë sisters covered these topics: Charlotte contributed Shirley and Villette, and Emily Wuthering Heights. We have already mentioned George Eliot (Marian Evans) and her Middlemarch, but Mrs Gaskell’s North and South is also grouped in this sub-genre. In these latter novels, the main protagonist is a woman who has to struggle against all the normal problems that a person who leads an active life may encounter, as well as the specific problems that arise out of her condition as
100 CELIA M. WALLHEAD a woman. Some of these novels also include the added factor of class, which is a question that Drabble is continuously fascinated by. In Middlemarch, for example, Dorothea Brooke is an upper-middle-class woman who is full of energy, resources and good will, but has to find an outlet and an ambit for action for that social goodwill that will not be frowned upon by her class. Here, Eliot analyses the situation of such a woman at a given historical moment, forty years earlier: just before the Reform Bill of 1832, a law which was to give the vote to the lower orders, but not yet to women. The legal rights of women and their demands, as well as their obligations and social aspirations, as we see them in the novel, reflect the state of affairs about six years before the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1837. But they are just as relevant for the society that read Middlemarch when it was published in 1872, since the legal emancipation of women had not yet been formally achieved. There is a certain symmetry between the Victorian “Condition of England” novel and the (far less full-blown) version of the second half of the twentieth century. Victoria came indirectly to the throne in 1837, as did Elizabeth II in 1952. Although she inherited the throne from her father, King George VI, he was not expecting to reign, but was precipitated onto the throne through the abdication of his brother, King Edward VIII. Victoria reigned over a country that enjoyed an unprecedented period of peace after the Napoleonic Wars; Elizabeth reigned after the Second World War. It remains to be seen whether Elizabeth II will beat Victoria’s record of sixty-four years on the throne. The changes that followed the trauma of the Second World War and their impact on British society were first recorded in the 1950s and 1960s by established writers such as Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Powell, C.P. Snow and Lawrence Durrell. They embarked on long novels, often of various volumes, that minutely scrutinised such transformations. In 1956, a younger writer, Angus Wilson, published a novel, Anglo-Saxon Attitudes, in which he attempted to analyse what it is, or was then, to be English. This appeared to be a modern version of the traditional Victorian panorama of national life, as it looked at an English person’s status, and within that, his or her beliefs, moral positions, desires and hypocrisies. The novel had an immediate impact on both male and female writers, especially those who inherited a liberal tradition and sought in their work to continue in the path of their Victorian forebears, who had focused upon moral issues of right and wrong in their story-telling, views of the morality of social issues which did not exclude the position of women. Novelists and critics such as Malcolm Bradbury, but especially philosopher/novelist Iris Murdoch, were to keep the flame alive for this type of novel. The right of place of moral considerations in fiction and, indeed, in art in general, was challenged by the new tendency of Postmodernism. If Postmodern theorists claimed that there were no longer any meta-narratives or essential truths, then those writers who insisted on pursuing and finding them, then recommending them in their fiction, were considered old-fashioned. José
CHANGES IN IDEOLOGY IN MARGARET DRABBLE’S FICTION 101
Francisco Fernández has shown how Margaret Drabble, in defending the tradition, risked getting herself branded and placed in a slot from which she could not extricate herself: One of course should not underestimate the power of a perfectly balanced syntactic structure: “I’d rather be at the end of a dying tradition, which I admire, than at the beginning of a tradition which I deplore”. This statement, casually expressed by Drabble in a radio programme when she was a beginning writer, and later reproduced in Bernard Bergonzi’s The Situation of the Novel (1970), has done much to pigeonhole her as a writer out of touch with fresh winds of change in the English novel, and this stamp has been difficult to rub off (Drabble 2011:xix). But she has been innovative, as Fernández points out, “in form and theme” (ibid.:xviii-xix), and in terms of the justification of moral considerations in fiction, she has been vindicated. The so-called “moral turn” or return to ethics in the last decade of the century, particularly under the impact of trauma writing, has been shown to be not only permissible, but also recommended. 1 Past traumas should not be forgotten, and in remembering them, it is impossible to be detached and impartial. Even if the traumas recreated are not the recreations of real historical suffering, as with the Holocaust victims, imagined suffering still bears the traces of the original traumas. In the light of a more general malaise or suffering, then, for some of these characters, and indeed their creator, the theories of Second-wave feminists are no longer in tune with reality. In order to work through this problematic, Drabble uses images that indicate disorder in the individual and in society at large. They are images of conflict (paralysis and paradox); of insecurity (shifting ground); even of rupture in the form of an image used by Iris Murdoch in one of her novels: the severed head.
DISORDER IN SOCIETY AND IN THE INDIVIDUAL
Paralysis and paradox
Always at the forefront of tendencies in her criticism and journalistic writing, Drabble was not caught on the wrong foot when the turn or return to the consideration of moral issues began to be felt. Indeed, she had never turned away. But she was to dedicate her fictional writing in the last two decades of the century – from The Middle Ground, through the trilogy, to The Witch of Exmoor– to the consideration of complex moral problems facing people, especially women, in the new liberal climate of the “posts”: post-postwar, where the war was forgotten and new wars had emerged, albeit not in Britain; post-
1. See Miller, J. Hillis (1987); Adamson, Freadman and Parker (1998); Garber, Hanssen and Walkowitz (2000); and Arizti and Martínez-Falquina (2007).
102 CELIA M. WALLHEAD feminism, and the problematic Postmodernism. In her mid-life crisis, Kate Armstrong, protagonist of The Middle Ground, realises that the clear-cut ideas of her youth, which were based vaguely, without any reference to ideology, upon freedom and progress for women, are far too simplistic for her more worldly- wise middle-aged self. This novel is a good example of Elaine Showalter’s “female” phase, in that the protagonist undergoes a discovery of the self in the post-1960s new stage of awareness. But this discovery of the self is not uniquely orientated to the male-female dichotomy, but to the position of the individual in the specific culture of 1980s Britain. Another factor is that, as with her sister, novelist A.S.Byatt, the female protagonists tend to age with their author and therefore reflect their more mature outlook. Kate Armstrong’s problem with ideology and orientation leads to a halt in the pattern of her life, a loss of direction which she refers to as a “paralysis” (The Middle Ground:182). In fact, Drabble’s mature heroines of 1970s novels, The Realms of Gold (1975) and The Ice Age (1977), have suffered this paralysis, finding no more meaning in life when their specifically female roles have come to an end. The realisation that she has oversimplified things, not only for herself but for millions of others (she is a famous writer in women’s magazines), and the horror of the responsibility of this leads Kate to a second realisation: she is as guilty of turning woman into a commodity as any of the men she has attacked in her columns for converting woman into a sex object. She has purveyed opinions for money, and Drabble uses imagery of disease to convey Kate’s distaste: “epidemic”, “inflamed”, “raw membrane” and “swollen organs” (The Middle Ground:107). Her anger is directed at herself and at examples of the feminist canon, referring covertly to Marilyn French’s The Women’s Room as “a novel of shit and string beans” (ibid.:60) She is not alone in these discoveries. In the subsequent trilogy, where certain characters become obsessed with the idea of discovering the truth about evil as a possible source for the man-woman conflict, at least one of these characters, the writer Stephen Cox in The Gates of Ivory, draws the same conclusions, namely that simplicity implies exclusion of truth. Kate learns to adapt to change and has to overcome certain disappointments and disillusionments before she can find her path in the new situation. By the early 1980s, she has accepted that the “dream of the sixties” (The Middle Ground:53), with its ideals of the egalitarian millennium, security, opportunity, prosperity, freedom of speech and expression for women as well as men, has not and will not be achieved. Two events assure her of this. The first is a visit to her old school, where she finds that things have not changed much. The power of class distinction was too much even for the feminists (The Middle Ground:155-156). The context of a visit to one’s old school has been used by other writers who refer to the 1980s as a period of disappointment, for example, Fay Weldon in Growing Rich (1992). The second event which makes Kate stop and think is the failure of her attempt to make a film about women’s lives. She had not been able to draw any general
CHANGES IN IDEOLOGY IN MARGARET DRABBLE’S FICTION 103 conclusions, and it became obvious that the male cameramen were turning the session into an opportunity to “paint a picture of women’s innate conservatism and resistance to change” (ibid.:201). She personally finds change an effort, but comes to accept it along with diversity and difference of opinion; in fact, she finds relief in not having to look for the exemplary (ibid.:24). In giving up generalisations and misrepresentations, she emerges haltingly into the future with new aims: to be herself, not an attempt at the “ideal woman,” and to write about the particular and the true. By giving up the exemplary and embracing diversity, in her maturity she has come to recognise paradoxes in almost every important sphere of life. The contradictions that are worked out in this novel and continue either explicitly or implicitly into the trilogy are the following: marriage (“paradoxical”, ibid.:58); men (“progressive”/“unprogressive”, ibid.:73; “aggressive”/”superfluous”, ibid.:176); mothers (obsessive or neglectful, ibid.:121); existence of “the real woman” and “the real man” (ibid.:177); abortion (ibid.:67); America (ibid.:92); Britain in Europe (ibid.:107); Jews (ibid.:92-93); a racist play (ibid.:92); morals in the media (“New brutal journalism”, ibid.:93); the trivial and the frivolous (ibid.:109, 168); new developments in East London (ibid.:109); flexibility versus efficiency (ibid.:144); sibling rivalry (ibid.:131); segregated schools (ibid.:131); lesbians (supportive sisterhood / “a lot of female layabouts”, ibid.:229); Rastafarians (good/bad, ibid.:229). In both The Middle Ground and the trilogy, Drabble uses comparison with 1980s trouble spots of the world, the Lebanon and Cambodia respectively, to discuss Britain. After attending a play with Mujid, the Lebanese student staying at her house, and other friends among whom there are Jewish Americans, Kate notices at dinner that three separate conversations are taking place: one pro- Jewish, one on women and feminism and one on the Lebanon and Marxism. She concludes: “The ideologies of the late twentieth century mingled but did not mix” (The Middle Ground:99). The greatest change therefore in her thinking is that we should learn to live with mingling, since mixing is not yet possible. Her new viewpoint is basically shared by Liz, Alix and Esther.
The Radiant Way and shifting ground
In the trilogy, going on from paralysis and paradox, we have images of vicious circles instead of the straight and narrow path of “the radiant way”. The “Middle Ground” concept, while it continues to mean middle age and the perspectives of life from that vantage point, has here a political connotation, and that is the political centre. The trilogy is about the lives of three women who were friends at Cambridge. The most prosperous, the psychiatrist Liz Headleand, tends to be most right-wing. But the other two, the art historian Esther Breuer
104 CELIA M. WALLHEAD and the sociologist Alix Bowen, remain faithful to their youthful left-wing principles. Alix’s parents shift to the middle ground, joining the SDP (Social Democrat Party) and later the Greens (The Radiant Way:250), since they have lost their allegiances to the disorganised Left (at a low point under Neil Kinnock and before the “New Left” of Tony Blair) and cannot stomach Thatcherism. Margaret Thatcher herself represents paradox: “a woman prime minister who was in fact a mother but was not nevertheless thereby motherly” (ibid.:17). Everything is in flux in Thatcher’s Britain, and women who hoped a woman prime minister might bring a better deal for women were soon disillusioned. Under Thatcher, women did not lose ground in their demands for rights, but they did not advance either, they were on unstable ground. From the vantage point of the second decade of the twenty-first century, we have to admit that Margaret Thatcher has been re- evaluated in the light of the economic crisis of the times and has been vindicated by some for her economic principles, if not her feminist ones. Change itself is often traumatic. Early in The Radiant Way the narrator says:
The conventions were changing, assumptions were changing, though not everybody was to enjoy or to survive the metamorphosis, the plunge, the leap into water or air; change is painful, transition is painful […]. (ibid.:33)
The most painful change in this novel is Liz Headleand’s having to come to terms with the fact that she is an “abandoned wife”. She thought she was a modern, emancipated woman, but as her friend Alix says: “It’s not as simple as that,” and discusses the “complications in the sex lives of emancipated women today” (ibid.:373). Women’s Liberation seems suddenly to be bringing disadvantages instead of advantages. Alix works in the prisons, and changes are felt there too:
Women prisoners have traditionally been treated differently from male offenders, but Alix can see the possibility of a backlash of anti-feminism, a new harshness, a new “equality” on the horizon. (ibid.:185)
Liz Headleand finds there is little to insulate her from vulnerability and distress when her marriage comes to an end, and uses the phrase “shifting terrain” (ibid.:137). She is obliged to admit that she does not stand on “solid ground”, and Alix doubts what Liz’s daughter Sally says about the “brave new world of matriarchy” (ibid.:391). Liz is not convinced, as for her and for many other women, excluding the man means evading rather than solving the problem of the relations between the sexes. But if change is voluntary and slow, it need not be traumatic. Liz’s husband Charles Headleand is the traitor of the piece, as he gradually changes from being left-wing as a student at Cambridge, talking about the brotherhood of man and becoming famous in the late fifties and sixties for his “punchy social-conscience
CHANGES IN IDEOLOGY IN MARGARET DRABBLE’S FICTION 105 documentaries” (ibid.:118). Twenty years later he is a very different man. The Radiant Way is the title of a film series he made on education when the Labour government brought in comprehensive schools, thus attempting to put an end to elitist education. He got the title from a primary school reader in which he first learned to read, so these two “radiant ways” are hopeful. Only the “Radiant Way” of the novel title is disappointed and ironic. Charles himself has gone through managerial and executive posts in the 1970s, to emerge into the 1980s as the opposite of his younger, idealist self. The vicious circle of revolution-complacency-revolution that Marxists diagnose is seen clearly in Charles. At different points of the narrative of The Radiant Way, the narrator suggests various, often paradoxical possibilities. One such example concerns the miners’ strike:
The miners went on holidays by the Black Sea. […] The miners ate well in soup kitchens, on food parcels from rich Marxists in the Home Counties. The babies of miners suffered acute malnutrition. Miners beat their wives. The wives of miners stood bravely on picket lines. (ibid.:343)
Perhaps all of these views are paradoxically true at one and the same time, so the protagonists of The Radiant Way come to the same conclusion as Kate Armstrong: you cannot make generalisations, and different perspectives offer different views. Perhaps in youth, one wants to see things from only one perspective, but true maturity means the acceptance of alternatives.
The severed head: nature versus culture
Like Charles, Mrs Thatcher is seen as a traitor to her country, especially in her alliance with the United States: “The portrayal of Cartimandua of the Prime Minister, duplicitous Britannia, striking deals with a powerful America, abandoning the ancient culture of her own folk” (A Natural Curiosity:3). In this novel, Drabble delves into the ancient Celtic traditions of Britain in an attempt to find reasons for what is going wrong with the country. Alix Bowen begins to study the “Horror of Harrow Road”, Paul Whitmore, a serial killer; she at first finds “No obvious hatred of women, no Ripper-like despising of prostitutes” (ibid.:6). She had Utopian dreams of a world without violence, murder or aggression, achieved through good nurture (ibid.:25), but Liz, the psychiatrist, is far more sceptical, again believing such a view “simplistic” (ibid.). As it happens, it turns out to be true: Paul Whitmore was mistreated by his mother as a child. Alix’s discovery of Paul’s trauma at the hands of his mother turns the novel, like the rest of the trilogy, into a quest for truth undertaken by several of the characters. At least four characters are following their “natural curiosity”, even though it is a form of intrusive voyeurism. Alix wonders if it is a natural and inherent tendency to want to look at the dead Marat and the severed
106 CELIA M. WALLHEAD heads of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette at Madame Tussauds or view Gary Gilmore in the electric chair (ibid.:65). She encourages Whitmore in his curiosity about the Celtic religion, with its savage rites in the worship of gods. Liz puts Whitmore’s fascination with beheading his victims down to the castration complex, but Alix wonders if, rather than a Freudian explanation, it requires an explanation from history, a natural, deep-rooted, violent tendency that is not necessarily sexual: “As the cross is to Christianity, so the severed head to the Celtic religion” (ibid.:165). Several severed heads figure in the novel, including a reference to Iris Murdoch’s eponymous novel of 1961, A Severed Head. In The Witch of Exmoor the fetish is a severed hand. The old saying “Curiosity killed the cat” is quoted (A Natural Curiosity:203), and for Stephen Cox, the quest for knowledge and truth ends in death: “We pursue the known unknown, on and on, beyond the limits of the known world […] The fatal curiosity? When we see the Gorgon face to face, we die” (ibid.:212). Alix narrowly escapes death at the hand of Whitmore’s mother. Charles and Liz Headleand’s quests also place them in danger. Liz finds Cox irreparably lost, and her privileged status allows her to be evacuated from Cambodia suffering from toxic shock (The Gates of Ivory:399) caused by leaving an old tampon in too long. Drabble had brought up the question of women’s basic sanitary needs earlier in the novel, by mentioning that in Cambodia’s rejection of outside aid and progress, it had condemned its womenfolk to menstruate without any protection whatsoever (ibid.:153). Cox discovered that Pol Pot’s utopian dream was not only impossible to realise but sadistic towards his people. It represents the “Bad Time” the East was experiencing in the 1980s, as opposed to the “Good Time” the West was experiencing (Sullivan 2000:202). José Francisco Fernández, editor of Drabble’s fourteen short stories (Drabble 2011), has noted thematic links between some of the novels and certain stories. In this case, he suggests a link between The Gates of Ivory and the story “The Caves of God” (1999):
Liz Headleand was not able to find Stephen Cox, the man who could have been her lover, in the jungle of Cambodia in The Gates of Ivory (1991), but the interested reader has an opportunity to imagine how such a meeting would have fared in “The Caves of God”, when Hannah Elsevir finally finds her ex-husband Peter, or rather, the reincarnation of her husband, in Turkey. (ibid.:xiv)
In a way, both accounts are like reversals of the man in search of his lost (female) love that we encounter in Michael Ondaatje’s 1992 The English Patient. The woman has found herself in the role of the powerful one, the questing hero(ine), while the man has lost his power. Thus at the end of the trilogy, Drabble seems to suggest that privileged people should address themselves to the basic needs and rights of women, indeed all people, in a world-wide context. The unstopped blood of the helpless
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Cambodian women cut off from progress is similar to the blood of the severed heads of serial killers. CONCLUSIONS
In conclusion, Drabble suggests that evil must be sought out and fought against, and both men and women must be on the alert for regression, a losing of the ground gained. Gender-specific paradigms are being revised by writers such as Drabble through the bringing into prominence of other forms of difference such as class, race or nationality. Drabble warns against the ivory tower syndrome of academe (The Witch of Exmoor:269), hoping that theory will not be separated from practice. She also discusses “cultural appropriation”, advocating a middle ground in delicate issues. We feel that she is neither with “[t]hese women who don’t want men taking up feminism” (ibid.:55), nor is she with the selfishly exploitative of anything. “The Middle Ground” is an appropriate symbol of common sense attitudes like Drabble’s. Thus in her novels, Drabble has tried to paint a portrait of Great Britain in the second half of the twentieth century, placing women in different positions and exploring their problems and reactions. The great scope covered by Drabble’s fictional works enables us to appreciate how the roles of women have changed, and how the middle-class educated woman has pondered her situation and shifted in order to locate herself in a correct and comfortable position not only on a national but a global scale.
REFERENCES
Adamson, J., R. Freadman and D. Parker (eds.) 1998, Renegotiating ethics in literature, philosophy, and theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Arizti, B. and S. Martínez-Falquina (eds.) 2007, On the turn: The ethics of fiction in contemporary narrative in English. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Drabble, M. 1963, A Summer Bird Cage. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Drabble, M. 1980, The Middle Ground. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Drabble, M. 1987,The Radiant Way. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Drabble, M. 1989, A Natural Curiosity. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Drabble, M. 1991, The Gates of Ivory. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Drabble, M. 1996, The Witch of Exmoor. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Drabble, M. 2011, A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman: Complete short stories. J.F. Fernández (ed.) Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Garber, M., B. Hanssen and R.L. Walkowitz (eds.) 2000, The turn to ethics. New York: Routledge. Hidalgo, P. 1995, Tiempo de mujeres. Madrid: Horas y Horas. Lively, P. 1980, “New novels”. Encounter, 55:61–62. Miller, J.H. 1987, The ethics of reading. New York: Columbia University Press.
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Murdoch, I. 1976 [1961], A Severed Head. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Sullivan, M.R. 2000, “Margaret Drabble: Chronicler, moralist, artist” in Abby H.P.Werlock (ed.). British women writing fiction. Tuscaloosa and London: University of Alabama Press, 191–212. Weldon, F. 1992, Growing Rich. London: Flamingo (Harper Collins). Wilson, A. 1956, Anglo-Saxon Attitudes. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
MI MANUAL DE HISTORIA SOÑADO. “I’VE HAD A DREAM”: LA OBRA DE RUDOLFO ANAYA AL SERVICIO DE LA HISTORIOGRAFÍA DE SU TIERRA
NATHALIE BLÉSER POTELLE Universidad de Granada
Este artículo, cuyo inicio toma prestado el universo onírico propio de la producción literaria anayana, pretende mostrar las cualidades que la convierten en cantera perfecta para presentar la historia de la comunidad de Nuevo México. Efectivamente, aunque hoy se da mayor importancia a la historia de la comunidad chicana de los Estados Unidos a través de los diversos programas universitarios dedicados a los estudios ‘étnicos’, consideramos que sigue faltando un mayor reflejo de la historia de las minorías en la enseñanza de la historia norteamericana a niños y jóvenes. Para ello, varias de las obras del novo-mexicano Rudolfo Anaya parecen ofrecer el mejor abanico de opciones para una enseñanza novedosa de la historia en un mainstream que abra un poco más las puertas de acceso de sus minorías a la Historia en mayúsculas. Pretendemos demostrar qué se puede hacer con la ayuda de los textos de Anaya, un autor que honra como nadie a los grandes nombres de su tierra encantada.
La otra noche tuve un sueño: me vi en la piel de una niña de siete años, alumna de escuela de Nuevo México, muy alejada de la tierra de mis orígenes belgas. En el universo del sueño, un tal Rudy, aparentemente mi mejor amigo, estaba sentado a mi lado. Mientras atendíamos a nuestra maestra, Rudy me regaló un dibujo precioso. Se trataba de un superhéroe envuelto en una capa de color sangre y oro, a quien (creo recordar) había llamado mi primo Sonny el coyote. Sonny blandía una gran pluma negra con la que luchaba contra alguien llamado mi tío Sam el cuervo. Este Sam me impresionó: llevaba una gran capa negra, un pañuelo rojo en el cuello y una chistera azul y blanca, decorada con estrellas. Con cara de pocos amigos, perilla larga, cejas y pelo canosos, apuntaba a Sonny con el índice. Estábamos en clase de historia y le pedí a Rudy que lo comentáramos después de la lección. No quería perderme la explicación de la maestra, la señorita Alistar N. Stripes. Hablaba de la llegada de los pilgrim fathers a América. “Se les llama padres peregrinos”, dijo la señorita, “porque con 110 NATHALIE BLÉSER POTELLE el final de su larga travesía se inicia la historia de nuestro gran y bello país”. Fue entonces cuando Rudy me dio su dibujo. En el bocadillo en blanco junto a la boca de Sam el cuervo había añadido una frase; “I want your History”, decía éste, amenazando a Sonny el coyote. Al salir de clase le pregunté a Rudy qué significado tenía todo esto, y me contestó que había escrito esas palabras en el bocadillo porque no le gustaba la clase de historia de la señorita Stripes. Allí nunca oía nada de lo que le contaba su bisabuelo acerca del pasado de su familia, una de las más antiguas del estado. Era como si los “padres de la nación”, a quienes Rudy imaginaba como clones de Sam el cuervo, escenificaran las lecciones de la maestra sólo para impedirle mencionar los relatos familiares de Rudy. Pero él amaba escuchar a su bisabuelo, y estaba seguro de que el anciano decía la verdad. Por ello había imaginado una lucha por la Historia entre superhéroes de mentirijilla. Cuando le pregunté que me explicara los nombres de sus héroes, Sam y Sonny, dijo que así le habían salido, sin que supiera muy bien el porqué. “Bueno, dijo, creo que vi la letra S donde primero había dibujado una serpiente, o más bien un sendero serpenteante”. Intrigada, quise pisar el sendero imaginario de Rudy para adentrarme en el mundo que había creado en el papel, pero la S del camino se convirtió en una serpiente que, de repente, se irguió en un rayo de sol tan potente que me despertó del sueño. Rudy mi amigo, Sonny el coyote y Sam el cuervo, todos se habían desvanecido en el atrapasueños colgado de la cama.
Este sueño es mi particular metáfora de homenaje, mi muestra de gratitud hacia Rudy Anaya por la profundidad del mensaje que deja patente a lo largo de su producción. De sobra es sabido que ésta ha sido objeto de numerosos análisis basados en diversas pistas de reflexión, pero para este ensayo he querido centrarme únicamente en el aspecto histórico. Al reseñar dicha producción, algunos críticos sentenciaron que en las obras policíacas anayanas, había “too much History and not enough Mystery”. Puestos a buscar rimas impactantes, recuerdo haber pensado, al oír semejante veredicto, que “thinking about life’s Mystery, without digging into History, is doomed to Misery”. Es más, las obras anayanas son a mi juicio mucho más “misteriosas” que otras. Efectivamente, el verdadero objeto de búsqueda del detective anayano es remontar hacia los orígenes de la vida y la identidad de su comunidad, y veo en ello una aventura aún más palpitante que la simple resolución de un crimen de corte clásico, de todas formas presente en el formato anayano. El interés por la Historia no es pues mero entretenimiento nostálgico sino la clave para la supervivencia, tanto cultural como física. Como decía don Eliseo, el sabio vecino de mi superhéroe Sonny: “Lose the language, the threads of history, and the traditions, and the ways of your ancestors will disappear from the earth of la Nueva México” (SW:188; énfasis añadido). 1
1. A partir de este momento abreviaré los títulos de las novelas de Anaya con las siguientes iniciales: BMU (Bless me Ultima), ZS (Zia Summer), RGF (Rio Grande Fall) y SW (Shaman Winter).
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A mi juicio las páginas anayanas constituyen “threads of history”, hilos que tejen un gran entramado sobre el estado novo-mexicano para cubrirlo con una rica colcha histórica. Tomo prestada esta metáfora del propio autor, quien comparó ya Alburquerque con un abigarrado patchwork:
The city was an intricately patterned blanket, each color representing different heritages, traditions, languages, folkways, and each struggling to remain distinct, full of pride, history, honor, and family roots. (ZS:211-212)
Ahí aparece la gran preocupación de cada miembro de la comunidad: luchar (“struggling”) por preservar su orgullo, su honor, sus raíces y en definitiva, su historia. El tono bélico que ilustra tal actitud no es fruto del azar. Muchas veces, a lo largo de las páginas anayanas, aparece la idea de una lucha necesaria para poseer el privilegio de relatar su versión de los hechos:
History belongs to the conquerors. (SW:46). History also belongs to those who control it. (SW:48) We don’t honor our heroes, Sonny thought. Chicano heroes have been erased from the white man’s history. Forgotten. (ZS:299)
Veo la tarea de Rudolfo Anaya como un acto de resistencia contra el olvido sistemático de los grandes hitos y figuras de su comunidad, una reivindicación cultural que ha optado por “blandir las armas del enemigo”, para retomar una metáfora de Rey Chow (1993:22). La sutileza de la estrategia bélico-literaria reside en la elección de dichas armas; en vez de restablecer la balanza histórica a tiros o sablazos, el escritor pretende resistir a un posible “plumazo” con esta precisa arma. Aunque la pluma no es mortífera ni comparable con un artefacto de destrucción masiva, sí es lo bastante punzante como para poder cavarse un hueco en el monolito de la historiografía estadounidense, añadiendo, por qué no, a Oñate y de Vargas en un Mount Rushmore convertido en el espejo de El Morro novo-mexicano que por fin vería reflejada la cara de quien esculpió en su pared rocosa la frase-testigo de su “paso por ahí”. Con dicha pluma-estilete no se busca, ni mucho menos, matar al oponente, sino curarlo de una ceguera aguda y enseñarle que no está solo en el albero. Pues el objetivo final de la contienda es lograr que el mainstream abandone su visión única del relato histórico para albergar múltiples puntos de vista, entre los cuales se encuentra la visión chicana. Anaya incluso va más allá en la elección de las armas, al preconizar el uso de la pluma virtual escondida en los circuitos informáticos:
Ah Sonny thought, history glorifies those who write it. We need to arm ourselves with computers and write our history, our punto de vista. Why not curanderas armed with computers? (SW:280)
Vemos que para el autor la tradición no parece reñida con el progreso. De hecho, uno de los personajes de Shaman Winter reúne en su propia persona dos aparentes extremos temporales que conviven armoniosamente. Se trata de Cyber,
112 NATHALIE BLÉSER POTELLE un joven navajo experto en informática y realidad virtual. Es una muestra de la ecuación frecuente entre primeras naciones y últimas tecnologías. Cyber libra su particular batalla contra un nuevo tipo de “plumazo”: la destrucción de ficheros informáticos que, llevada a sus últimas consecuencias, puede significar la destrucción de un individuo:
Virtual criminals were real criminals, and Cyber was beginning to run into them. Now there were missing persons, and cyberspace was beginning to look like any other dictatorship in the world. The dictatorship of cyberspace was coming. The disappeared. Deleted files. Cyber’s missing dad. Others. (SW:273)
Este pasaje evoca la vigencia de un lema impactante: hay que renovarse o morir... Adaptarse a los tiempos, aunque el tiempo sea casi siempre una repetición cíclica. Por lo menos éste es un punto de vista personal que libro aquí para aportar un dato nuevo en la interpretación del sueño descrito al principio. Veo dos razones que explican el malestar de Rudy en clase de historia: una de ellas es el hecho de que no encuentra las marcas chicanas en un relato histórico anglo-centrista, y la otra, su necesidad de ver dicho relato escenificado en un medio más afín a los gustos de los niños, como son los cómics. Aunque tampoco estoy segura de que dicho medio sea esencialmente novedoso o exclusivamente contemporáneo. En efecto, ¿qué opinión se merecen, por ejemplo, los códices aztecas? Parece claro: la historia es perpetuo renacer, y precisamente por ello, para poder evolucionar, uno ha de conocer los caminos que llevan al relato de los orígenes. Lo decía ya el padre del joven Antonio en la primera novela de Rudolfo Anaya, Bless Me Ultima, cuando su hijo afirmaba sentir un potente vínculo con el pasado: “Ay, every generation, every man is a part of his past. He cannot escape it, but he may reform the old materials, make something new” (BM:247). También en Bless Me Ultima alude Anaya a la presencia física que ejerce la historia en el cuerpo y la mente del joven Antonio:
I felt more attached to Ultima than to my own mother. Ultima told me the stories and legends of my ancestors. From her I learned the glory and the tragedy of the history of my people, and I came to understand how that history stirred in my blood. (BMU:123)
Tal vez fue la misma sensación de proximidad hacia sus mayores la que llevó al detective “Sonny” a seguir los pasos de su bisabuelo Elfego Baca. Además del viejo colt del sheriff, heredó el deseo del antepasado de corregir las injusticias, solo que Elfego junior también quiere luchar contra las injusticias propias de un relato histórico selectivo.
El Bisabuelo was Elfego Baca, the most famous lawman New Mexico ever produced. True, more people knew about Pat Garrett, the sheriff who killed Billy the Kid in old Fort Sumner on the night of July 14, 1881, but that was only because history wasn’t fair. Of the two sheriffs, Elfego Baca had been more
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interesting, more complex. Sonny felt a special kinship to his Bisabuelo. (ZS:3; énfasis añadido)
La presencia espiritual del bisabuelo de Sonny lo guía hacia un mayor interés y una mayor comprensión de los valores de la tradición que le inculca Don Eliseo, a quien considera su vínculo con la Historia:
Sonny thought of don Eliseo. The old man had said that when he died, the old culture of the Nuevo Mexicanos of the Río Grande valley would disappear. The young people just weren’t keeping up the traditions. Don Eliseo, a man in his eighties who knew the old ways, was a link to history, as was Lorenza Villa, who lived and practiced the old ways of curing the soul. (RGF:7-8; énfasis añadido)
Don Eliseo y Lorenza también son los encargados de enseñar a Sonny las vías que debe seguir para convertirse en chamán. Pero el aprendizaje es largo y ha de efectuarse desde los inicios de la historia tanto individual como colectiva. Cada nueva generación añade una “capa” sobre las bases que ya encontró, y muchos concuerdan en decir, como Vigil en su macrohistoria, que cuatro son las principales capas que forman el sedimento chicano. Según don Eliseo, cuatro también son los caminos que llevan al pasado individual: “There are four roots to a man’s history […] As there are four sacred directions from the Center. Four quadrants of the universe” (SW:37-38). He ahí la razón por la que Shaman Winter retrata a Raven, el cuervo carroñero enemigo inmemorial de Sonny, que desea acabar con el linaje de éste matando a sus cuatro abuelas. El mundo de los sueños es el campo de batalla elegido por Raven para tratar de aniquilar a Sonny a través de la historia con la que sueña. Efectivamente, durante su convalecencia Sonny vive en sueños unas aventuras que lo catapultan a momentos clave de la historia de Nuevo México, donde aprende a conocer a las ancianas de su linaje. Éstas representan las “capas” identitarias del estado, que han ido alimentando la fuente de los genes mixtos de un detective que así alardea de su rica sangre mestiza:
The Nuevo Mexicanos had been in the Río Grande for centuries, so Indian blood flowed in their veins. And lots of other genes, Sonny thought. Not only the history of Spain but the history of the Nile was his inheritance. In the summer when he tanned dark from swimming, some of his friends said he looked Arabic. Maybe he had a drop of Jewish blood, too, the legacy of the crypto Jews who came to New Mexico with the Oñate expedition centuries before. The Marranos, the Catholics called them. He probably also carried French-Canadian trapper blood, German merchant blood, Navajo, Apache, you name it, the Río Grande was the center of a trading route. Here a grand mestizo mixture took place. (ZS:5)
Nadie se extrañará entonces del nagual o “animal interior” que el escritor eligió para representar a su héroe Sonny en el inframundo: un coyote, mamífero que en Nuevo México también es sinónimo de los hijos fruto de matrimonios mixtos, como viene a corroborar la conclusión del precedente extracto: “All bloods ran as one in the coyotes of Nuevo Mexico” (ZS:5).
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Si todas las sangres confluyen en una, las cuatro vías del pasado también convergen en la actual identidad mixta de la región. A su vez, desde mi punto de vista historiográfico, muchas obras anayanas parecen apuntar al argumento central de Shaman Winter, como si todos los capítulos anteriores fuesen las distintas escenas de un relato final en el que encajarían como piezas de un gran puzle. De hecho, en Shaman Winter don Eliseo advierte a Sonny que debe edificar sus sueños históricos como si de una película o una obra teatral se tratara:
To enter your own dream, you had to set the stage, like in a movie or a play. Make yourself the principal actor. And it didn’t have to be Shakespeare, any damned stage would do. (SW:278)
Por ello quise que el Rudy de mi sueño fuese dibujante y guionista de una aventura entre dos héroes dignos de todos los superhombres habidos y por haber, sólo que cambian el disfraz de hombre-araña o murciélago por el de coyote y cuervo, porque el poder de su respectivo nagual será el único capaz de permitirles luchar en el inframundo.
“Raven has found a way to get into your dreams”. “Get into my dreams?” “This summer he tried to get you in his evil circle up in the mountain. He thought that in his nagual, as a raven spirit, he could destroy you. You met him with the power of your coyote spirit and took the Zia medallion from him. If he can’t kill you in this world, he will try to kill you in your dreams”. (SW:36-37)
Lorenza taught Sonny to enter the world of spirits by finding his nagual. Assuming the power of the coyote, he was able to meet Raven in his circle of evil. (SW:280)
Aunque Shaman Winter me parezca la obra más entregada a los sueños y la Historia, la casi totalidad de los escritos anayanos recurren a la temática onírica a la vez que escenifican numerosos momentos de la historia novo-mexicana. Es como si el escritor recreara un novedoso péplum, una superproducción literaria con impresionante reparto. Entre los numerosos actores están evidentemente protagonistas de la categoría de Oñate y sus tropas conquistadoras, Kearny y sus decisiones irrevocables u Oppenheimer y su obra destructora, pero comparten gustosos el escenario con muchos extras entre los cuales podemos citar a cibolleros, comancheros, indios nativos, codetalkers, Okies, pachucos, camellos, indigentes o granjeros. Al filo de los capítulos anayanos, el lector ve desplegarse ante sus ojos un gran cuadro histórico donde evoluciona una multitud de gente, que esbozan paulatinamente cuatro líneas convergentes, como batallones en formación antes del asalto. O tal vez dichas líneas sean las cuatro extremidades de una cruz cuyo punto de intersección es el campo de batalla, los rayos de un sol que apunta a los cuatro puntos cardenales, o en definitiva, el signo de Zia en la bandera novo-mexicana.
LA OBRA ANAYANA AL SERVICIO DE LA HISTORIOGRAFÍA DE SU TIERRA 115
En el péplum anayano el símbolo de Zia es emblema tanto de los “buenos” como de los “malos” de la película, pues todo es dualidad y ambos lados quieren ver triunfar su versión en el centro del sol, en la intersección de la cruz, en el círculo del inframundo donde lucharán Sonny y Raven. Con la ayuda de su nagual, Sonny se prepara para la última batalla en ese círculo maligno de Raven, utilizando las mismas armas que su oponente: los poderes chamánicos que éste utilizó para penetrar en los sueños históricos de Sonny y llevarse a una abuela tras otra. Luego Raven raptó a jóvenes del mundo real, haciendo así coincidir sueño y realidad. Nada más normal si recordamos lo que el gran Calderón de la Barca ya nos había dicho: la vida es sueño. Esta frase aparece textualmente en Shaman Winter (SW:14,138) o Rio Grande Fall (RGF:46) y la evocación del sueño para hablar del paso del tiempo ya estaba presente en la ópera prima de Anaya, Bless Me Ultima:
“Long ago,” she would smile, “long before you were a dream, before the train came to Las Pasturas, before the Lunas came to their valley, before the great Coronado built his bridge...” (BMU:40; énfasis añadido)
A lo largo de la epopeya anayana el lector aprende a descifrar el significado simbólico de los sueños y a intuir que pueden controlarse con el fin de acceder al otro lado del espejo, a un plano virtual que tiene una incidencia en la realidad.
“Haven’t I taught you”, the old man replied, “that the dreams of your ancestors are yours. The most power any person can acquire is to be master of his dreams, for that means he can travel in time to the world of spirits. That is the great power a man can have on earth. By entering your dream, Raven can travel to your past and destroy it”. “And thus destroy me?” Sonny whistled softly. He looked at Lorenza. She nodded. She agreed with don Eliseo. The world of spirits was the world of dreams, and Raven knew it well. Sonny had not yet mastered that world, so he was vulnerable. (SW:37)
Los raptos oníricos de las cuatro abuelas de Sonny tienen lugar en épocas significativas para el mestizaje característico de Nuevo México. Se producen en el momento en que las abuelas están a punto de casarse, para con esa unión ir tejiendo los lazos mixtos del linaje de Sonny, una clara alegoría del linaje novo- mexicano en su conjunto. Una abuela es india, otra es española, otra mexicana y la última novo-mexicana, y todas se dirigen, aunque desde cuatro rutas distintas, hacia la concepción de Sonny, al centro de un círculo donde el tiempo, mestizo y “manito”, está en eterno rehacer. La Historia se repite pues como una obra inmemorial a la que nuevos actores aseguran una eterna juventud, como la de todos los héroes del mundo de papel entre los que recuerdo a mi paisano Tintín, el reportero-detective cuyo autor aseguraba escribir para jóvenes de 7 a 77 años. He ahí una cifra altamente simbólica para el caso anayano, pues si el siete se corresponde con la última cifra del año de nacimiento de Rudolfo Anaya (1937), si siete son los hijos de su madre Rafaelita, y si siete años lo llevaron a la elaboración de su monumental
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ópera prima, el simbolismo también ve en la cifra siete las ramas del árbol chamánico, el fin de un ciclo y el inicio de otro, y la totalidad del espacio y del tiempo mediante la reunión del cuatro (símbolo de la tierra) con el tres (símbolo del cielo) (Chevalier y Gheerbrandt 1982:860-861). Ahora bien, en los rituales de los indios Pueblo, tierra y cielo vuelven a juntarse mediante un objeto presente en el dibujo de Rudy. Efectivamente, en muchos de los rituales amerindios en general, los hijos de la madre tierra apuntan al cielo con la pluma del ave para solicitar la fecundidad de la tierra y honrar a los antepasados y la naturaleza. Suelen considerar la pluma un vínculo entre ellos y el mundo de los espíritus, como son los sueños para don Eliseo. Para los indios Pueblo, estos sueños, si son buenos, se deslizan por otras plumas, las del dreamcatcher; y si son malos quedan atrapados en su red. Si pudiera infringir las reglas y apresar uno sólo de mis sueños buenos en la telaraña del objeto ritual, sería el que he descrito al principio. Quisiera verlo como una premonición de la próxima publicación de “mi manual de historia soñado”: un libro que presentaría cada acontecimiento novo-mexicano relevante como una nueva aventura del alter ego de un Spiderman o Tintín manito: Sonny el coyote, ese aprendiz de chamán que reconoce el carácter cíclico de la Historia a la vez que quiere integrar su versión de la misma en el relato oficial. Dividido en cuatro capítulos que representarían las principales épocas de la historiografía chicana de Vigil (precolonial, española, mexicana y estadounidense), las aventuras del coyote se leerían en las viñetas de un cómic nacido de la pluma anayana. Esta pluma sería evidentemente el obsequio de su héroe Sonny que logró arrancarla del rico plumaje de su contrincante Sam-Raven. Al cuervo del mainstream Sonny pidió que jurara no volver a ignorar a su comunidad, pronunciando una sola palabra: Nevermore... Con esa promesa en mente y la pluma del gran pájaro en mano, se podría luchar contra las zonas oscuras del inconsciente colectivo y reescribir los capítulos de una Historia que nunca más ignoraría a sus minorías culturales. Al final de las aventuras de Sonny volvería el dibujo del principio, sólo que enfocado desde un nuevo punto de vista. Pues si Sam el cuervo vuelve a apuntar a Sonny exigiéndole su historia, puede que esta vez no sea para desgarrarla, devorarla y escupirla sin miramientos, sino para beber de ella con una nueva sed de aprender de un pueblo que, acallado durante largo tiempo, suspira por recordar a sus conciudadanos que él también bordó algunas barras y estrellas en la bandera nacional... I’ve had a dream.
LA OBRA ANAYANA AL SERVICIO DE LA HISTORIOGRAFÍA DE SU TIERRA 117
118 NATHALIE BLÉSER POTELLE
REFERENCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS
Anaya, R. 1994 [1972], Bless Me Ultima. New York: Warner Books. Anaya, R. 1995, Zia Summer. New York: Warner Books. Anaya, R. 1997 [1996], Rio Grande Fall. New York: Warner Books. Anaya, R. 1999, Shaman Winter. New York: Warner Books. Carranza, A. 2000, Nahual, tu animal interior. Barcelona: Ediciones Abraxas. Chevalier, J. y A. Gheerbrant 1989 [1969], Dictionnaire des symboles (mythes, rêves, coutumes, gestes, formes, figures, couleurs, nombres). Paris: Editions Robert Laffont and Editions Jupiter. Chow, R. 1993, Writing diaspora: tactics of intervention in contemporary cultural studies. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. Hirschfelder, A. y P. Molin 1992, The encyclopedia of Native American religions. New York: MJF Books. Vigil, J.D. 1998, From Indians to Chicanos: the dynamics of Mexican-American culture. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press.
FOOD AND TASTE IN DETECTIVE STORIES 1
NIEVES PASCUAL SOLER Universidad de Jaén
Why do male detectives abstain from food? What happens when they take pleasure in eating? This essay makes two different points. The first is that sobriety facilitates reasoning. The second is that when detectives eat they pretend that they are not eating. There is also warrant for arguing that their different attitudes towards food respond to different investigatory procedures. The section on “Female palates” shows that in the genre of the culinary whodunit food alters the landscape of the detective formula by becoming the occasion of mystery and the tool that solves the enigma.
In The Sign of Four Arthur Conan Doyle describes his detective as “so excessively lean that he seemed considerably taller” (1981:19), giving readers to understand that he is not a voracious eater. Although there are some references to breakfast being laid for him and to his exquisite palate, the fact is that we rarely see Holmes munching. Holmes’s disinterest in food infects hard-boiled detectives, who eat little and badly. In this respect, Eric Rawson writes that “the normal rhythms of life are so disrupted by the call to action that the detective sleeps little, hardly eats or drinks except for whiskey and beer” (2009:297). The implication is that eating would consume the time needed to investigate. Of similar opinion is Jeff Siegel who observes that:
Times were when only American fictional detectives who thought about food were the ones who couldn’t decide whether to have an olive or an onion in their martini. The traditional hard-boiled, wise-cracking American private eye didn’t bother to eat […]. Food was something he skipped so that he would have more time to kick down doors. (1995:5)
1. This article is part of the research project "De boca en boca: Comida y transculturación" (P08- HUM-03956). My gratitude to the Junta de Andalucía for their financial support in sponsoring this project. 120 NIEVES PASCUAL SOLER
Yet there is more to it than that.
NO FOOD FOR THOUGHT
The bother of eating does take time, as Rawson and Siegel claim, but there are other reasons for skipping food. As it is, food celebrates community and by abstaining from his appetite the roman noir detective also abstains from social and emotional entanglements. He is “exceptional in his solitude”, says Rawson (2009:294), meaning that he “strikes out on his own, avoiding sentimental attachments or social obligations that might interfere with his work”. Obviously, sentimental attachments would taint his professionalism. Yet, it is important to stress that the hard-boiled detective does not skip all kinds of food. He does eat, not much and inevitably by himself, but mostly he skips healthy consumables. His preference for the wrong sort of food (read: junk food) indicates that a real detective does not mind what he eats or, to put it differently, has no sense of taste. This lack of taste connotes toughness and insensitivity, presupposes an iron stomach and is clearly linked to his capacity for taking, in the words of Rawson, “whatever the world dishes out” (2009:294), that is, without discriminating. In contrast, Holmes gives ample proof of a sophisticated palate, which Doyle takes great care to dissociate from the body and align with the mind. Like in the case of the American private eye, not-eating also enhances Holmes’s disaffectedness from the world, but is in no way prompted by lack of time and, most importantly, impels abstract speculation. Frequently Holmes is bored by “the dull routine of existence” (1981:90), which indicates his indifference to the passage of time. Put at its simplest, boredom leads to an increase of time, which flows more slowly than when it is filled with interesting contents. If boredom makes time acquire weightiness it also, within the same movement, makes the body lose it. Desmond Healy in Boredom, Self, and Culture equates boredom and hunger in the following manner: “Boredom is the equivalent not of nonhunger but of antihunger, indeed of a revulsion against the idea of eating, a psychic anorexia” (1984:60). In the light of this, it might be said that lurking behind Holmes’s abstinence lies the Platonic duality that dictates that in order to feed the mind the body needs to be starved or, which amounts to the same thing in this context, that the expression of taste requires the repression of the flesh. Note that the act of tasting is “to detect or distinguish [judge]” by taking “a small amount” into the mouth (“Taste”). Not in vain did Plato in The Republic argue that gluttony stupefied the hunger of the mind and recommended for the philosopher the sparse diet of Pythagoras (2000:55). Recognizing this fact does not mean, of course, that Chandler, Hammett and Spillane place a premium on matter, that they assert the primacy of the body over the mind or that their detectives do not think. Ultimately, their absence of palate means lack of physical discrimination and consequently presupposes the disentanglement of mind from appetite. Only their methods of investigation differ. FOOD AND TASTE IN DETECTIVE STORIES 121
Semiotician Charles Sanders Peirce distinguishes three methods of thought: induction, deduction and abduction. Induction leads to a hypothesis entirely based on data and starts with observation. Deduction involves the consequences of a hypothesis that prove it to be true, departs from a few axioms and includes scientific and logical demonstrations. Since Holmes, for whom science is the only acceptable evidence of truth, proceeds according to a priori logic, one can posit, in broad terms, that his method is deductive. Further, deduction is an unhurried act of meditation that involves judging whether the theorems that logically follow from the axioms about the inner workings of crime are good and demands no time to kick doors down. Simply put, in the deductive method, taste ― meaning logical recognition — is the authority. Observation, in contrast, is tasteless, indiscriminate or extensive in the sense that the more data gathered the more questions are answered in the shortest time. To an extent, the hard-boiled method, proceeding as it does by the authority of observation, is inductive.
TECHNO-TASTE
The third method is abduction, which Peirce defines as “nothing but guessing” (Sebeok and Umiker-Sebeok 1980:22). It comes to us “like a flash” (27), naturally and instinctively. Sebeok and Umiker-Sebeok explain that:
Abduction is an instinct which relies upon unconscious perception of connections between aspects of the world, or, to use another set of terms, subliminal communication of messages. It is also associated with, or rather produces, according to Peirce, a certain type of emotion, which sets it apart from either induction or deduction. (1980:28)
In this logic, emotion or sentimental attachment is necessary for abduction to happen. Although no rules of logic can be imposed on abduction, it proceeds rationally. It posits a scientific hypothesis, yet it constitutes no science. It seeks a theory, but is no theory. To clarify the terms on which abduction stands, Peirce resorts to a culinary metaphor: abduction is a “singular salad […] whose chief elements are its groundlessness, its ubiquity, and its trustworthiness” (Sebeok and Umiker-Sebeok 1980:23). When one performs an abduction one “absorbs [ingredients], digests them” as if s/he were eating (Peirce 2003). How, if not by abductive inference, can one account for Hercule Poirot’s sudden insight in The Mysterious Affair at Styles? Emily Inglethorp turns up dead in her own bed and Poirot is called to investigate. A few minutes after inspecting the room he resolves that she died from being poisoned with strychnine dissolved in her coffee. During the rest of the novel he will assemble the evidence that will prove his instinct right in the eyes of the others. If the equation abduction = eating is true, it is not surprising that one of Poirot’s most significant attributes is his gluttony for food, described delicately but firmly in Mrs McGinty’s Death. At the outset of the novel an ecstatic Poirot comes out of the Vielle Grand’mère restaurant:
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His eyes held a reflective sleepy pleasure. The escargots de la Vielle Grand’mère had been delicious. A real find, this dingy restaurant. Meditatively, like a well-fed dog, Hercule Poirot curled his tongue round his lips. (Christie 2000:1)
Despite the fact that he has dined a lot of good food or precisely because of it (clearly the more we eat the more we crave for food), he is already thinking of dinner: “Always a man who had taken his stomach seriously, he was reaping his reward in old age. Eating was not only a physical pleasure, it was also an intellectual research” (2; italics mine). Paradoxically, the gestures of a well-fed dog do not invalidate the intellectual content of the activity of eating much and well. With this “also” Agatha Christie, I hazard, moves eating beyond the realm of the body to the field of the mind as if eating was an exact science, with the purpose of suggesting a connection with the traditional sleuth of detective fiction and “not fundamentally” altering the framework of the genre. John M. Reilly indicates that the detective formula “can be bent and adapted but not fundamentally altered unless the author ceases to write detective stories altogether” (1975/6:334). More concretely, the introduction of eating as intellectual research is here an adaptation because even though it strains the division between body and mind it still keeps it firmly in place. In this sense it is possible to reconcile taste and gluttony. Like Poirot, S.S. Van Dine’s detective, Philo Vance, Georges Simenon’s Superintendent Jules Maigret, and Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe are interested in good eating and all three dissociate the instinct of eating from nature and the sense of taste from the organ of the tongue. Also, they align abduction with science, rationalizing their rotund passion for food. Following upon his detecting brothers, Spanish writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s private eye, Pepe Carvalho, also believes in food. Most significant is that he cooks but, again, he transforms cooking into a “highly intellectualized, highly theoretical enterprise” (Heldke 1992:213). In Asesinato en el Comité Central he is asked: “Do you cook everyday?” To which the detective responds: “Sherlock Holmes played the violin. I cook” (Vázquez Montalbán 2002:35; my translation). Let us note at once that for Sherlock Holmes physical actions like fencing, smoking, boxing and, of course, playing the violin, sprung from his urge towards science because they involved an element of cognition. In the case of Carvalho the analogy to science includes the preparation of food, provided that, to use Lisa Heldke’s words, cooking “seems to imitate sculpture ― an activity that, although it involves the hands, certainly is not hand work” (1992:213). In other words, Carvalho intellectualizes embodiment to the point of disembodying himself. I wish to propose the word “techno-abduction” to describe these gourmet detectives’s method of investigation. Here I am drawing upon the term “techno- emotional cuisine” coined by culinary journalist Pau Arenós — it is important to recall that abduction is an emotion ― currently used to describe the movement spearheaded by Spanish chef Ferran Adrià, whose affinity with Carvalho dates from 1985, when the detective, curious about the fame the young chef was harvesting, visits El Bulli (Adrià’s restaurant) and surrenders to his dishes. The great difference between this and other cuisines, Adrià explains in an interview conducted by Manuel Calderón in 2008, is that “we cook with emotions and the FOOD AND TASTE IN DETECTIVE STORIES 123 head” (2008:16). His declaration is mysterious, to say the least, but restaurant critic Matt Preston (2008) sheds some light: “Perhaps they wanted to show that modern cuisine still has its roots in emotion” although it is “technology-based […] chemical cuisine”. He adds:
Ferran Adrià was one of the first chefs to have a testing lab and use researchers from other fields. He defends the saying, “the world of science is part of cuisine just as it is part of everything else”.
To sum up, then, one of the key principles of technoemotional cuisine is that scientific technique is put over emotions, which remain under the ground or at the root. Another principle is that “taste is not important”. Preston has this to report:
Eminent food journalist Jeffrey Steingarten declared of Adrià, in front of the great man: “He doesn’t care much about taste […]. If something is delicious, it is by nature. For deliciousness (depends on) a repetition of habit”.
One can well understand that whereas taste is a habitus — defined by Bourdieu as “a necessity internalized and converted into disposition” (2002:170) — tastelessness, inasmuch as it resists repetition, is constructed as a renunciation of the habitus, yet it helps taste the true taste of the products by enhancing their texture. Does this mean that a taste for the sublime or the delicate and its counterpart, tastelessness, are not entirely opposites? When we consider that modern Spanish cuisiniers are cooking with dirt (in Preston) in order to preserve “the true taste of the products”, the short answer is that the presence of an exquisite mental taste does not differ from the absence of physical sensation. In A History of Infamy Borges translates this incongruity in terms of hunger and overindulgence: “The world we live in is a mistake […]. Revulsion is the cardinal virtue. Two ways […] may lead us there: abstinence or the orgy, excess of flesh or its denial” (1973:83). Borges is implying that extremities of appetites only appear to be opposed for both are exercises in a revulsion that help us recoil from the world. Through its rarity tastelessness acquires a mark of distinction which tends to decline with the growth in the number of people able to appreciate it (Bourdieu 2002:230). This means that true taste is associated with elevated society and high-mindedness and, consequently, will be appreciated only by those with an extremely refined palate and with the correct amount of cash. For the uninitiated populace, the Philistines habituated to measuring the value of food by its content and its taste ― not to mention that we cannot afford to pay 300 Euros for lunch —, the inedible provides inadequate satisfaction. If “great art is not direct sensuous pleasure”, as philosopher Suzanne Langer claims, because “otherwise […] like cookies and cocktails, it would flatter the uneducated taste” (qtd. in Bourdieu 2002:31), it is clear that Adrià is producing objects of great art which by displacing the interest from the theme and function of food to its form impede immediately accessible pleasure. Of importance is that his dishes are of such 124 NIEVES PASCUAL SOLER beauty that they were exhibited in Documenta 12, Kassel 2007. The third principle of techno-emotional cuisine is, then, that food is treated aesthetically. On another level, Bourdieu is insistent that the aesthetic treatment of food dissociates cooking from ethics:
Nothing is more distinctive, more distinguished, than the capacity to confer aesthetic status on objects that are banal and even “common” […] or the ability to apply the principles of a “pure” aesthetic to the most everyday choices of everyday life, e.g., in cooking, clothing or decoration, completely reversing the popular disposition which annexes aesthetics to ethics. (2002:5)
The popular aesthetic is rooted in proximity to the world whereas the pure aesthetic creates a distance from its necessities. Bourdieu is certainly right when he writes this for hardly can the use of synthetic additives with the purpose of intensifying “the true taste of products” and beautifying the (re)presentation of food be classified as ethical. Not only may they be deleterious to our health but also prevent us from recognizing what we are eating, dehumanizing diners in the process. Be that as it may, what is at stake now is that techno-abduction designates a culinary/investigative action that surpasses emotions and focuses on technology, or that camouflages emotions under the guise of technology. The investigator eats and may cook, but purifies eating and cooking from any trace of corporeality. More radically still, the food he eats may have no taste but tastelessness creates the capacity to notice different flavors.
FEMALE PALATES
Despite the long-held association between women and food, when during the 1970s women enter the mystery format in the role of detectives they tend to copy the fashions of their ascetic male forebears. Brillat-Savarin defended that women met the requirements to be model gourmets: “There is something instinctive in the penchant for gourmandize which prevails among the fair sex, for gourmandism is favourable to beauty” (1994:137), and yet there were no women gastronomers in detective fiction, possibly because the art of eating and enjoying too much good food is favorable to science and seemingly women have been reluctant to transform the repetition of the habit of cooking and eating into a scientific practice. It is therefore not surprising that P.D. James’s Cordelia Gray has an undemanding palate, that Amanda Cross’ Kate Fansler avoids interest in food or that Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone pokes fun at the gustatory pretensions of food connoisseurs and confesses that “beyond McDonald’s Quarter Ponders with cheese, I don’t have strong food preferences” (1995:83- 84). Of course, there are suggestions of a need to revalue eating and the female subject. In Sara Paretsky’s Burn Marks, for instance, V.I. Warshawski, hard- boiled investigator, goes to the grocery, grills chicken, glazes mushrooms in red wine, scrambles eggs, and fries hamburgers. Food introduces realism and de- romanticizes “the loner knight that Marlow and Spenser liked to pretend” to be FOOD AND TASTE IN DETECTIVE STORIES 125
(Paretsky 1992:29). It gives comfort and provides a “communal dimension” (Kaufman and Kaufman 1999:55), and, most important, it even helps define Warshawski’s investigatory procedure. In Killing Orders she says:
My theory of detection resembles Julia Child’s approach to cooking: Grab a lot of ingredients from the shelves and put them in a pot and stir, and see what happens. (1987:552).
Yet, few are the slowly paced meals her quickly paced life allows for: most times meals are postponed until the case has been solved. The detective has too many doors to kick, and frequently rushes through eating as if it was a necessity that distracted her from her job so that in no case does it increase her chances of success. In 1982 the rules of the detective formula are altered with the publication of The Cooking School Murders by Virginia Rich, who inaugurates the genre of the culinary mystery. In contrast to Holmes, hard-boiled detectives, techno- gastronomers and their feminized versions, who either do not eat or eat as if they were not eating, women detectives in culinary mysteries mind their stomachs carefully. Pleasure, not revulsion, is their cardinal virtue and in order to experience a greater pleasure they dart in and out of sobriety. The immediate prompt to this idea of “temperate hedonism”, as Bourdieu calls it (2002:267), is the fact that pleasure resides in restraint and is attainable solely through a slight renunciation. Interest in food affects the investigatory process. Food in the genre, it should be pointed out, is of an “earthly, earthy, down-to-earth” kind (Bourdieu 2002:180). In addition, the practice of cooking, which inevitably involves the hands, furthers the solution of the mystery. Witnesses are interviewed in the kitchen, while ham is sliced into thick pieces. Detectives study the case as they chew on their meatballs, tuck into a blueberry pie or pop a piece of peppermint candy in their mouths. They munch and think. They think and cook: “I’m thinking”, remarks Wesley in Sympathy for the Devil by Jerrilyn Farmer; “Good idea”, Madeline Bean quips, “keep stirring [the polenta]” (1998:81). In these novels “there is nothing like skinning and boning cooked chicken thighs to concentrate” (Mott Davidson 2007:80). Women detectives reflect as the dough becomes supple under their fingertips (2007:59). They run through the events while they whisk the oil into the egg yolks and watch the emulsion form a yellow cream (Crawford 2004:188). They think about recipes when they discover a body dead on the dinner table (2004:45). Clues are culinary and only if the sleuth knows that “the Christmas goose was not kosher” will she decipher the enigma of Two Cooks A-Killing (Pence 2003:82). After all, crime “is all like a cake”, says Goldy Shulz in Catering to Nobody, “it was like having a large group of ingredients and not knowing how they all were combined” (Mott Davidson 1999:89). The how is known through taste, which for Goldy and her sisters is a physical sensation that affirms the continuity of body and mind, a gift of nature. Even though nature is determinant in matters of taste, taste is still determined by cultural competence. A note on the mode of acquisition of this competence is in order. Bourdieu explains that:
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The ideology of natural taste […] only recognizes as legitimate the relation to culture […] which least bears the visible marks of its genesis, which has nothing “academic”, “scholastic”, “bookish”, “affected”, or “studied” about it, but manifests by its ease and naturalness that true culture is nature. (2002:68)
This means that those who accept the ideology of innate taste approve of the ordinary knowledge about everyday things accumulated by the experience acquired through practice, within the domestic sphere of the family, and outside the control of :
The educational system, the sole agency empowered to transmit the hierarchical body of aptitudes and knowledge which constitutes legitimate culture, and to consecrate arrival at a given level of initiation, by means of examination and certificates. (Bordieu 2002:328)
Ordinary knowledge, versus institutional knowledge, defined in terms of “detachment, disinterestedness, indifference, disinvestment” (ibid.:34) from the object, presupposes a moment of empathy, which comes naturally and instinctively to the subject. Bourdieu adds that “it is probably in tastes of food that one would find the strongest and most indelible mark of infant learning” or of natural acquisition (79). Little did he know when writing this that cooking would achieve the institutional consecration it has today. Be that as it may, the fact is, as may already be apparent, that there is a connection between Boudieu’s theory of natural taste or “primitive bodily experiences” (80) and Peirce’s method of abduction inasmuch as both depart from an emotion that relies upon a close connection to “general culture” (86) and consists of discerning, inter alia, the flavors of food. It needs to be borne in mind that “tastes in food cannot be considered in complete independence of other dimensions of the relationship to the world” (193). Here I need not go through Bourdieu’s comparison of working- class and bourgeois ways of treating food to demonstrate this. What matters for now is that the equation abduction = eating should be completed as follows: abduction = eating down-to-earth foods + natural taste. It is no accident that abduction guides culinary detectives in the solution of the mystery. It is unexpectedly, in a moment of illumination that they find the solution. In Rich’s The Baked Bean Supper Murders, for example, Genia Potter “suddenly […] had the key” (1983:224). Similarly, in Thou Shalt Not Grill by Myers, Magadalena Yore says to her daughter when all the pieces fall into place: “Your old mom just had an epiphany” (2004:202). When in Cooking Up Murder by Miranda Bliss, Annie Capshaw runs into the truth she feels that it landed right on top of her, “all in one fell swoop” (2006:217). In a fell swoop it lands on Judith McMonigle too. After picking up the fruitcake Aunt Deb had baked in Nutty as a Fruitcake, without nuts, she “suddenly knew who had murdered Enid Goodrich” (Daheim 1996:246). She cannot wait to tell her cousin:
I didn’t want to believe George was the killer, yet the more I considered the man himself, the more I realized he wasn’t nutty at all. He was like your mother’s fruitcake — it’s still fruitcake, but there aren’t any nuts. (255) FOOD AND TASTE IN DETECTIVE STORIES 127
At this point it must be remembered that abductive suggestions stroked Peirce spontaneously and came to him “like a flash” (Sebeok and Umiker- Sebeok 1980:27). Unintentionally, all of them get emotionally involved in the crimes they investigate. Inspector Mike Kingston in Joanna Fluke’s Key Lime Pie Murder is of the opinion that a good detective has to control his feelings (2007:187), but these women make good detectives precisely because they do not suppress them. Emotions also condition their sense of justice, which they pursue their own way and always for the most vulnerable. In Cherry Cheesecake Murder, for instance, Winnie Henderson is left unpunished after murdering her second husband. Red used to beat her up every time he got drunk and Winnie, pregnant though she is, decides to fight back. She takes a pot full of coffee and hits him in the face: “the coffeepot went flying and he went down hard on the kitchen floor” (Fluke 2006:323-33). Amateur sleuth Hannah Swensen feels sick hearing about it and passes the following judgment: “It’s certainly not murder. You killed him, but you were protecting your baby” (ibid.:334). Not only is the criminal not brought to justice but is redrawn as a victim of tyranny. Significantly, lack of natural taste victimizes and incriminates characters. In the culinary mystery genre victims have a physical disability to taste or have been deprived of the cultural capital inherited by the family. The latter applies to anorexic characters. Criminals, on the other hand, have corrupted their natural taste by acquiring a scholastic cultural competence that negates “the mental habits of the common sense knowledge of the social world” (Bourdieu 2002:22). This group includes dieters, overeaters and vegetarians. Before concluding, I need to scotch one possible misunderstanding. The fact that culinary detectives show a disposition to natural taste does not imply that they do not treat food with artistic consequence or that they do not give aesthetic definition to food. “Presentation counts”, says Bernie Simmons in A Catered Murder (Crawford 2003:119), yet against the pure aesthetic of great culinary artists who create a gap with the signified of food, women culinary detectives opt for a popular, pragmatic, functionalist aesthetic which gives priority to function over form, although form (shape and color) is considered; approaches the act of eating physically, and reduces the things of art to the things of life. Proof of this is seen in the cannibalistic economy that subtends these texts. 2
CONCLUSION
Food, once absent from the mystery formula because it impeded thought, has become an essential ingredient in cookery whodunits. I can point to four reasons: food humanizes the detective; it constitutes identity (“You are what you eat”, said Feuerbach), and it is fashionable. Currently cookbooks outsell any other publication. Newspapers have sections devoted to it and network and cable
2. It is a common feature of the culinary mystery genre that bodies become synonymous with foods (Soler 2009:44-47). 128 NIEVES PASCUAL SOLER television feature celebrities teaching the audience how to cook. The situation is paradoxical because, on the one hand, our society does not like to cook. We have become voyeurs, happier when we look at others cooking than when we do it ourselves. On the other hand, we are witnessing an impoverishment of the sense of taste, caused both by the increasing consumption of fast food and the aesthetization of natural products which result in overindulgence and abstinence. Culinary mystery writers — this is reason number four — propose a return to the basic pleasure of eating and cooking and to the embodiment of the sense of natural taste through a formula appealing to the general public.
REFERENCES
Adrià, F. 2008, “No me avergüenzo de hacer cocina tecnoemocional”. Interview with Manuel Calderón. La razón. 3 August 2008:121-24. Bliss, M. 2006, Cooking Up Murder. New York: Berkley Prime Crime. Borges, J.L. 1973, A universal history of infamy. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Bourdieu, P. 2002. Distinction. A social critique of the judgement of taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Brillat-Savarin, J. 1994, The physiology of taste. London: Penguin. Christie, A. 1978, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. St Albans: Triad/Panther. Christie, A. 2000, Mrs McGinty’s Death. New York: Berkeley Books. Conan Doyle, A. 1981, The Penguin Sherlock Holmes. London: Clarendon. Crawford, I. 2003, A Catered Murder. New York: Kensington. Crawford, I. 2004, A Catered Wedding. New York: Kensington. Daheim, M. 1996, Nutty as a Fruitcake. New York: Avon. Desmond Healy, S. 1984, Boredom, self, and culture. Cranbury, NJ: Associate University Presses. Farmer, J. 1998, Sympathy for the Devil. New York: Avon. Fluke, J. 2006, Cherry Cheesecake Murder. New York: Kensington. Fluke, J. 2007, Key Lime Pie Murder. New York: Kensington. Grafton, S. 1995, ‘K’ is for Killer. London: Pan. Heldke, L. 1992, “Foodmaking as a thoughtful practice”, in D. W. Curtin and L. M. Heldke (eds.). Cooking, eating, thinking: Transformative philosophies of food. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 203-29. Kauffman, N. and S. Kauffman 1999, “Food, anger, and the female detective”. Clues, 20(1):49-62. Mott Davidson, D. 1999, Catering to Nobody. New York: Beller Large Print. Mott Davidson, D. 2007, Sweet Revenge. New York: William Morrow. Myers, T. 2004, Thou Shalt Not Grill. New York: New American Library. Paretsky, S. 1987, Killing Orders. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Paretsky, S. 1992, Burn Marks. London: Virago. Peirce, C. S. 2003. “Abduction.” The Commens dictionary of Peirce’s terms. Eds. Mats Bergman and Sami Paavola. Access 13 September 2011.
Plato. 2000, The Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Preston, M. 2008, “The new frontier.” Epicure. 29 April 2008. Access 10 Oct. 2011.
“EVERYTHING IN MY BODY […] IS QUICKNESS AND TRIUMPH”: CARNIVAL AND THE FEMALE IN VIRGINIA WOOLF’S THE WAVES
ISABEL Mª ANDRÉS CUEVAS Universidad de Granada
Despite the generalized tendency to consider Virginia Woolf as an odd candidate for a carnivalesque reading, this essay aims to explore the convenience of resorting to the paradigm of carnivalized literature in order to interpret the profound significance of female characters in The Waves. Accordingly, two of the central aspects of carnival politics – the destruction of established authority and the validation of otherness and the repressed – will be discussed, inasmuch as they help to understand the ferocious attack Woolf addresses against the tyranny of the fatherly law, as well as her vindication for the validation of the female. In this regard, a disparagement of patriarchal leaders correlates in the novel with the empowerment of female characters. Frequently associated with the earthly and sensorial – and therefore, the lower and abject – women are yet revealed as the agents of the renewal of the anachronous system prevailing in the period. As this article discusses, such renovating action turns out as the hope for the invigoration of waste panorama under the tyranny of the patriarchal order.
In his analysis of Dostoevsky’s works, Bakhtin observed the transposition into certain literary works of a series of elements directly derived from carnival celebrations. With the Renaissance, most of the medieval traditions were categorically discarded as barbarian, and their sensuous directness categorized as unacceptable by the new refined mentalities. Nonetheless, some of these symbolic meanings and ontological values filtered through art. Among its manifestations, literature constituted a particularly fertile ground for that transference – a process Bakhtin acknowledged as “the carnivalization of literature”:
Carnival itself [...] is not, of course, a literary phenomenon [...]. Carnival has worked out an entire language of symbolic concretely sensuous forms – from language and complex mass actions to individual carnivalistic gestures. This language, in a differentiated and even (as in any language) articulate way, gave 132 ISABEL Mª ANDRÉS CUEVAS
expression to a unified (but complex) carnival sense of the world, permeating all its forms. This language cannot be translated in any full or adequate way into a verbal language, and much less into a language of abstract concepts, but it is amenable to a certain transposition into a language of artistic images that has something in common with its concretely sensuous nature; that is, it can be transposed into the language of literature. We are calling this transposition of carnival into the language of literature the carnivalization of literature. (Bakhtin 1984:122)
Characteristic of carnival is a thorough transformation of ordinary life, as well as the laws and restrictions that govern it. As he observes:
What is suspended first of all is hierarchical structure and all the forms of terror, reverence, piety, and etiquette connected with [noncarnival life] – that is, everything resulting from socio-hierarchical inequality or any other form of inequality among people. (Bakhtin 1984:123)
At the same time as the previous authority is disempowered, “a new mode of interrelationship” between individuals, released from the oppression of hierarchical prohibitions, arises (ibid.). This new form of interpersonal relationships or “familiar contact” emerges in parallel to a bold affirmation of the formerly considered as low and despicable, in keeping with that attempt to debase and bring down to earth what was officially considered as sacred. Within the carnival paradigm, thus, otherness and abjection are enthroned and enhanced as the principles leading to a renewed existence. Through her notion of the Outsiders’ Society, already conceived in 1921 in its nearly homonymous “A society”, Virginia Woolf advocated for the creation of a form of female organization whose major aim was the subversion and defilement of the patriarchal establishment of gender roles. This should be possible by means of the practice of active and conscious non-involvement “as a strategy for hollowing out the gender system, pillar of family, and fatherland” (Gättens 2001:22). Even though essentially defined as resting on a political basis, the idea underneath Woolf’s conception of the Outsiders’ Society amounted to her construction of a utopia which should act as a counterpart to the masculine state, yet deprived of the latter’s eagerness for violence or domination. On the contrary, while the distinctive livery of the masculine territory had been defined by supremacy and hegemonic zeal, Woolf’s badge was founded on resistance as the operating principle of a female land in which marginality, rather than standing for a conformist attitude towards displacement, responds to a deliberate choice to assert a female space which defies masculine power:
The Society of Outsiders has the same ends as your society – freedom, equality, peace; but [...] it seeks to achieve them by the means that a different sex, a different tradition, a different education, and the different values which result from those differences have placed within our reach [...]. [We], remaining outside, will experiment not with public means in public but with private means in private. (Woolf 1996:234)
CARNIVAL AND THE FEMALE IN VIRGINIA WOOLF’S THE WAVES 133
Indeed, Woolf aimed to recreate in The Waves a collective of “infinitely abject” beings – as Neville, one of the main characters, refers to themselves (2000:84). Their position as outsiders in one sense or another turns out an essential condition for the debunking of prefigured values and precepts. It is precisely the latter condition that simultaneously becomes an indispensable requisite for the coming of a renovated society. It is important to note that Woolf’s earlier plans for her novel included the incorporation of the gross side of existence, whereby to convey the “perpetual crumbling and renewing of life” (Woolf 1986:141-142). Of course, within the carnivalesque parameters around which the narrative revolves, the presence of the earthly, literally down-bringing element becomes paramount. Self-described as “close to the earth, with green-grass eyes” (Woolf 2000:22) that “look close to the ground and see insects in the grass” (ibid.:7), Susan possesses the lower-stratum quality that characterizes carnival imagery. Moreover, in her earthliness, she becomes a kind of hybrid creature which gradually turns into the most physical manifestation of Nature itself, thus evolving into the embodiment of an earthly Great Mother. A similar figure had appeared some years before in Mrs. Dalloway, where a vagrant woman sang a “bubbling” song flowing from a “muddy […] hole in her mouth” (Woolf 1992:88-89). Nonetheless, whereas this association was merely allusive, in The Waves Susan herself confirms her identity as an earthbound figure:
At this hour, this still early hour, I think I am the field, I am the barn, I am the trees; mine are the flocks of birds, and this young hare who leaps, at the last moment when I step almost on him. Mine is the heron that stretches its vast wings lazily; and the cow that creaks as it pushes one foot before another munching; and the wild, swooping swallow; and the faint red in the sky, and the green when the red fades; the silence and the bell; the call of the man fetching cart-horses from the fields – all are mine. I cannot be divided, or kept apart. I was sent to school; I was sent to Switzerland to finish my education. I hate linoleum; I hate fir trees and mountains. Let me now fling myself on this flat ground under a pale sky where the clouds pace slowly. The cart grows gradually larger as it comes along the road. The sheep gather in the middle of the field. The birds gather in the middle of the road – they need not fly yet. The wood smoke rises. (Woolf 2000:53-54)
Through her words, we find a confirmation of her self-recognition as an earthly womb. This is so on the basis of her inner duality as both a life-giver – “I am the field, [...] the trees” (ibid.:53) – and a resting abode in death – “let me now fling myself on this flat ground” (54). Thereby, Susan becomes the site for the simultaneous encounter of the ontological poles of life and death, from whence everything arises and where everything is called to converge at death. In consonance with this, Susan’s ground-fixed body cracks open “making of [her] own body a hollow” (96) to yield the life of her children, for whom she conforms the protective cradle where the new-borns are to be lulled:
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Sleep, I say, desiring sleep to fall like a blanket of down and cover these weak limbs; demanding that life shall sheathe its claws and gird its lightning and pass by, making of my own body a hollow, a warm shelter for my child to sleep in. (ibid.)
Her proximity to the ground, both physically and functionally, indissolubly link her to the lower stratum. She is representative of the corporeality which is at the core of carnival and the aesthetics of the grotesque. Her womblike nature, coupled with the maternal, becomes therefore a celebration of a female body constantly repressed by patriarchal authority. At the same time, in keeping with the demeaning process associated with Bakhtin’s public market-place, Susan also admits a similar form of downturn connected with her regenerative function – “I shall be debased and hide-bound by the bestial and beautiful passion of maternity” (73). After this, she is enhanced by virtue of the richness of her reproductive power: “I shall be lifted higher than any of you on the backs of the seasons. I shall possess more than Jinny, more than Rhoda, by the time I die” (ibid.). Hence, in tune with this spatial contiguity, the Earth-Mother figure in the novel turns into the site for the debasement of the social landscape. Thus, through her connection with the physical lower stratum, Susan’s earth-like function of burial and destruction – whereby a literal process of bringing down to earth is accomplished – is dovetailed with the inversion resulting from the descent of the conventionally superior. Thus, consistently with her alter ego, Susan exerts an authentic burial of Madame Carlo, the unpleasant groaning teacher whom she has previously dwindled to an insignificant stone: “This shiny pebble is Madame Carlo, and I will bury her deep because of her fawning and ingratiating manners, because of the sixpence she gave me for keeping my knuckles flat when I played my scales. I buried her sixpence” (24). This metaphorical interment of the ill-tempered lady is just the precedent to a whole, symbolical act of burying a school stamped with the indelible mark of “the oily portraits” of its old patriarchal foundations:
I would bury the whole school: the gymnasium; the classroom; the dining-room that always smells of meat; and the chapel. I would bury the red-brown tiles and the oily portraits of old men – benefactors, founders of schools. There are some trees I like; the cherry tree with lumps of clear gum on the bark; and one view from the attic towards some far hills. Save for these, I would bury it all as I bury these ugly stones that are always scattered about this briny coast, with its piers and its trippers. (ibid.)
Indeed, the womb-like ambivalence implied in the above example by the removal and passage down entailed by her interring action, along with the renovating dimension of the ritual carnival destruction that becomes inherent to Susan, remains all throughout the progress of the character’s portrayal. Interestingly, on the recollection of her life at old age, Susan confirms the materiality of her surroundings – “I possess all I see” (107). She also emphasizes the regenerative potential of her “productive years” (ibid): CARNIVAL AND THE FEMALE IN VIRGINIA WOOLF’S THE WAVES 135
I have made ponds in which goldfish hide under the broad-leaved lilies. I have netted over strawberry beds and lettuce beds, and stitched the pears and the plums into white bags to keep them safe from the wasps. I have seen my sons and daughters, once netted over like fruit in their cots, break the meshes and walk with me, taller than I am, casting shadows on the grass. I am fenced in, planted here like one of my own trees. (ibid.)
Nonetheless, as is fitting to her carnivalistic dual function, both as life- provider and death-bringer, Susan proves evidence of the twofold nature of her uterine quality:
I also make wreaths of white flowers, twisting silver-leaved plants among them for the dead, attaching my card with sorrow for the dead shepherd, with sympathy for the wife of the dead carter; and sit by the beds of dying women, who murmur their last terrors, who clutch my hand; frequenting rooms intolerable except to one born as I was and early acquainted with the farmyard and the dung-heap and the hens straying in and out, and the mother with two rooms and growing children. I have seen the windows run with heat, I have smelt the sink. (108)
Cryptically implying the dual ambivalence of carnival imagery, the picture of Susan lulling her little baby in her lap becomes associated with the future death of the child, “whose weak limbs” (73) are to be covered and buried into the earthly hollow. Hence, at the same time as the rocking cradle, Susan’s body becomes evocative of the resting grave: “I shall lie like a field bearing crops in rotation; in the summer heat will dance over me; in the winter I shall be cracked with the cold [...] heat and cold will follow each other” (ibid.). Such notion of the female as the quintessential source of regeneration of a world in need for renewal is additionally extended in the character of Jinny. If Susan incarnates the ambivalent system of destruction and regeneration that is typical of carnival, Jinny heralds the celebration of triumphant dance whereby the victory over repression is performed. Certainly, her success in the game she plays as a child serves as the alibi whereby the carnivalistic triumph over any attempts for fixity and encapsulation of reality within a pre-configured order is proclaimed:
Everything in my body seems thinned out with running and triumph. My blood must be bright red, whipped up, slapping against my ribs. My soles tingle, as if wire rings opened and shut in my feet. I see every blade of grass very clear. But the pulse drums so in my forehead, behind my eyes, that everything dances – the net, the grass; your faces leap like butterflies; the trees seem to jump up and down. There is nothing staid, nothing settled, in this universe. All is rippling, all is dancing; all is quickness and triumph. (24-25)
Even though the narrator does not aim to establish any models of behaviour in The Waves, often read as a manifesto for social and political decentralization, 1
1. Marie-Luise Gättens points out some of the chief clues of the novel which, according to her, lead to a reading of the novel as a harsh critique of fascism and patriarchal leaders (2001:22). Likewise,
136 ISABEL Mª ANDRÉS CUEVAS it is the sexually uninhibited Jinny who is appointed as the incarnation of the dance for renewal. As Di Battista points out:
Jinny celebrates these carnal ecstasies of love, and so, when the drop of time falls, it merely fills her body with that fluid, Dionysian rhythm through which life endlessly recreates itself. (1980:179)
Accordingly, in her perpetual dance, which vindicates the unrestricted flow of carnal desires, Jinny’s own body allegorizes the ritual celebration of what Jane Harrison had defined as a carrying-out-the-death (Harrison 1913:80). Through this dance, whatever is old and decayed is disposed of so as to enable the incoming of the new and flourishing. Thus, incarnating the destructive fire that is to remove the waste, Jinny turns through her dancing into the renovating flames:
I leap like one of those flames that run between the cracks of the earth; I move, I dance; I never cease to move and to dance. I move like the leaf that moved in the hedge as a child and frightened me. I dance over these streaked, these impersonal, distempered walls with their yellow skirting as firelight dances over teapots. (Woolf 2000:22)
In this sense, like the death-bringing Susan – whose womb/tomblike nature gave her the power to remove the old – Jinny accomplishes a similar task by continuing Susan’s devouring action. Yet, it is not by burying, but by means of the destructive effect of fire that Jinny personifies the utter annihilation of the surrounding waste. Her triumphant dance epitomizes the consuming flames that are to enable prosperity. As Harrison describes them, these rituals constituted a merry celebration of renewal which, buttressed through allegorical dances, was expected after the yearly removal of the old and perished (1927:4). In the formulation of these ritual festivals, Harrison highlights the indissoluble connection between the extreme poles of debasement and victorious celebrations. Likewise, no different is Woolf’s paradigm for the renovation she wrestles for. In her construction of a female force capable of debunking life-impeding patriarchal norms, Woolf resorts to Harrison’s pattern of carnival festivities. In the midst of this form of ritual dancing, Jinny embodies the centripetal force around which the celebration is carried out. Hence, in resemblance to Harrison’s description of these ancient carnivalistic festivals, the very embodiment of a Spring maypole is conveyed by the image of Jinny dancing at the same time as a ribbon spurts and curls around her neck. Moreover, this allegorical maypole additionally preserves its full association with the incoming renewal: “I bind my hair with a white ribbon, so that when I leap across the court the ribbon will stream out in a flash [...] curl round my neck [...]” (ibid.:23). Thereby, as in Woolf’s admired friend’s anthropological writings, an essential form of interconnection is implied between the earth-like Susan and the merry dancer of carnival celebrations. Hence, while reiterating the already mentioned ambivalence of Jinny’s ritual performance, the
Berman insists on an interpretation of the same sign (2001:121). CARNIVAL AND THE FEMALE IN VIRGINIA WOOLF’S THE WAVES 137 image straightaway reflects Woolf’s type of female battle for the sheer destruction of the wasteland provoked by patriarchal oppression:
Take this guinea and with it burn the college to the ground. Set fire to the old hypocrisies. Let the light of the burning building scare the nightingales and incarnadine the willows. And let the daughters of educated men dance round the fire and heap armful upon armful of dead leaves upon the flames. And let their mothers lean from the upper windows and cry “Let it blaze! Let it blaze! For we have done with this ‘education’!” (Woolf 1996:146)
Indeed, in “A society”, Woolf had already claimed for the necessity of aiding forth a female force capable of promoting a renovation of societal values as the vital condition to save them from “perish[ing] beneath the fruits of [men’s] unbridled activity” (Woolf 1993:21). Likewise, as early as in 1916, Woolf had begun to conceive of this form of women’s initiative that should debunk patriarchal impositions, which she had expressed in a letter to the feminist Margaret Llewellyn Davies:
I become steadily more feminist [...] and wonder how this preposterous masculine fiction keeps going a day longer – without some vigorous young woman pulling us [...] and marching through it. (Woolf 1979-1984:76)
Of course, one of the premises at the core of Woolf’s society was the elimination of categories ascribed to gender roles. In this sense, particular significance is entailed by the image of Jinny’s dance over the allegorical open earth of Susan’s body as a defiant aggression of sexual boundaries, as well as the masculine impossibility of conceiving a form of female homosexual bonding. Certainly, by means of this implication of a lesbian relationship between Susan and Jinny, a female, carnally-dimensioned “Sappho” is affirmed in broad opposition to its prescriptively chaste, male-created analogue: “it’s well known that Sappho was the somewhat lewd invention of Professor Hobkin” (Woolf 1993:17). Hence, while Annette Oxindine insists upon the lesbian implications of this scene in “A society”, the truth is it simultaneously refers us back to a parallel image of Clarissa Dalloway’s homosexual relation with Sally, when the former recalls the incendiary nature of her passion – a moment of “rapture, which splits its thin skin and gushed and poured with an extraordinary alleviation over the cracks and sores! [...] a match burning in a crocus” (Woolf 1992:35). Accordingly, a new encounter between Jinny and Susan during the first meeting at Hampton Court on the characters’ middle adulthood is implied, whereby both women merge into a form of homosexual dissolution as they “change bodies and faces” (Woolf 2000:68). Moreover, in tune with this form of unhampered conception and experience of sexuality as inherent to a regenerated world, it is precisely through an implicitly homoerotic fusion of the complementary poles of praise and abuse – as respectively allegorized by Jinny’s festive dancing and Susan’s earthbound quality – that this hoped-for renewal can be announced.
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In conclusion, as has been discussed, through the latent presence of the carnivalesque binomial of triumph/destruction, as embodied by female characters in The Waves, Woolf clamours for the imperious need of the annihilation of the suffocating atmosphere of tyranny and repression in a time marked by general oppressiveness. At the same time, the message heralded by the female element is far from sheltering in a fatalistic vision, becoming instead a chant for the victory that glimmers behind the dissolution of the social and ideological barriers that constrain people’s freedom.
REFERENCES
Bakhtin, M.M. 1984 [1929], Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics. Trans. Caryl Emerson. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Berman, J. 2001, “Of oceans and opposition: The Waves, Oswald Mosley, and the New Party”, in Virginia Woolf and fascism. Resisting the dictators’ seduction. Merry M. Pawlowski (ed.). Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, New York, NY: Palgrave, 105-121. Di Battista, M. 1980, Virginia Woolf’s major novels. The fables of Anon. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Gättens, M.L. 2001, “Three Guineas, fascism, and the construction of gender”, in Virginia Woolf and fascism. Resisting the dictators’ seduction. Merry M. Pawlowski (ed.). Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, New York, NY: Palgrave, 21-38. Harrison, J.E. 1913, Ancient art and ritual. London: Williams and Norgate. Harrison, J.E. 1927, Themis: A study of the social origins of Greek religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed. Oxindine, A. 1997, “Rhoda submerged: Lesbian suicide in The waves”, in Virginia Woolf. Lesbian readings. Eileen Barrett and Patricia Cramer (ed.). New York and London: New York University Press, 203-221. Woolf, V. 1979-1984, The letters of Virginia Woolf. The question of things happening. 1912-1922. Vol. II. London: Hogarth Press. Woolf, V. 1985 [1953], A Writer’s Diary. Leonard Woolf (ed.). London: Triad Grafton. Woolf, V. 1992 [1925], Mrs. Dalloway. Elaine Showalter (ed.). London: Penguin Harmondsworth. Woolf, V. 1996 [1938], Three Guineas. Hermione Lee (ed.). London: Vintage. Woolf, V. 2000 [1931], The Waves. Deborah Parsons (ed.). Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth. Woolf, V. 2004 [1921], “A Society”. Monday or Tuesday. Fairfield, IA: 1st World Library, 1st ed.
EL JUEGO METAFICCIONAL EN “WOMEN’S NOVELS” DE MARGARET ATWOOD
CRISTINA PÉREZ VALVERDE Universidad de Granada
This essay approaches the prose poem “Women’s Novels” by Margaret Atwood, a text that takes a revisionist look at the categories of genre and gender in literature by means of metafictional devices. Emphasis will be laid on its suitability for exploring the reading and writing processes in relation to the categories mentioned above. Inasmuch as metafictional texts self-consciously address the very nature of fiction, they are particularly appropriate to guide readers ― and students ― into the literary phenomenon and help them understand the act of fictionalising from the inside of the fictional work. This is particularly the case with the postmodern microtext, a form that has been widely used to challenge cultural conventions. As shall be seen, Atwood makes use of this hybrid form to dismantle, one by one, the clichés commonly associated to a type of narrative mediated by the editorial market.
METAFICCIÓN REVISIONISTA Y MICRORRELATO
Podríamos subtitular este epígrafe como “o de la literatura que nos habla de sí misma”, puesto que nos referimos a un tipo de narrativa que se enfrenta a la tradición literaria desde una perspectiva revisionista y metaficcional. Se trata de un fenómeno de deconstrucción, réplica o reescritura del canon, pero no ya desde la crítica, sino desde la propia obra literaria, materializado a través de los denominados microtextos, textos breves o brevísimos, cuya naturaleza permite el juego autorreflexivo, revisionista y paródico característico de la estética postmoderna. Como señalara Linda Hutcheon (1988:195-200), la parodia constituye un recurso posmodernista – cambiaría este término por el de “revisionista” – por excelencia, puesto que permite realizar una crítica al discurso cultural desde el interior del mismo. Nos interesa aquí un fenómeno basado en la reescritura de textos canónicos, los guiños de complicidad a la persona que lee y la reflexión del propio texto sobre su proceso de composición y carácter ficcional. Ejemplo de ello son las minificciones y relatos breves de corte experimental que proliferaron en las 140 CRISTINA PÉREZ VALVERDE
últimas décadas del siglo XX en la literatura anglosajona, como también en las letras hispanas (pensemos en los cuentos de Augusto Monterroso y en general en el microrrelato hispanoamericano, tan cultivado en México). Este tipo de escritura desafía las convenciones de los géneros y basa su discurso en la exploración de los propios mecanismos de la creación literaria, ofreciéndonos textos breves, de final abierto, que invitan a llenar sus intencionados huecos, y en los que se lleva a cabo una revisión de textos anteriores mediante la cual se subvierte, altera, corrige y/o amplía el canon y se nos ofrecen nuevas lecturas de viejos temas. Al comienzo de los noventa, Patricia Waugh asociaba este tipo de discurso a la búsqueda de nuevas formas por parte de una serie de escritoras contemporáneas, quienes ejercerían dicha estética como una estrategia de desestructuración de las historias tradicionales y construcción de nuevas identidades:
It seems possible to me to draw on the aesthetics of Postmodernism as strategies for narrative disruption of traditional stories and construction of new identity scripts, without embracing its more extreme nihilistic or pragmatist implications. (1992:190)
A su juicio, este era el caso de Margaret Atwood, Fay Weldon, Jeanette Winterson y Angela Carter, quienes recurrirían a tales estrategias con el fin de re-imaginar el mundo. En efecto, la producción de la canadiense Margaret Atwood, como también, en el ámbito hispano, de la argentina Ana Mª Shua, se caracteriza por su tratamiento revisionista de la cuestión del género y la otredad en la tradición literaria, así como por su naturaleza experimental, concretada en la subversión de las categorías tradicionales de géneros literarios, en la hibridación y búsqueda de nuevas formas, y en su marcado carácter metaficcional. En los volúmenes de Atwood mencionados arriba, como también en La Sueñera (1984) de Shua, dicha revisión se lleva a cabo mediante un tipo de escritura muy concreta: el microtexto. El juego verbal y conceptual, la reescritura y tratamiento intertextual de textos clásicos, la parodia, el humor, la ironía, la crítica más o menos velada a los problemas sociales, la reflexión metaficcional sobre el hecho mismo de crear historias y sobre las convenciones narratológicas, el requerimiento de la implicación activa del receptor en la construcción del texto, son características de este tipo de escritura, susceptible de contribuir a la comprensión de los procesos de ficcionalización por parte de la persona que lee, al acercarla a los propios mecanismos de la ficción desde el interior de los propios textos. Como ya apuntara Patricia Merivale (1996:100), muchos de los textos breves de Margaret Atwood están marcados por una relación explícita con géneros narrativos específicos, los cuales son a menudo parodiados. Buena parte de los títulos incluidos en Good Bones and Simple Murders (1994) ― volumen en el que se recogen microtextos previamente publicados en Murder in the Dark (1983) y Good Bones (1992) ― hacen alusión directa a géneros concretos. Es el caso de “There Was Once”, “Horror Comics”, “Happy Endings”, “Women’s
EL JUEGO METAFICCIONAL EN “WOMEN’S NOVELS” DE MARGARET ATWOOD 141
Novels”, “Autobiography” o “A Parable”. Los títulos anticipan la reflexion sobre el género en cuestión o el diálogo que con aquel se llevará a cabo en el cuerpo del texto. Además, la referencia explícita a la temática abordada nos sitúa en un punto de partida concreto en el momento de la lectura, apelando al bagaje lector de quien se enfrenta al relato, que aportará a dicha lectura su conocimiento previo del género en cuestión. Esto hace posible que, con su brevedad, estas ficciones sean tan ricas en sugerencias, connotaciones y evocaciones. Aunque resultan difíciles de catalogar, Patricia Merivale las ha definido como poemas en prosa, en los que Atwood lleva a cabo “[a] subversion of prose genres through compact parody and canny intertextuality” (1995:268). A continuación tomaremos como punto de partida el texto “Women’s Novels” para ilustrar, de una parte, el modo en que este tipo de escritura permite llevar a cabo una reflexión guiada en torno a las convenciones literarias y, de otra, la manera en que las categorías del género aludido en el título son desmontadas y parodiadas en el cuerpo del relato, constituyendo el fragmento final del texto una auténtica declaración de principios en torno a la ética y la escritura tal y como es entendida por la autora, Margaret Atwood.
¿QUÉ HAY EN UN TÍTULO? EXPECTATIVAS E HIPÓTESIS DE LECTURA A PARTIR DE “WOMEN’S NOVELS”
El título “Women’s Novels” remite a un género literario asociado a la mujer. Lo primero que llama la atención de este texto es la naturaleza genérica del título, genérico en una doble acepción: referido a un pretendido o supuesto género o tipo de novelas, de una parte, y de otra en el sentido de su generalidad. No se nos habla de una mujer o un personaje específico, ni tampoco de una novela concreta. Si preguntamos al alumnado a qué tipo de texto corresponde este título, nos dirán que se trata de un ensayo, un artículo de crítica literaria o un texto periodístico. No entrará dentro de las expectativas de la persona que lee encontrar una reflexión metaficcional sobre un tipo de novelas, a menos que dicha persona esté familiarizada con el fenómeno de la metaficción. Una vez aclarado el hecho de que se trata de un texto literario, una posibilidad es pensar que “Women’s Novels” constituye una referencia clave en la trama de la narración. Por ejemplo, tal vez se establece una relación entre la situación real de la hipotética protagonista y la estructura argumental de cierta clase de novelas. Pudiera ser, por otra parte, que la voz narrativa construyera su discurso a partir de su experiencia de lectura de un tipo específico de textos. Y si es así, ¿cuáles son las características de dichos textos? En realidad, el propio título plantea ya una serie de interrogantes. La ambigüedad del posesivo “Women’s Novels” suscita la siguiente cuestión: ¿se trata de novelas dirigidas a mujeres, leídas por mujeres, o escritas por mujeres? ¿O tal vez un tipo de novelas que reúnen una serie de características específicas? Si se entiende novelas escritas por mujeres, la pregunta inmediata es: ¿existen algunas características específicas (de temática, estructura narrativa, estilo, . 142 CRISTINA PÉREZ VALVERDE lenguaje) que diferencien las novelas escritas por mujeres? ¿No contribuirá esta catalogación a relegar a la mujer lectora y/o escritora a una condición de marginalidad en la literatura? Jugar precisamente con las hipótesis de lectura de nuestro alumnado a partir del título será el primer paso de nuestra aproximación. Esta actividad cobra aquí especial relevancia, dada la carga referencial del título, que nos lleva a cuestionar la legitimidad de esta supuesta asociación entre discurso literario y género femenino, e introduce el tema de sexual politics y power politics en la literatura, un debate que ocupó durante décadas a la crítica feminista. En el tratamiento de este texto es importante partir de las expectativas ante un fenómeno tan polémico para que surta luego efecto el carácter sorpresivo de la narración, consistente precisamente en truncar esas expectativas mediante la postura crítica desde la que se sitúa ante este fenómeno. A partir de su enumeración de clichés, el alumnado suele anticipar el contenido del texto, pero no así el planteamiento revisionista desde el que está escrito. Como veremos en el siguiente apartado, en el relato encontramos lo que esperamos encontrar, pero desde una perspectiva radicalmente distinta. El título pone, pues, de relieve cuestiones que tienen que ver con todos los componentes del fenómeno de la comunicación literaria: el receptor, el emisor y la naturaleza del texto, así como la condición de la literatura como producto social y cultural: por qué distintos géneros son consumidos por determinados grupos sociales, la mediación del mercado editorial, el fenómeno de la literatura popular y la finalidad comercial frente a la primacía del valor artístico en la creación literaria, qué leemos y por qué, o qué esperamos encontrar en la lectura. En relación con esta última cuestión, son iluminadoras las teorías sobre la respuesta lectora propuestas por Castilla del Pino. El estudioso distinguía entre una primera lectura de las obras, de primer nivel o lectura-objeto, y lo que denominaba metalecturas técnicas (análisis del texto en sus diversas modalidades). Dentro de la función de la lectura-objeto abordaba el fenómeno de la catarsis y la identificación a través de la lectura de distintos géneros. Se refería así a la idiolexia del texto (la lectura singular que cada persona hace de un mismo texto), que se realiza a través de la identificación de la persona que lee con el personaje y la regresión a estadios emocionalmente anteriores que hacen de dicha persona, en ese momento, un sujeto infantil. Este fenómeno de identificación explica que
lectores capaces […] de metalecturas no por eso dejan de experimentar la emoción que la lectura-objeto suscita ante obras cuya calidad literaria es considerada ínfima por ellos mismos. A la inversa, textos solo interesantes en una consideración de otro nivel que la lectura-objeto son reconocidamente aburridos, es decir, poco útiles para una lectura de este primer nivel, bien por la inanidad de la trama, bien por la ingenuidad del conflicto o del conjunto de los personajes. (Castilla del Pino 1994:335)
Durante esta lectura-objeto la persona que lee se ve proyectada en los personajes, fenómeno transitorio que, según las teorías de Castilla del Pino,
EL JUEGO METAFICCIONAL EN “WOMEN’S NOVELS” DE MARGARET ATWOOD 143 constituye una regresión emocional a estadios infantiles e implica el retorno de pautas de conducta desreísticas, de huidas de la realidad. Esto explicaría la adicción a cierto tipo de novelas y, en general, productos culturales (por ejemplo, los culebrones). La regresión constituye una evasión temporal de la realidad y desempeña una función catártica. Esta acontece mientras la persona está concentrada en la trama, y en ese momento no realiza ningún tipo de metalecturas. Precisamente, como veremos, el texto de Atwood aborda irónicamente el fenómeno de ser o no “enganchado” por el texto cuando el valor estilístico del mismo no se corresponde con las exigencias de la persona que lee. El acercamiento a la novela rosa como exponente de un tipo de ficción destinada a un público concreto sirve por extensión para abordar la cuestión de la recepción literaria y predilección por distintos géneros populares, como pueden ser también el de terror o la novela negra. A este respecto, conviene especificar que en el mercado editorial anglosajón existen dos categorías estrechamente ligadas: women’s novels y romance (novela rosa), ambas dirigidos a un público femenino, que constituyen un gran negocio. Para Lisa Craig (2000), columnista y autora de este tipo de literatura, las novelas catalogadas como women’s fiction se diferencian del romance en que su centro de atención es la mujer y su desarrollo emocional, pero no es requisito el final feliz ni responden al patrón estereotipado de esta última clase, en la que entra en juego el enamoramiento entre heroína y héroe y la resolución de una serie de vicisitudes que dificultan su amor. En este sentido, el romance o novela rosa constituiría una subcategoría dentro del más amplio abanico de la etiqueta women’s novels. De acuerdo con la definición incluida en la página web “Romance Writers of America” (2011), el romance reúne dos elementos esenciales: “a central love story and an emotionally- satisfying and optimistic ending”. Según una encuesta realizada en 1999 a una serie de escritoras y lectoras de romance por la autora de la página web “All about romance”, la plasmación del enamoramiento, la pasión, y la focalización en la relación amorosa entre la protagonista y la persona amada son ingredientes básicos. 1 La mayoría de las participantes está de acuerdo en considerar que una de las convenciones fundamentales es precisamente el final feliz. Se trata de obras que pretenden despertar la empatía de la persona que lee y proyectar sus sueños románticos, llenar la necesidad de amor, proporcionarle una experiencia epifánica ― la lectura de la superación de obstáculos o de la aventura de enamorarse ― que la devuelva restablecida a su vida cotidiana. El éxito de esta ficción popular ha contribuido a fomentar el uso de la etiqueta “literatura de mujeres”, asociándola con tramas argumentales amorosas y sentimentalismo. En “Women’s Novels” Atwood aborda esta asociación desde la revisión paródica.
1. “What is a romance? Authors say…” LOCALIZACIÓN DE ESTRATEGIAS PARÓDICAS Y METAFICCIONALES Si hemos abordado las hipótesis y expectativas de lectura desde la perspectiva señalada en el epígrafe anterior, nos acercaremos ahora a la lectura, o re-lectura, de “Women’s Novels” con un saber enciclopédico (conformado a partir de unos análisis que han tenido como punto de partida la reflexión del alumnado) y una serie de nociones acerca de la relación entre género literario y género como categoría que indica la construcción de la diferencia sexual (genre and gender), con la disposición de descubrir el tratamiento que de dichas cuestiones se lleva a cabo. El texto está dividido en siete partes numeradas. El primer fragmento se abre con una alusión a las novelas escritas por hombres, de forma que la referencia a las novelas escritas por mujeres se realiza por oposición con aquellas. Se nos dice que las novelas de los hombres tratan acerca de hombres. Las de las mujeres también versan sobre hombres, pero desde un punto de vista diferente. Además, mientras que en las novelas escritas por mujeres los personajes masculinos son requisito fundamental, en una novela escrita por hombres es posible que no aparezcan mujeres. Pasa a continuación el texto a referirse a la forma en que los escritores representan a las mujeres en sus obras y a la inversa. En el primer caso, cuando los hombres introducen mujeres en sus novelas, se dejan fuera algunas partes: la cabeza, concretamente, o las manos. No es difícil captar el valor de estos miembros como sinécdoque de la inteligencia y la acción. Pero hay aquí además una referencia intertextual recurrente en la producción de Atwood: la referencia al mito de Medusa (a quien Perseo corta la cabeza) y al cuento “The girl without hands” de los hermanos Grimm, en el que la protagonista es mutilada por no acceder a los requerimientos sexuales del padre. También las mujeres se olvidan de algunas partes y cualidades de los hombres, como por ejemplo del sentido del humor: “It’s hard to have a sense of humour in a cloak, in a high wind, on a moor” (Good Bones and Simple Murders:27). Encontramos aquí una irónica alusión intertextual: ambientaciones románticas, héroes abrumados, personajes atormentados que no estaban para bromas. El uso de frases cortas, un estilo que pretende limitarse a dar cuenta de los hechos de forma objetiva pero que se basa en la exageración y la simplificación, son elementos indicadores de la naturaleza irónica del texto sobre los que hemos de llamar la atención, puesto que es aquí fundamental captar el tono del discurso para entender qué quiere decir. Es obvio que no se trata de un narrador inocente. La introducción en el segundo fragmento de la voz narrativa “I” permite explorar la cuestión del punto de vista, que cambiará al pasar de un narrador pretendidamente objetivo a una voz personal y subjetiva. Reflexionamos acerca del perfil de la voz narrativa, de la persona que nos describe sus gustos, e incluso de si se trata de una lectora real o del tipo de lector implícito al que va dirigido el género romance. En efecto, una lectora nos detalla ahora sus preferencias literarias: le gustan las novelas en que la heroína lleva un vestido con un discreto escote. En cualquier caso, los elementos indispensables son: vestido, escote, EL JUEGO METAFICCIONAL EN “WOMEN’S NOVELS” DE MARGARET ATWOOD 145 frufrú y discreción. Notamos la carga de los vocablos escogidos (por ejemplo, heroine). La descripción, si bien breve, es bastante elocuente, y pone en funcionamiento nuestro intertexto: las imágenes que visualicemos dependerán de nuestro bagaje literario y fílmico. La tercera parte hace referencia a los análisis realizados sobre los usos masculino y femenino del lenguaje, que encuentran su vertiente más extrema en la consideración de la lengua como un discurso patriarcal y en la subsiguiente búsqueda de una escritura femenina (écriture féminine), postulados que responden a la línea de crítica feminista francesa representada por Hélène Cixous y Luce Irigaray. Dicha referencia se realiza mediante la siguiente imagen: Last time we looked, monosyllables were male, still dominant but sinking fast, wrapped in the octopoid arms of labial polysyllables, whispering to them with arachnoid grace: darling, darling”. (Good Bones and Simple Murders:27) El lenguaje masculino (dominante) aparece aquí representado en los monosílabos (asumimos que debido a la certeza, la lógica, la definición, la determinación implícita en vocablos como yes, no, good, bad, right, wrong). Estos se presentan en la imagen siendo devorados por los vocablos polisílabos (el lenguaje femenino). El discurso femenino, polisilábico, se representa como una medusa atrapando al lenguaje masculino de los monosílabos. La imagen de la medusa remite al artículo de Hélène Cixous “The Laugh of the Medusa” (1976), en el que se ponen de manifiesto sus ideas en torno a la relación entre género y lenguaje. Para Cixous, Irigaray y otras críticas francesas, la lengua es un instrumento de dominación masculino. Oponen al discurso racional de la sociedad patriarcal la búsqueda o exploración de un nuevo lenguaje más cercano a la experiencia de la mujer, caracterizado por su apertura frente a la lógica, la definición, la determinación y la linealidad de la lengua oficial. Como vemos, el texto no solo revisa los estereotipos de género en la literatura, sino la propia crítica literaria y el fenómeno mismo de la lectura y la escritura. El cuarto fragmento introduce la cuestión del tema en la novela. Se aborda aquí la dialéctica historia o política frente a domesticidad y hogar. Se introduce el ideal del amor romántico, clave de la novela sentimental. En la quinta parte aparece de nuevo la voz “I”, a través de la cual la hipotética lectora rechaza las lecturas tristes o violentas y reclama un universo ficcional perfecto y maravilloso, poblado por chicas vestidas de novia, chicas inteligentes pero no demasiado, que transformen al héroe, libertino, calavera, delincuente en potencia, en un caballero que utilice el vocabulario correcto, es decir, que haga uso de la palabra clave: forever. Mediante la voz de esta lectora que reclama el final feliz se textualiza el potencial de evasión inherente a la ficción. Por otra parte, de nuevo se pone en funcionamiento nuestro intertexto, al que habremos de recurrir para localizar tramas que se ajusten a ese patrón; por ejemplo Pamela de Samuel Richardson o Jane Eyre de Charlotte Brönte, cuyo personaje epónimo logró sanar el corazón de Rochester, y así habría un largo . 146 CRISTINA PÉREZ VALVERDE etcétera. Esta revisión constituirá un ejercicio de repaso de la propia competencia literaria, así como de la representación de los roles de género a través de la historia de la literatura. El fragmento sexto pretende abordar las consideraciones populares en torno al significado del término “women’s novels”: Some people think a woman’s novel is anything without politics in it. Some think it’s anything about relationships. Some think it’s anything with a lot of operations in it, medical ones I mean. Some think it’s anything that doesn’t give you a broad panoramic view of our exciting times. (ibíd.:29) Notamos el énfasis en la privacidad y las relaciones amorosas frente a la temática política y social. Es decir, se alude aquí de manera irónica ― nuevamente desde la exageración y la simplificación ― a la dicotomía domesticidad/historia, o ámbitos privado y público, asociada al aspecto del género en la historia de la novela. Paralelamente, la referencia a las operaciones quirúrgicas remite al tema del cuerpo, probablemente no tanto desde su componente estético como tarjeta de identidad de los personajes femeninos sino desde su asociación con fenómenos biológicos propios de la mujer, así como a un tipo de ficción centrada en el dolor físico y la enfermedad. En la parte final del texto aparece por primera vez de manera explícita la voz autorial para manifestar su postura ante la ficción rosa. Descubrimos que la voz narrativa de este pasaje no coincide con la voz del pasaje segundo (correspondiente al ama de casa lectora). Es ahora la voz de la escritora la que se infiltra para confesar que podría vivir de forma bastante cómoda si leyera y escribiera este tipo de obras escapistas, pero ello le resulta imposible, ya que no puede renunciar al compromiso en la literatura. Seguidamente se presenta a sí misma en el acto de lectura de un texto rosa. Pero justo en el momento más interesante se desconcentra al quedar atrapada en la indeterminación de la siguiente metáfora: “She had the startled eyes of a wild bird” (ibíd.:29). ¿Qué tipo de pájaro salvaje: una lechuza, un cuco tal vez?, se pregunta mientras lee esta frase, pretendidamente misteriosa, que, lejos de haber producido en la lectora un sentimiento romántico, la remite a disquisiciones ornitológicas, de acuerdo con el tono irónico del texto. No entra, por tanto, en el pacto narrativo, incapaz de abandonarse al placer de la lectura-objeto. Si recordamos la teoría de Castilla del Pino, durante la misma el sujeto se abstrae y es incapaz de realizar una metalectura técnica. Lo que impide que esta lectora se abstraiga en la lectura es el hecho de que no le convence el estilo del texto. Este pasaje nos lleva a abordar dos cuestiones clave. En primer lugar, la importancia de la calidad estética, más allá de la evasión o suspensión momentánea de las categorías de la realidad fáctica inherente a cualquier tipo de producto ficcional. En segundo, el compromiso en la literatura, un compromiso personal con la propia realidad por parte de la persona que escribe, al margen de una finalidad puramente lucrativa o comercial. Ambas cuestiones cobran especial relieve en el momento actual, cuando el propio mercado editorial favorece el auge y circulación de obras de dudosa calidad literaria (véase Álamo Felices EL JUEGO METAFICCIONAL EN “WOMEN’S NOVELS” DE MARGARET ATWOOD 147 2009), hasta el punto de que la narrativa de calidad empieza a convertirse en objeto de culto, rara avis entre la fauna de productos culturales promovidos por la sociedad de consumo, orientados al entretenimiento masivo. Una tercera cuestión, emparejada a las anteriores, y a modo de conclusión general del trabajo, es precisamente la construcción de la identidad sexual en el texto, más allá del encasillamiento manido, la simplificación y el encorsetamiento, cuestión esta de amplio calado que rebasa los límites y la intencionalidad del presente trabajo, con el que pretendíamos poner de manifiesto la susceptibilidad de la ficción breve para reflexionar sobre los procesos de composición y recepción literaria, en función de su cuestionamiento y recreación de las construcciones narrativas de nuestra cultura (Lagmanovich 1994). De ahí que sea una forma ampliamente explorada por Margaret Atwood, cuyo discurso entabla un diálogo contestatario con la tradición, básicamente desde la ironía y el humor, especialmente centrado en el tratamiento del género y la otredad. REFERENCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS Álamo Felices, F. 2009, “Literatura y mercado: el best-seller. Aproximaciones a su estructura narrativa, comercial e ideológica”, Espéculo. Revista de estudios literarios, 43. . 148 CRISTINA PÉREZ VALVERDE The romance writers of America, 2011, “The romance genre overview”, THE LANGUAGE OF METATEXTUAL FICTION. THE NARRATIVE DISCOURSE OF JASPER FFORDE JOSÉ LUIS MARTÍNEZ-DUEÑAS ESPEJO Universidad de Granada This paper deals with issues related to the consideration of the language of fiction and the employment of meta-narrative patterns. By addressing the novels of Jasper Fforde, I mean to expound the complexity of devices used in order to recreate an atmosphere of fiction and a linguistic use of eccentric metaliterary references and intertextuality. The representation of a text-world is a most conspicuous act of literary innuendo, and this is a salient feature on the novels used as samples. The presence of complex rhetorical and stylistic devices makes these novels a unique example for the study of the linguistics of fiction in contemporary English. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single character in possession of a good fiction must be in want of a good text. And, if the text goes beyond itself, much the better: “the more metafiction, the more metatextual, the better”. A text travels in the discourse of time and the discourse of place, in history and geography. The text haunts the minds of readers, extricates the hearts of scholars and creates a universe of discourse of deep semantic impact. This is specially the case of fiction, which is that alternative view of reality carried out by means of a particular use of language. Fiction is not an attempt to foil truth or gainsay reality but a projection of a universe of discourse mounted on an imaginative display. These words may serve as introduction to my humble offer to my friend María Luisa Dañobeitia who I expect will enjoy this commentary on a couple of books by a most hilarious author. The books by Jasper Fforde make up a case in point. I am going to focus upon two of them and, finally, upon a special episode. The main character in these narratives of fiction is Thursday Next, a literary detective “without equal, fear, or boy friend” who lives in an alternative London in an alternative 1985. The first novel to consider is The Eyre Affair. The Nazis have just left Britain after a forty-year-old occupation, and the British have continued the Crimean War till 1975, when the Russians are expelled from the Peninsula. Besides, 150 JOSÉ LUIS MARTÍNEZ-DUEÑAS ESPEJO Wales is no longer part of the United Kingdom: it is a Republic of its own since 1965, when the Anglo-Welsh border was closed (2001:9;301, historic note). That’s just to start. Thursday Next travels with a dodo, her pet (Chapter 10: the Milton conference, 108; her name is Picwick in Lost in a Good Book). Nobody has seen a dodo alive, though. I remember seeing a stuffed dodo in the Natural Science Museum at Oxford. So my cognitive map, the reader’s cognitive map, includes dodos and pets and, consequently I admit, I tolerate that fiction. As to the protagonist’s name, Thursday Next, it possesses literary overtones: cf. G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday, by the way one of my mother’s favourite readings. Is it a case of intertextuality? This is alternative nominalism in a feminist sway… Another major character, the villain, also bears an ominous name: Acheron Hades, kidnapper and blackmailer: is it possible to compress more mythology of fatal destination in a name? Naturally, a friend of this character bears the name Styx. The principle of poetics nomen/omen is fully operative. Classical echoes of ancient texts remind of the discourse of classical mythology. One of her colleagues in the Swidon operative is Victor Analogy… Her uncle’s name is Mycroft (cf. the brother of Sherlock Holmes). The SpecOps (SPECIAL OPERATIONS NETWORK), the ChronoGuard, all these names deploy a weak or strong array of referential relevance to our shared knowledge, and all this stresses the metatextual dimension. This fiction is a complete universe of discourse, a world of its own. Everything is properly placed: the SPECIAL OPERATIONS NETWORK has been designed to fight art crime; the CHRONO GUARD is another agency in charge of time. 1 The piece of fiction is made up of intertextualities of fiction. Each chapter starts with a quotation of a book written by one of the characters, or related to the narrative discourse. Chapter 6 starts with an excerpt from Thursday Next, Crimean Reminiscences, and chapter 17, entitled “Miss Havisham”, starts with a quotation from The Mill on the Floss. Detective Next’s duties comprise, among other things, to cope with literary characters or people who support rare theses: My name’s Edmund Capillary. Have you ever stopped to wonder whether it was really William Shakespeare who penned all those wonderful plays? […] “Bloody Baconians!” (The Eyre Affair:39) This is a serious argument and it is specially relevant to the main issue found in Lost in a Good Book: 1. It is remarkable the use of terms created in the narration which indicate the metatextual dimension. Boojum: Term used to describe the total annihilation of a word/line/character/subplot/book/series. Bowdlerisers: A group of fanatics who attempt to excise obscenity and profanity from all texts (Lost in a Good Book:263). Bloophole: Term used to describe a narrative hole by the author that renders his/her work seemingly impossible. Textmarker: An emergency device that outwardly resembles a flare pistol (op. cit.:277). PageRunner: Name given to any character who is out of his or her book. Texters: Slang term given to a relatively harmless PageRunner (ibid.:327). METATEXTUAL FICTION. THE NARRATIVE DISCOURSE OF JASPER FFORDE 151 The Baconians were quite mad but for the most part harmless. Their purpose in life was to prove that Francis Bacon and not Will Shakespeare had penned the greatest plays in the English language. Bacon, they believed, had not been given the recognition that he rightfully deserved and they campaigned tirelessly to redress this supposed injustice. (39) 2 Or to find out the missing Martin Chuzzlewit manuscript: The book would end within a chapter. Can you imagine the other characters sitting around, waiting for a lead character who never appears? It would be like trying to stage Hamlet without the prince! (210) Later, we read the following headline in the newspaper: Chuzzlewit death: SpecOps blamed (237). The visit to the house of the Brontës is a major event: chapter 6 “Jane Eyre. A short excursion into the Novel”. Here we read of “[t]he character of Jane Eyre, a tough and resilient heroine”. There is the theft of another manuscript: Jane Eyre. An Autobiography, by Curre Bell, 1847, and all this takes place within the framework of a powerful enemy: the Goliath corporation (Chapter 7). Then, the action goes back to the 19th century. Two Japanese tourists are trying to visit Jane Eyre, and Thursday Next is watching over, protecting her from Hades. She talks to Rochester while Jane is away. The narration is inserted within the fictional discourse of Jane Eyre (330). Another feature of this fictional construction is the presence of weird names: “the Church of Our Blessed Lady of the Lobsters” (351). Finally, there is a wedding and it marks the end: “Mrs Jane Rochester asked Mrs Nakajima to bring me here to assist”. The back pages of the novel contain fiction ads: DODO EMPORIUM/TOAST. What happens in this novel from the point of view of metafiction? Well, in my opinion, there is a game of Chinese boxes or Russian dolls: the story takes place in a period that belongs to fiction, to an alternative reality: Thursday Next passes from her late 20th century England to the early 19th century England of Jane Eyre. Could we speak of a mise en abyme? There is a representation/fiction 2. As to this, see especially the classic by Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence, Bacon is Shakespeare (1910). The opinions of this “Baconian” are straight: “I believe that everybody in Stratford must have known that William “Shakespeare” could not write so much as his own name, for I assert that we possess nothing which can by any reasonable possibility be deemed to be his signature” (30). He goes on to explain a graphological evidence proving that it was a solicitor who wrote Shakespeare’s name (37). As to his literary capacity Durning-Lawrence writes: “Shakespeare the Stratford householder could not have known so many as one thousand words” (67). For the author it is Bacon who reveals much of himself in Hamlet or in the Sonnets. He goes on to prove the cryptic inscription of Bacon’s name in a series of letters and figures and Bacon’s name can be read on page 136 on line 33 of the 1623 folio edition. The author also explains that there is a plate which contains a picture of Bacon giving his writing to a Spearman dressed in actor’s boots (125). Spear-man = Shake-spear. He goes on repeating the refrain BACON IS SHAKESPEARE. He stresses that the documents prove that “one Shakespeare” could not have been the poet and dramatist (174). The book ends up with testimonies of Lord Palmerston, Lord Houghton, Coleridge, John Bright, R. W. Emerson, Mark Twain and many others. The book contains a final appendix with the Promus by Bacon. 152 JOSÉ LUIS MARTÍNEZ-DUEÑAS ESPEJO which is projected into another representation/fiction and then it is presented as such (Rimmon-Kennan 1983:93). So, the narrative levels intertwine themselves; this entails the critical approach implied in the jargon: extradiegetic/diegetic/hypodiegetic. This discourse provokes a narrative thread of strange complexity becoming its own raison d’etre. The second novel, Lost in a Good Book (2002), offers, in my humble opinion, a more intricate and interesting plot, especially if considered under the viewpoint of metafiction and metatextuality. The main point in the plot is the play Cardenio which apparently was written by Shakespeare but there is scarce information about it since there is no text available. In fact William Shakespeare wrote a play based upon the famous episode of Don Quixote and, according to Park Honan in his biography on William Shakespeare, the play was performed at court in the winter of 1612 to 1613 and on the 8th of June 1613. Humphrey Mosely registered it in the Stationer’s Register in 1653 “The History of Cardenio by Mr Fletcher and Shakespeare”. In 1728 Lewis Theobald published Double Falshood, also based upon the romantic fable of Cervantes, and textual analysis reveals that this 18th century play contains “ghosts of Shakespeare’s lost words” (imagination, suspicions, possession) of the disappeared original play by Fletcher and Shakespeare. 3 In the book by Miguel de Cervantes we find chapter XXIII, first part, “Donde se prosigue la aventura en Sierra Morena”, and a story is told about the disgraceful love of Cardenio and Lucinda, the intromission of the Duke and his son, Ferdinand, and all the miseries and tribulations suffered by Cardenio: “el astroso Caballero de la Sierra” (the ragged Knight of the Mountain), “el Roto de la Mala Figura” (the torn down of the bad countenance) or “el Caballero del Bosque” (the Knight of the Forest), since all these phrases are used to refer to the character (Martínez-Dueñas Espejo 2005:34). In the novel by Fforde, Thursday Next goes to the house of a Mrs Hathaway34 (“Call me Anne”, 30) 4 at her request, since she says she has a copy of Cardenio. This is really surprisingly funny and maintains the tone of parody and satire which enhances the metafiction. The detectives say that the copy is a forgery: 3. See Honan (1998:375-376). On 9 September 1653 the London publisher Humphrey Moseley entered in the Stationers’ Register a batch of plays including “The History of Cardenio by Mr Fletcher and Shakespeare”. Cardenio is a character in Part One of Cervantes’ Don Quixote, published in English translation in 1612. There are references to the play “Cardenno” in the payment of the Privy Council on 20 May 1623 to thee King’s Men and on 9 July 1613 Hemmings, leader of the King’s Men, received some money for the play “Cardenno”. Theobald claimed to own several manuscripts of an original play by Shakespeare some of his contemporaries thought the style was Fletcher’s, not Shakespeare’s. It is quite possible that Double Falshood is based (however distantly) on a play of Shakespeare’s time; if so, the play is likely to have been the one performed by Fletcher and Shakespeare. Double Falshood is a tragicomedy and the characters’ names differ from those in Don Quixote, and the story is varied. 4. This short sentence, as simple as may sound, inevitably reminds me of Melville Moby Dick: “Call me Ishmael”, the first phrase in Chapter I. However, it may also be a remake of the usual polite order: “Call me Tony!”, uttered by the then Prime Minister Tony Blair, when a journalist addressed him as Sir/Prime Minister. Sir Anthony Hopkins replied exactly the same when asked by a Spanish journalist: “Call me Tony!” It is an extreme case of intertextuality, though I write this tongue-in- cheek. METATEXTUAL FICTION. THE NARRATIVE DISCOURSE OF JASPER FFORDE 153 “I’m afraid so. The rhyme, metre and grammar don’t really match any of Shakespeare’s known works”. Although Anne Hathaway rejects the opinion, the detectives continue their argument till Next replies: It’s not just the text. You see, Shakespeare never wrote on lined paper with a ballpoint, and even if he did, I doubt he would have had Cardenio seeking Lucinda in a Range Rover. (31) Naturally, Anne Hathaway replies that it is a “literary anachronism” (31). The remark is quite hilarious and makes up the yeast of the novel as an iconic echo: literary anachronism and its rhetorical force, as Luzzi (2009:69-84) has recently explained. The idea, on the whole, is rather original: to dig up a non-existent play, the idea that that play ever existed and was actually written and performed but no longer available, and make it the centre of a bibliographical search and a detective investigation. The Aristotelian concept of mimesis is not really a copy or imitation but a creative fiction, and this is a good sample of that literary fiction, or rather, metafiction, metamimesis(?). 5 There is a continuity of this furthering a representative action, something peculiar to the human condition. This is also enmeshed in a dimension of historicity fully assumed: in this particular case from Cervantes (1605) to Shakespeare (1612) and the early 21st century Ffordeian epitomes. All told, the narration is quite hilarious: The play, forgery or not, was excellent. After the opening soliloquy we soon went into a flashback where the unragged Cardenio and Lucinda write a series of passionate love letters in an Elizabethan version on Rock Hudson/Doris day split screen, Lucinda on one side reacting to Cardenio writing them on the other and vice versa. (37) Finally, going on with the novel and the metafiction by Fforde, Thursday Next goes to the manor of Lord Volescamp to visit his library and see the manuscript of Cardenio just found. The expert bibliophile who works for the aristocrat says that he has seen many fake manuscripts of Cardenio but that was not. That is the original one, the authentic, the genuine text. Upon reading the soliloquy of Cardenio he perceived a halo of Romeo and Juliet Spanish style, with laughter and happy end. There is even a line of great expression: “Knowst thou, O love, the pangs which I sustain” (36). The manuscript undergoes a series of tests to prove its authenticity: metrical parsing, syntactic study, lexical analysis; this shows that the text found is 70% corresponding to Shakespeare’s authorship. However, the discovery of the manuscript engenders certain social alarm since it is a good that may become part of a family patrimony. 5. At the beginning of Peri Poietikes (Poetics), Aristotle declares that all literary forms are imitations (Gk. Mimeséis Lat. imitatio.) Antoine Compagnon in his opening lecture at the Collège de France said that mimesis is translated nowadays as “representation” or “fiction” rather than “imitation” (2008:35). 154 JOSÉ LUIS MARTÍNEZ-DUEÑAS ESPEJO Consequently, the members of the Liberal Party (the Whigs), who by the way are almost non-existent in current British politics, propose that there should be no property rights on the play and its performance, so that it can be performed without paying royalties or copyright: Then there’ Yorrick Kane, a Whig politician who hopes to use the free distribution of the play to sway the Shakespeare vote in his favour at tomorrow’s election. (328) But complete happiness does not exist, as you all know, and since the political situation is so fragile in that England (conflicts on the border with the Republic of Wales, the Crimea War just finished, and the recent Nazi occupation) it is necessary to get rid of the manuscript of Cardenio, whose existence, continuity, editions and publication might have given extreme power to the lobby of the Shakespeareans, breaking so the political equilibrium. There is also reference to the Baconians. Without Cardenio, the powerful Shakesperean lobby had returned their allegiance to the current administration, who had promised to postpone, with the help of the ChronoGuard, the eighteenth-century demolition of Shakespeare’s old Stratford home. (341-342) That is why, despite the discovery of the manuscript, we are no longer able to read the play. The original text by Miguel de Cervantes was a source of inspiration for Fletcher and Shakespeare and this went on to Lewis Theobald. Unfortunately, the English link disappeared, and Jasper Fforde rekindles it creating a hope for metafiction and a metatextual frustration, since we are not able to read the manuscript. The mystery remains. And, what about the manuscript? REFERENCES Compagnon, A. 2008 [2007], Para qué sirve la literatura [La littérature, pourquoi faire?]. Transl. M. Arranz. Barcelona: Acantilado. Durning-Lawrence, E. 1910, Bacon is Shakespeare. London and New York: Gay and Hancock. Fforde, J. 2001, The Eyre Affair. London: Hodder. Fforde, J. 2002, Lost in a Good Book. London: Hodder. Honan, P. 1998, Shakespeare. A life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Luzzi, J. 2009, “Rhetorical anachronism”. Comparative Literature, 61:69-84. Martínez-Dueñas Espejo, J.L. 2005, “El Quijote, William Skakespeare y la actualidad literaria”. El fingidor, Septiembre-Diciembre:34. Rimmon-Kennan, S. 1983, Narrative fiction. Contemporary poetics. London: Routledge. “MARRIED FOLKS THEY ARE: AND FEW PLEASURES THEY HAVE”: MARRIAGE SCENES IN O. HENRY’S SHORT STORIES LAURA TORRES ZÚÑIGA Universidad de Granada “Every house has a drama in it”, O. Henry is reported to have said once (qtd. in Current-Garcia 1965:115). Although most of his stories deal with public life – shops, restaurants, parks – some like the renowned “The Gift of the Magi” and “A Service of Love” depict the life of young married couples in a sentimental light. On the other hand, the images of marriage in stories such as “The Pendulum” strike us as quite somber, whereas, objectively considered, the circumstances in “A Harlem Tragedy” and “Between Rounds” would in modern times be considered reportable cases of domestic violence. This paper intends to discover the narrative strategies that make us question whether O. Henry’s idealistic descriptions of married life are in fact so, and allows us to perceive the voice of William S. Porter the husband beneath that of O. Henry the narrator. The narrative style of William S. Porter, alias O. Henry, is characterized by the use of an intrusive narrator (Aguilera Linde 2010:583), a penchant for “satire, humor, romance” (Werlock and Werlock 2010:320), and the surprise ending (Hollander 2005:7). In an appreciative essay, 1 Boris Ejxembaum (1968:255- 257) studies the story “A Night in New Arabia” (from the collection Strictly Business) as the perfect example of O. Henry’s customary use of literary irony and estranging strategies. At the same time, Ejxembaum uses this text to argue that O. Henry relegates love to the background of his stories as a mere initiator of the intrigue because “the stereotype of the love story built on ‘psychological analysis’ revolts him” (1968:257). He cites an excerpt of the story as an illustration of the author’s reticence to describe the process of courtship: 1. Ejxembaum’s article was first published in Russia in 1924, when O. Henry’s literary reputation in the US had already begun to decline under the charge that he “sacrificed everything for entertainment” and did not provide his characters with enough psychological depth (Scofield 2006:116). For the formalist Ejxembaum, this was far from being a critical flaw. 156 LAURA TORRES ZÚÑIGA The processes of courtship are personal, and do not belong to general literature. They should be chronicled in detail only in advertisements of iron tonics and in the secret by-laws of the Woman’s Auxiliary of the Ancient Order of the Rat Trap. But genteel writing may contain a description of certain stages of its progress without intruding upon the province of the X-ray or of park policemen. (O. Henry 1953:1588) It is indeed ironic that the narrator should make this claim in a story that devotes its core to the description of the courting of a millionaire’s daughter by a humble grocery man. Yet it may not be coincidental that such a sentimental rags- to-riches tale – obviously, the poor suitor is discovered to be the heir to a fortune and ends up marrying the girl – serves at the same time as a paradigmatic example of O. Henry’s “incessant ironic play and underscoring of devices” (Ejxembaum 1968:256). Despite Ejxembaum’s claim, we can find that many of O. Henry’s stories feature a love relationship on the foreground. Some of them deal with the stages previous to marriage – such as the aforementioned “A night in New Arabia” or “The trimmed lamp”, of the eponymous collection – or with couples that have just walked down the aisle, like those in “Sisters of the golden circle” or “The romance of a busy broker” in The Four Million. Others even mock the whole institution directly – take for instance “The exact science of matrimony” (in The Gentle Grafter). There are, nevertheless, only a few stories that pay attention to what happens after marriage is attained. It is in those representations of domestic life where we can most clearly trace the existence of a marriage, as it were, between O. Henry’s use of metanarrative intrusions and his treatment of romantic relationships, especially those which reach the state of matrimony. For, although the impression after the first reading of rosy stories like “The gift of the magi” and “A service of love” may be that their writer should be a fervent advocate of marriage, the narrative strategies constantly undermine the optimism of these tales. “The Gift of the Magi”, O. Henry’s most famous story, and “A Service of Love” (both collected in The Four Million (1906)) share the same formula: a sacrificial act epitomizes the generosity and the overcoming of difficulties of two young couples in their first months of marriage. Their plot is modeled into what Karen C. Blansfield denominates a “cross-purposes” pattern (qtd. in Bloom 1999:27): a dilemma causes two characters to act along independent paths, unaware of each other’s efforts; eventually they discover that their actions have been working against, or at cross-purposes to, the other’s actions. In “Gift” 2 the protagonists sell their most precious possessions in order to buy each other Christmas gifts; only too late will Jim Dillingham discover that his wife Della won’t be able to use the set of combs he got her, because she has already sold her hair to buy him a chain for his watch – the very watch he has already sold to buy 2. For future references and simplicity’s sake, I will refer to the stories using the following abbreviations: “Gift” (“The Gift of the Magi), “Service” (“A Service of Love”), “Pendulum” (“The Pendulum”), “Tragedy” (“A Harlem Tragedy”), and “Rounds” (“Between Rounds”). MARRIAGE SCENES IN O. HENRY 157 the combs. In “Service”, it is their dream that the protagonists sacrifice for each other, secretly dropping their art and music lessons and working in menial jobs to provide for the household and prevent their partner from having to drop their own lessons. The couples are not only alike in altruism and marital status: the two perky wives are named the same – Delia and the derivation Della – whereas the husbands also share very common similar names, Jim and Joe. This repetition of the names (Jim and Delia reappear in other stories about – eventually happy – married couples like those of “Dougherty’s Eye-Opener” in The Voice of the City) is the first hint so as to convert these protagonists into type-characters whose early marital experiences seem more intentionally symbolic than real. Moreover, it is quite significant that the Greek name “Delia” links these wives to Zeus’s daughter Artemis, born in the isle of Delos and represented as the virgin hunter (Rose 1973:116). This inherent opposition between their married condition and the vow of chastity makes O. Henry’s wives into oxymoronic archetypes, and already announces the fact that his scarce stories about domestic affairs really signify “a universal yearning for un unattainable ideal” (Current-Garcia 1965:116). We can find in “Service” an enumeration of those “ideal” elements of domesticity that make these couples enjoy their (still) happy marital life: But the best, in my opinion, was the home life in the little flat – the ardent, voluble chats after the day’s study; the cozy dinners and fresh, light breakfasts; the interchange of ambitions – ambitions interwoven each with the other’s or else inconsiderable – the mutual help and inspiration; and – overlook my artlessness – stuffed olives and cheese sandwiches at 11 p.m. (O. Henry 1953:25) Although the enumeration takes the disguise of a sincere commentary on the narrator’s part, its closing metanarrative excuse (“overlook my artlessness”) and contrasting prosaic element (“stuffed olives and cheese sandwiches at 11 P.M.”) – both typically O. Henryesque features – present us with the ironic, detached position O. Henry holds in his stories. The narrator’s remarks in the course of the narration of “Gift” and “Service” insert a note of skepticism that is out of tune with the idealism he himself describes. For example, when introducing the Dillinghams’ difficult financial situation, the narrator counterbalances all hardships with the fact that: Whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called “Jim” and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good. (ibid.:7) The final, unnecessary aside openly questions the belief that such immaterial reward is enough to compensate for Jim’s preoccupation about money. This undermining of sentimentality is stressed shortly thereafter: “Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are” (ibid.:8). This concise statement and its change of verb tense have two effects: first, to affirm that the situation of the characters is a habitual one and so generalize their story as an 158 LAURA TORRES ZÚÑIGA example; and secondly, to diminish the importance of such trouble and undervalue the distress it entails for the characters. A much clearer example appears in “Service”, where the narrator himself recognizes his sarcastic vein: “They were mighty happy as long as their money lasted. So is every – but I will not be cynical” (ibid.:25). Once and again, O. Henry points at the existence of a double discourse that simultaneously builds up and dismantles the reader’s suspension of disbelief. This becomes most clear by means of the characteristic “underscoring of devices” mentioned above by Ejxembaum (1968:256). Intermingled with the narration are remarks that call our attention towards its literary conventions and produce a Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt: “the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim’s present” (O. Henry 1953:8); “Joe and Delia became enamored one of the other, or each of the other, as you please” (ibid.:24). A number of interruptions interfere with the story in progress and seek to engage the reader in the same detached perspective that the narrator displays, unfolding a “literary conversation, [and] turning the story into a feuilleton” (Ejxembaum 1968:255). “He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction,” bids the narrator in “Gift” (O. Henry 1953:10). In “Service”, Delia’s relatives help her follow her dream “to go ‘North’ and ‘finish’. They could not see her f– , but that is our story”, the narrator concludes (ibid.:24). That the omission of the “f–“ word should be a circumvention of a proleptic allusion to Delia’s eventual failure we really cannot tell, but the inverted commas that qualify her objectives cast a serious doubt on the success of the plan. These two idealistic stories share a didactic tone that makes them seem a parable instead of an account of actual facts. “Service” overtly exposes its utilitarian function at the very beginning: the narrator sets off from a “premise” that will end up being refuted after the narration concludes, so that the story is a mere excuse to show that “the premise is incorrect” (ibid.:24). Hence the repetition of that premise throughout the text, in the form of the motto: “When one loves one’s Art no service seems to hard” (ibid.:24,25,26,28). Furthermore, the narrator compares the purpose of his work with “a feat in story-telling somewhat older than the great wall of China”, which links it with the fable and the tale rather than with the naturalist conventions of 19th century literature. Although more subtle at its start, “Gift” also includes the narrator’s instructive asides to the reader, which again present the story as an example to generalize: “She […] went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends – a mammoth task” (ibid.:9). The story’s didactic purpose is heralded by a number of such intrusions in the text: Eight dollars a week or a million a year – what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on. (ibid.:10) MARRIAGE SCENES IN O. HENRY 159 In fact, O. Henry expands the narration beyond his typical surprise denouement – Jim’s last remark: “I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on” (ibid.:11) – and includes an additional moral in the last paragraph that renders the preceding story a constructive legend to substitute an older one: The magi, as you know, were wise men – wonderfully wise men – who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. […] And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi. (ibid.) Yet the doubt remains whether we as readers should really follow Della and Jim’s example in this “uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house”. Such an array of negative terms comes straight from the narrative “I” whereas the seemingly uplifting finale that hails the protagonists as present-day magi is introduced by an impersonal “let it be said”. Also, the patronizing appellation “foolish children in a flat” reflects a belief on their possessing an innocence and ignorance that will be lost with the passing of time, just like that first ideal state in which matrimony begins will hopelessly crumble later on due to routine and economic problems. THE C(O)URSE OF DOMESTICITY The couples in the stories “The Pendulum” and “A Harlem Tragedy” (both in The Trimmed Lamp (1907)) represent that later stage in marital life, when routine has already made its appearance and little excitement is expected in the daily cohabitation after “one year” (O. Henry 1953:1437) or “two years of matrimony” (ibid.:1385), respectively. Although their main narrative voice is again that of the omniscient narrator, these stories offer complementary points of view: it is the husband’s reflections what we discover in “Pendulum”, whereas “Tragedy” shows us the wife’s perspective. In both examples, however, the underlying problems seem to be the same: the lack of show of affection and the monotony that progressively pervades married life. The idyllic view of home life, those chats, dinners and mutual support and communication we encountered in “Gift” and “Service” – all have been drowned in the current of routine. “The Pendulum”, a re-elaboration of the earlier “Round the Circle”, 3 describes the inner process of realization that John Perkins suffers when facing a 3. Although published in the posthumous collection Waifs and Strays (1917), this story belongs to O. Henry’s earliest writings (Current-Garcia 1965:43). 160 LAURA TORRES ZÚÑIGA little alteration in his routine: the unexpected absence of his wife Katy makes him feel “as if the very hand of death had pointed a finger at his secure and uneventful home” (ibid.:1385). Since he “was not accustomed to analyzing his emotions”, this is the first time he becomes aware of his need for Katy and acknowledges all the neglect he has inflicted on her: Off every night playing pool and bumming with the boys instead of staying home with her. The poor girl here alone with nothing to amuse her, and me acting that way! John Perkins, you’re the worst kind of a shine. (ibid.:1386) Despite John’s determination to make it up to her and make things different, the omniscient narrator deals with this process of remorse and repentance in a very cynical way, so that his comments prevent the reader from believing in the success of the protagonist’s contrite conversion. First, there is an excessive repetition of the protagonist’s full name throughout the story (“John Perkins” appears thirteen times) instead of only his first name or the pronoun “he”. That reiteration suggests an estrangement from the character on the part of the narrative voice that will be reinforced by its linguistic choices when presenting Perkins’s thoughts. The narrator does not trust the supposedly repentant husband, nicknaming him satirical epithets like “Perkins the bereft” and “Perkins, the remorseful” (ibid.:1386). What is more, when John compares himself with “a certain man named Adam”, this biblical reference implies that, just like Adam was “bounced from the orchard” as a result of Eve’s temptation (ibid.), John considers himself punished with the loss of his stability on account of his wife, which in fact does not seem a very sorrowful reflection but an incriminating one. In addition, the narrator’s incredulous remark “Tears: – yes, tears –”, and the description of Perkins’s feelings in terms that remind of a child’s tantrum (“The thing that was his, lightly held and half scorned, had been taken away from him, and he wanted it” (ibid.)) are enough to make the careful reader realize that there is no chance of Perkins really varying his attitude, so that the surprise ending is not very surprising indeed. The repetition of exactly the same habitual dialogue between husband and wife – “‘Now, where are you going, I’d like to know, John Perkins?’ […] ‘Thought I’d drop up to McCloskey’s […] and play a game or two of pool with the fellows’” (ibid.:1384,1387) – signals their return to the initial position after the oscillation of the pendulum, and invalidates any hope of a change for the better. Unlike the metanarrative comments in “Gift” and “Service”, the narrator in “Pendulum” does not call into question the actuality of the events, as the irony here centers not on the story in its entirety but on the remorseful attitude of the protagonist, which is eventually discovered to be a sham. “A Harlem Tragedy” presents a similar situation but this time from the wife’s point of view. Mrs. Maggie Fink feels so ignored by her husband that she even envies the bruises her neighbor Mame flaunts as a result of her conjugal brawls. Notwithstanding the thin line that prevents this story from being an apology of MARRIAGE SCENES IN O. HENRY 161 domestic violence, 4 we can understand Maggie’s feelings better if we observe the emphasis on words related to the concept of showing throughout the text. Right from the beginning, we find that Mame, “with the air of Cordelia exhibiting her jewels”, turns “for her friend Mrs. Fink to see” her bruises, and Maggie, “concealing her envy”, eventually acknowledges that “she could not put on airs with Mame” (ibid.:1437). If Mame’s contusion “shows [your husband] thinks something of you” (ibid.) – however outrageous this sounds nowadays –, what Maggie feels lacking is that (or any other) evidence of her husband’s feelings. Her tragedy, therefore, is the loss of those “voluble chats” and “the interchange of ambitions” that characterized the early stage of marriage. She needs her husband, who “reposed in the state of matrimony like a lump of unblended suet in a pudding”, to “prove his manhood, his prerogative and his interest in conjugal affairs … just to show that he care[s] – just to show that he care[s]!” (ibid.:1440). O. Henry’s choice of names in “Tragedy” is again not capricious. Though different in spelling, it is impossible to ignore the similarity between the name of the (apparently) contented yet abused wife, Mame, and the verb “to maim”. Also fitting is the surname Fink because the colloquial meaning of that word, “strikebreaker” (“Fink”), perfectly defines Maggie’s position in the story, taking the reins in order to awaken her husband from the marital stoppage in which he lives. In order to do so, she starts a quarrel over the dirty clothes in the hope of rousing his temper but, as “she feared that he would not strike” anyway (ibid.:1440), she strikes him first. Nevertheless, Maggie’s provocation to break her husband’s indolence does not work as intended: rather than returning the blow, Mr. Fink sheepishly starts to wash the laundry himself. This unexpected reaction does not offer Maggie the kind of demonstration she needed, especially to show it off to her chum – “For God’s sake don’t open that door, Mame […] and don’t ever tell nobody”, the humiliated wife bids her neighbor (ibid.:1441). The narration in “Tragedy” acquires a different tone from that of “Pendulum”. Instead of using irony and estrangement, it dwells on Maggie’s feelings more directly by means of dialogue, and more profoundly through free indirect speech, which reproduces rhetorical questions and exclamations on the protagonist’s part without discrediting the sincerity of her feelings. Her jealousy and envious admiration, and obviously her despair when contemplating her “chair-warmer” husband (ibid.:1438), outdo John Perkin’s bathos. Besides a brief metanarrative comment and a short invective (“Arise, some new Dante, and sing me the befitting corner of perdition for the man who sitteth in the house in his stockinged feet”), the narrator’s voice does not interfere so directly (ibid.:1439). The use of metaphor is accentuated, however, which allows for a figurative reading without presenting the story as a plain allegorization like “Gift”. 5 The master metaphor that “Tragedy” introduces is the boxing metaphor: 4. Serve it to partially exonerate O. Henry the fact that his stories “are marked with the manners of the decade in which they appeared” (Hansen 1953:ix). 5. See for instance the paragraph that beings “Mrs. Fink’s ship of dreams was becalmed” (O. Henry 1953:1439). 162 LAURA TORRES ZÚÑIGA “she was ready to throw up the sponge, tired out, without a scratch to show for all those tame rounds with her sparring partner” (ibid.:1439). 6 The idea of married life as a cyclic repetition of habit, as a series of tedious rounds which each partner endures, was already present in “Pendulum” – where John’s feelings are “lulled unto unconsciousness by the dull round of domesticity” (ibid.:1386) – and will find its utmost example in the story “Between Rounds”, as we will see. If “O. Henry [was] profoundly interested in the possibilities of relapse” (Smith 1916:208), marriage offered him the perfect context for experimentation. It must be first noted that O. Henry mostly puts the blame for this monotony and need for communication on the masculine member of the couples, suggesting that the women’s fate could be bettered by “changed attitudes in their fathers, lovers or husbands” (Scofield 2002:118). This does not mean that the wives are not to be held a bit responsible too: notice, for example, that Katy shares the habitual schedule and always repeats the same questions. Nonetheless, it is the husbands who are hopelessly “permeated with the curse of domesticity” (O. Henry 1953:1439), whereas the wives are those who (though unsuccessfully) provoke a rupture with the quotidian. John Perkins and Martin Fink are described similarly as individuals unable to express their feelings, drifting passively like “the man who had caught the streetcar” (ibid.:1439). Two suggestive animal metaphors underpin this idea: John is a “citizen sheep” following the flow and feeling lost when something disturbs the expected path (ibid.); Mart is “the anaconda that has swallowed its prey”, and as such he spends his time at home just eating and resting between meals, amid the “agreeable smell of breakfast dishes departed and dinner ones to come” (ibid.:1439-1440). Shared meals, once one of the main elements that make up matrimonial life, turn now into a symbol of the overall decay of the relationships. The detailed description that prophesizes the exact menu that is to be expected every evening at the Perkins’, as well as the indifference with which Mart Fink gulps down the supper that Maggie had striven over, prove that monotony has also affected this aspect of cohabitation. Two new props appear to characterize these husbands: the socks and the newspaper. Socks and “stockinged feet” help to connect husbands transversally by means of metonymic transposition: be it “silk, yarn, cotton, lisle thread or woolen”, “stockinged” husbands are to be endured by wives of every social condition (ibid.:1439). The newspaper is the means of just contemplating life without taking active part in it, an escape and refuge to isolate oneself while at home. The different masculine roles that Scofield mentions are united via this symbol as equally inoperative: in the story “The Guilty Party” (also in The Trimmed Lamp), it is an indifferent newspaper-reading father that neglects his daughter, who will end up committing murder and suicide as a result of the insufficient attention received as a child. 6. Besides this one, we find other references to boxing at other points in the story: at the beginning, Maggie says that her husband does not use her as a “Steve O’Donnell”, who was an Australian boxer (“Steve”), and at the end Mr. Cassidy wonders whether he should go up and be the “sponge holder” in the domestic conflict of the Finks (O. Henry 1953:1437,1441). MARRIAGE SCENES IN O. HENRY 163 The final stage which the couples in “Pendulum” and “Tragedy” are heading to can be discovered in the story “Between Rounds” (The Four Million). The couple in “Rounds” has been married for the longest time (six years at least) and displays all the features of the previous stories at their peak: the monotony, the loss of those special moments during meals – Mrs. McCaskey complains about the “victuals cold” and her husband’s main concern is that she stops “insult[ing] his appetite” and “see[s] to the food” (O. Henry 1953:15-16) –, the lack of communication (beyond the mere exchange of reproaches and insults). Hence Mr. McCaskey’s surprise when receiving “oral substitutes for kitchenware” upon his arrival at home (ibid.:15). In “Rounds” meals and quarrelling are fused into a tedious custom that follows a strict sequence: the McCaskeys throw food and kitchenware at each other like items on a table d’hôter, entrée first, then coffee and even a flatiron as a cordial of sorts (ibid.:16). Like “Pendulum”, “Rounds” presents a rather cryptic title – clearer now considering the boxing metaphor – and depicts a sudden break in matrimonial routine that interrupts a recursive structure. Both stories develop in a circular way around a fortuitous incident that causes the protagonists to momentarily adopt a different point of view and reflect about their situation. The disappearance of little Mike, their landlady’s son, brings about the McCaskeys’ armistice, since “no calamity so touches the common heart of humanity as does the straying of a little child” (ibid.:17). The reflection on their never-had child allows them a moment of closeness and mutual apology: “But there never was any children for us. Sometimes I’ve been ugly and hard with ye, Judy. Forget it”, concludes Jawn (ibid.:18). However, the story closes with a repeated sentence to signal the return to the accustomed routine: just like “Mrs. McCaskey arose heavily and went to the stove” to start the fight, she later “arose heavily and went to the dish closet” at the end of the story too (ibid.:16,19). The narrator’s attitude, however, has changed greatly from that in the idealist stories and even from that in “Pendulum” and “Tragedy”. There is only one digression added to the narrative plot but it does not really deal with its topic but its setting (“Silent, grim, colossal, the big city has ever stood against its revilers”, ibid.:17). The culinary metaphors used during the “kitchenware battle” are not actually loaded with any kind of disapproving significance, but rather they diminish the gravity of the real confrontation. In addition, we get to know the characters mainly through direct reproduction of their dialogue, so that the narrator acts here as a mere onlooker of the events taking place at Mrs. Murphy’s boarding-house, just like the boarders themselves witness the fuss produced by the short disappearing of little Mike, or the McCaskeys contemplate the whole scene through their window. Without the typical comments that usually make O. Henry’s narrative voice ubiquitous, this comparatively neutral way of writing creates a more straightforward impression of reality, and for the first time it seems that the narrator has nothing to oppose, nothing to be cynical about. O Henry’s voice does not frame the narrative with moralistic epigrams anymore, yet still may be heard through a spokesman that briefly appears both at the beginning and at the end of the story: Policeman Cleary, who overhearing the 164 LAURA TORRES ZÚÑIGA McCaskeys’ skirmish exclaims with indifference: “Married folks they are; and few pleasures they have” (ibid.:16). CONCLUSION In Alphonso Smith’s laudatory biography of Porter, the circumstances of the author’s first marriage are described as if they were part of the plot of one of his romantic stories: the elopement of the lovers, the parental opposition on her side, a secret wedding by a sympathetic minister (Smith 1916:121). “O. Henry found in his married life not only happiness but the incentive to effort that he had sorely lacked”, Smith affirms (ibid.:122). Quite a differing perspective from Eugene Current-Garcia’s account, which summarizes Porter’s first marriage as “ten years of an increasingly tortured married life”, and his second attempt as, “from almost any viewpoint […] doomed to failure” due to the difficulty of both members of the couple “to readjust to each other’s fixed habits” (1965:32,45). In O. Henry’s stories that deal with married couples, we find a similar divergence: some stories portray inexperienced yet happy couples, some reveal the ennui of long-term married life. However, analyzing O. Henry’s narrative strategies in these texts allows us to discern the same ideological standpoint in both groups. On the one hand, the ironic gloss in the romantic stories casts a doubt on the credibility of their factuality and turns them into mere fables. On the other, we discover that the darker the depiction of marriage, the fewer intrusions and ironical interruptions on the narrator’s part, so that the more pessimistic stories move closer to realist depiction. In both groups, we can perceive O. Henry’s disillusioned vision of married life pervading the texts. REFERENCES Aguilera Linde, M.D. 2010, “‘A lump of protozoa … expected to evolve into an American citizen’: O. Henry and protoplasm”, in M. Falces Sierra, E. Hidalgo Tenorio, J. Santana Lario, and S. Valera Hernández. Para, Por y Sobre Luis Quereda. Granada: Editorial Universidad de Granada, 579-586. Bloom, H. 1999, O. Henry. Bloom’s major short story writers. Broomall, Philadelphia: Chelsea House. Current-Garcia, E. 1965, O. Henry (William Sydney Porter). Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1965. Ejxembaum, B.M. 1968 [1925], “O. Henry and the theory of the short story”, in Readings in Russian poetics. Formalist and structuralist views. Trans. I.R. Titunik. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan, 227-270. “Fink”. Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Access 20 October 2011. MARRIAGE SCENES IN O. HENRY 165 Hollander, J. 2005, “Introduction”, in O. Henry. O. Henry. Stories for young people. New York: Sterling Publishing, 4-5. O. Henry 1953, The complete works of O. Henry. 2 vol. New York: Doubleday. Rose, H.J. 1973, Mitología griega. Trans. J. Godo Costa. Barcelona: Labor. Scofield, M. 2002, The Cambridge introduction to the American short story. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, C.A. 1916, O. Henry biography. New York: Doubleday. “Steve O’Donnell”. Wikipedia. Access 20 October 2011. REVISITING KATHERINE MANSFIELD: AN INTERVIEW WITH MARGARET SCOTT 1 GERARDO RODRÍGUEZ SALAS Universidad de Granada The following interview offers a fresh approach to New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield from the perspective of a woman who could read the almost unintelligible writing of Mansfield’s journals and letters. Although Margaret Scott is not devoted to the world of academia, her hard work for years on Mansfield’s autobiographical material and disjointed notes gives her a privileged position in the discussion of Mansfield’s work and life. This interview sheds light on some controversial issues in Mansfield studies: her figure as a writer both inside and outside of New Zealand, her zeal for the short story form, her style, the autobiographical elements in her fiction, her achievement as a writer, and her questionable bisexuality. Scott even dares to offer a hypothesis about the possible direction Mansfield would have taken as a writer had she not died so young. The interview also reveals visible signs of discomfort when dealing with Wellington academics. Margaret Scott is manuscripts librarian at the Alexander Turnbull National Library in Wellington (New Zealand). Her importance in the field of Katherine Mansfield studies is undeniable through her transcription of Mansfield’s autobiographical material; namely, her journal and letters. We owe her the fact that nowadays we have access to Mansfield’s epistolary and journal production. Mansfield’s handwriting was practically unintelligible and due to Margaret Scott’s and Vincent O’Sullivan’s joint efforts, we can read this material. Together with O’Sullivan, who is nowadays a honorary member of the Katherine Mansfield Society, Scott edited Mansfield’s five volumes of collected letters, a time-consuming project that has taken 24 years to be completed (1984-2008). She has also edited and published Katherine Mansfield’s Notebooks (Canterbury, New Zealand: Lincoln University Press, 1997). More than four decades later, with Scott’s complete and unselective transcription of the material bequeathed to 1. The present interview to Margaret Scott took place on 15th June 2002 in her residence at Diamond Harbour (Christchurch, New Zealand). 168 GERARDO RODRÍGUEZ SALAS John Middleton Murry (Mansfield’s second husband), the real Mansfield finally emerges in the first unexpurgated edition of her private writings. The Notebooks are fully and accurately transcribed by Scott, almost becoming a postmodernist exercise of scattered material that comprises drafts of letters, previously unknown diary entries, introspective notes on scraps of paper, unfinished stories, half-plotted novels, poems, recipes, and shopping lists. Thanks to Scott’s edition, we overcome the unified image offered by Murry’s Definitive Edition of Mansfield’s journal and discover the complete and eclectic portrait of a complex woman, neurotic and sexually voracious, fascinated with the minute details of daily life and obsessed with death. In 2001, she published her study Recollecting Mansfield (Auckland: Godwit, 2001) where, autobiographically, she explains her link with Mansfield and collects her own conversations with Ida Baker (Mansfield’s lifelong companion through her tuberculosis). Scott was the first person to win the prestigious Mansfield fellowship to Menton. Transcribing Mansfield’s impenetrable letters became Scott’s life’s work and helped her go through the emotional turmoil of her husband’s sudden death on Mount Cook in 1960, while she was pregnant with their third child. But for Scott Mansfield’s letters and journals might have remained inaccessible, or been poorly transcribed by less sympathetic scholars. Margie Thompsom (2001) quotes Scott in this respect: The illegibility of Mansfield’s handwriting is legendary. It varies from day to day, page to page, and, because she never fell back on clichés to express herself, the word you are trying to decipher is never an easy, expected one. Scott thus becomes a figure of vital importance to approach Mansfield due to a life devoted to transcribing her handwriting and knowing Mansfield’s deepest thoughts and feelings before the reading public. MS: Margaret Scott GRS: Gerardo Rodríguez Salas GRS: You are widely acclaimed for your time-consuming task of becoming the editor of Mansfield’s often undecipherable letters. How did you develop your interest in Mansfield and ultimately decided to embark on the editing process? MS: Well, long time ago I was appointed first manuscripts librarian at the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington. It took my breath away to discover that I was in charge of masses of Mansfield manuscripts (my interest in Mansfield arouse back in school, when a teacher read “The Doll’s House”). Soon after, a friend recommended me to Oxford University Press editor as a potential editor of the letters. 2 I was both thrilled and terrified. I signed the contract and started the hard task of tracking down Mansfield letters all over the world, held 2. The literary critic Eric McCormick. REVISITING KATHERINE MANSFIELD: AN INTERVIEW WITH MARGARET SCOTT 169 in libraries and also by people, still living, with whom Mansfield was known to have corresponded. In 1970 I won the first Mansfield fellowship to Menton, which enabled me to travel to the northern hemisphere and, in particular, to meet Mansfield’s friend, Ida Baker. When I returned to Wellington, I began to feel overwhelmed by the size of the task, which I had to undertake in my spare time after working full time and raising three children. I accepted an offer of help from Vincent O’Sullivan, and contacted OUP asking that he be included in the contract. 3 GRS: How do you perceive Katherine Mansfield within the literary canon of New Zealand? Do you think she is a national icon here, or is she perceived more as an outsider? MS: She is perceived as a national icon. There is no doubt about that. She was the first New Zealand writer to make a name for herself outside the country, and that is very important to New Zealanders, because we tend to feel small and isolated, far away and unnoticed, and if one of us goes overseas and makes a splash, we are delighted. So, she has definitely become an icon. GRS: What do you think is the relationship between Katherine Mansfield and the short story form? She tried to write a novel several times, but she never managed to complete it. Do you think there was a particular choice of that genre in this author? MS: Stories are what came naturally to her. As a school girl she wrote little vignettes and jottings and gradually developed the skill to write stories. She thought that the next step would be novels, and if she had lived long enough, she might have done that. But I think it is doubtful, because the little picture she paints in a story is what she was good at. She changed the whole world view of what a story is and how it could be written. GRS: What kind of writer do you think she would have become had she lived longer? Someone close to Virginia Woolf or a more regional writer by coming back to New Zealand? MS: Well, of course it is impossible to know. I could imagine that, if she had not been ill, she would have come back to New Zealand herself, and that might have made her decide that she had finished with that material and did not want to use it any more, or it might have made her decide that this is the richest vein in her 3. During our conversation, Scott suggested to me that this arrangement with O’Sullivan ultimately proved to be a disaster for her. And, as Thompson testifies in her article (2001), this arrangement “resulted in [O’Sullivan’s] name taking priority over hers on the resultant book jacket. ‘Failing to soldier on alone was a piece of cowardice for which I paid dearly,’ she writes”. Thompson further clarifies that while some academics agree that Scott’s role in the collected letters has not had the acknowledgment she perhaps deserves, others are firm that she did not have the scholarly practice or background to by herself carry off the project with its requirement for an enormous amount of contextual footnoting (Thompson 2001). 170 GERARDO RODRÍGUEZ SALAS experience and should keep on using it. In her short life she developed so rapidly and changed so much in her work that I am sure she would have continued to do so but, in which direction? We will never know. GRS: In connection with the novel, you said that she would have probably ended up writing one. MS: No, I do not say probably. It seems unlikely to me that she would have. I think novels were not just her cup of tea. GRS: Yes, but sometimes you can depict a small picture within the span of a novel. This is what Virginia Woolf did. So, probably she could have done that too. MS: Yes, maybe. And she did review so many novels that it is clear that she had done a great deal of thinking about what a good novel is. And so, I suppose she might have tried later. GRS: Would you qualify Mansfield’s style as “delicate and feminine”? MS: Yes, in some respects, and in others she was anything but. She was “delicate and feminine” and also partially masculine. Middleton Murry concentrated on the first part of the dichotomy, but Vincent O’Sullivan has written about how she was bold, hard, and resilient. And that is true, too. In other words, she was a very complex person. But although she had a masculine side, she was not sexually ambivalent. There is no proof of that. Wellington critics believe that she was bisexual. 4 GRS: What about her early affairs with women? MS: Well, everybody has those. I was mad on a girl at school. But I am not bisexual. One of the people she was very keen on when she was at school was E. K. Bendall. She was ten years older, and she was a person who expressed herself physically by embracing people, something which Mansfield was terribly deprived of from her own mother. 5 It was a mother relationship that she was responding to in that case. GRS: Do you think there is any separation between the female characters that she creates in her fiction and her own position as a woman? 4. Due to her bittersweet relation with O’Sullivan, during her interview she showed visible signs of discomfort when dealing with Wellington academics. 5. This autobiographical detail finds an expression in her stories “Prelude” and “At the Bay” in the practically inexistent emotional relationship between Kezia and her mother Linda, which is channeled through Kezia’s close link with her grandmother. REVISITING KATHERINE MANSFIELD: AN INTERVIEW WITH MARGARET SCOTT 171 MS: It is pretty clear that when she creates them, she is inside them; she can see what they are feeling and seeing, which suggests that she has been there herself. However, at some point she made a decision to break away, and that is a time difference: once she was in that position that later she was not. GRS: What do you think is the role of autobiography in her fiction? This is a key issue. Every time in Mansfield studies you find critics speaking about the autobiographical material in her fiction. Was it just that she was drawing on what she had experienced, or did she use it as a strategy to create an image of herself? MS: I think it was not that at the beginning, when she was young and wrote “Juliet”, for example. That was simply an account of what had happened to her. The novels that she tried to write were perceived by her as autobiography. The Maata story (in her notebooks) is a different part of her life, but it is still her life, when she came back to London after having gone from school. But as she developed and grew older, she learned how to transmute that material and so, in the great stories like “At the Bay” and “Prelude”, although she draws from her own memory, they are not meant to be pictures of her or her life. They are created anew into themselves. It is just an immaturity thing. Naturally she had a sense of being pretty unusual, rather special, and amazingly interesting, and she wanted other people to know how interesting she was, and how many boyfriends she had had. But she did learn quite soon after that. You cannot call her good writing autobiographical, although she does draw on memories of her childhood. GRS: What is the role of the child in her fiction? Why is it so predominant? MS: She found children very charming. She thought she was interesting as a child, and she observed a whole lot of things that nobody realised that she was observing. GRS: But at the same time, by using these children so often in her fiction, she is sometimes thought to be immature and childish. MS: Well, that is nonsense. Of course, a good writer can be allowed to write about children without being accused of being immature. GRS: Probably it is the connection between this immaturity of children and that feminine side we referred to before. They connect this delicacy of the stories with the immaturity associated with children. MS: A good writer can choose to write about anything in the world. Many writers can write about criminals without being thought to be criminal. GRS: What is her best achievement as a writer? 172 GERARDO RODRÍGUEZ SALAS MS: The best achievement is her letters really, because they are freer than her stories and not as crafted, more spontaneous and more complex because they are witty, sad, happy, funny, perceptive, angry, disappointed, desperate. Everything that you would expect to find in a good novel is in her letters. GRS: So, in a way, considering the chameleonic side of Mansfield, we could consider them as a piece of fiction, as the novel she never wrote. MS: Well, not in the sense that they are not true. Before, I said that she wanted to write a novel and never did. In a way, these letters are almost like a good novel. They contain a great deal of artistry. GRS: The letters in themselves could make a novel written in the epistolary genre. MS: But if anybody else wrote it, it would not be nearly as fascinating. GRS: What is her best value or quality as a writer? MS: Precision, choosing the precise word. She is brilliant at that. I recently re- read “The Doll’s House” and it is amazingly precise in every word. I would add her sensitivity to unusual situations and her humour. REFERENCES Mansfield, K. 1954, The journal of Katherine Mansfield (Definitive edition). John Middleton Murry (ed.). London: Constable. Mansfield, K. 1981 [1945], The collected stories of Katherine Mansfield. London: Penguin Books. Mansfield, K. 1984, 1987, 1993, 1996, 2008, The collected letters of Katherine Mansfield v.1 (1903-17), v.2 (1918-19), v.3 (1919-20), v.4 (1920-21), v.5 (1922). Vincent O’Sullivan and Margaret Scott (eds.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Mansfield, K. 1997, The Katherine Mansfield notebooks (2 vols.). Margaret Scott (ed.). Canterbury, New Zealand: Lincoln University Press. Scott, M. 2001, Recollecting Mansfield. Godwit: Auckland, New Zealand. Thompson, M. 2001, “Margaret Scott: Recollecting Mansfield”. New Zealand Herald, 2001. Access 8 April 2011. III TEATRO, CINE Y CULTURA NORTEAMERICANOS HUC VENITE, PUERI, UT VIRI SITIS: CRUZANDO THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR DE JOHN IRVING CECILIA DÍAZ MARÍN Y ROSA MORILLAS SÁNCHEZ Universidad de Granada Sostiene el psiquiatra Frank Pittman (1999) en su artículo “Beware of Older Women Ahead” que, a pesar de los avances del feminismo, son mucho más frecuentes las películas en las que se emparejan un hombre maduro y una mujer joven que aquellas en la que se da el caso contrario. Sin embargo, en el filme The Door in the Floor (2004), basada en la primera parte de la novela A Widow for One Year (1998), del escritor estadounidense John Irving, aparece como uno de los temas principales la relación sexual que surge entre un adolescente y una mujer veintitrés años mayor que él. Tanto en la novela como en la película, la relación amorosa entre el muchacho y la mujer se presenta con una luz romántica e idealizada, que parece contribuir a la normalización de este tipo de romance en la gran pantalla. No obstante, de una forma mucho más tradicional que entronca directamente con el cine clásico, la mujer es castigada con el destierro, mientras que para el muchacho esta relación supone el paso al mundo adulto. It is high time we had some sexy, loving, passionate, older women in our movie mythology. (Frank Pittman 1999:63) El psicólogo David M. Buss (1989) señala varios factores que influyen tanto en hombres como en mujeres de treinta y siete países pertenecientes a continentes y culturas muy diferentes a la hora de elegir pareja: el atractivo físico, las perspectivas financieras, la ambición y laboriosidad, la falta de experiencia sexual, y la edad. En cuanto a este último rasgo, el autor demuestra en su estudio que, en todos los países, los hombres prefieren parejas más jóvenes, mientras que las mujeres suelen optar por compañeros mayores que ellas: In each of the 37 samples, males prefer mates who are younger, which is consistent with the hypothesis that males value mates with higher reproductive 176 CECILIA DÍAZ MARÍN Y ROSA MORILLAS SÁNCHEZ capacity. […] Not specifically predicted, but also consistent across all countries, females prefer mates who are older than they are. (Buss 1989:9) Según Buss – y la idea es generalmente compartida por otros psicólogos, como Kendrick y Keefe (1992) –, la causa de este hecho tiene un origen evolutivo, puesto que si los hombres buscan una mujer joven, es para así poder asegurar con mayor facilidad su descendencia, en peligro si la pareja es una mujer de más edad y, por lo tanto, menos fértil. Además, no sólo demuestra que los hombres prefieren como pareja mujeres más jóvenes que ellos, sino también que en la práctica, esta predilección se traduce en una gran mayoría de matrimonios en los que el marido tiene más edad que la mujer. El estudio de Buss no hace sino corroborar de una forma científica y sistemática lo que ya pertenecía al saber popular: que, en general, las mujeres se sienten atraídas y se casan con hombres mayores, mientras que los hombres suelen buscar a mujeres más jóvenes, y por eso, todas aquellas relaciones que se salían de este estereotipo eran consideradas sospechosas, peligrosas, y hasta antinaturales. Recordemos, por ejemplo, los mitos clásicos de Yocasta y Fedra, y los efectos destructivos de la incestuosa pasión amorosa que sienten por los jóvenes Edipo e Hipólito, respectivamente. Como excepción, en una cultura como la nipona está aceptada la costumbre del gyaku-enjo-kōsai, según la cual algunas mujeres mayores dan dinero y regalos a muchachos jóvenes a cambio de compañía, pero no necesariamente a cambio de sexo. Aun así, esta tradición japonesa es menos común que la del enjo-kōsai, en la que una muchacha recibe regalos de manos de un hombre mayor. Pudiera no obstante parecer que estos prejuicios contra las parejas en los que la mujer es mayor que el hombre se han suavizado durante los últimos años. Por ejemplo, la Oficina Nacional de Estadística del Reino Unido publicó en 2003 un informe en el que se recoge la evolución de los matrimonios en Inglaterra y Gales entre 1963 y 1998, y que señala que en ese intervalo el porcentaje de las uniones matrimoniales en las cuales la mujer es mayor que el hombre había pasado de un 15% a un 26% (23). En los últimos años, además, la prensa ha publicado innumerables escritos acerca de las cougar o sugar mummies, o mujeres maduras y atractivas que sólo salen con chicos jóvenes (con adalides tan mediáticos como Demi Moore, o la serie Cougar Town). A pesar de estos datos, el trabajo publicado el pasado año por Michael J. Dunn, Stacey Brinton, y Lara Clark, de la Universidad de Cardiff, demuestra cómo aún se mantienen las tendencias reflejadas por Buss y Kendrick y Keefe, 1 con una propensión, no obstante, hacia una mayor tolerancia con respecto a la edad – tanto la mínima como la máxima – de la pareja. Dunn et al. señalan cómo, a mayor edad del hombre, mayor diferencia existe entre ésta y la edad 1. Los estudios de Kendrick y Keefe y Dunn coinciden en su metodología de trabajo: ambos se basan en el análisis de los anuncios de búsqueda de pareja (aparecidos en prensa, en el primer caso, y online, en el segundo), mientras que el de Buss se apoya principalmente en encuestas y consultas a documentos oficiales realizadas en 37 países. CRUZANDO THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR DE JOHN IRVING 177 mínima de la pareja deseada. Explica por qué motivos sucede esto, tanto si la relación que se busca es de corta o larga duración: The most plausible explanation for the overall pattern of data is that males irrespective of their own age continue to focus their attention on females who possess high fertility and reproductive value. […] Especially when considering a short-term partner. The desire for youth is especially evident for example when men indulge in sexual fantasies. (Dunn et al. 2010:389) ¿De qué manera se han reflejado estas preferencias masculinas por parejas más jóvenes en el mundo del cine, y de qué forma se traducen hoy en día? Si bien a nadie le extraña que en una película romántica el protagonista masculino – un hombre ya maduro – se empareje con una mujer considerablemente más joven, la situación contraria sigue constituyendo, todavía hoy, prácticamente, una rareza. Valgan como ejemplo los listados de películas – para nada exhaustivos, pero sí bastante reveladores – del subgénero romántico May/December (también conocido como May/September), que pueden consultarse en páginas web como la de Wikipedia: por un total de 134 películas en las cuales el galán es mucho mayor que la protagonista, sólo se mencionan 57 en las que se da la situación contraria. Incluso, se podría afirmar que las películas del primer tipo (galán otoñal- joven heroína) están más orientadas al gran público y gozan de una mayor popularidad que las de la segunda clase (mujer madura-joven enamorado). Entre las primeras, aparecen en el listado de Wikipedia títulos tan famosos como Der Blaue Engel (1930), Casablanca (1942), Jane Eyre (1943), To Have or Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), Sabrina (1954), Gigi (1958), North by Northwest (1959), Charade (1963), The Sound of Music (1965), o Taxi Driver (1976), u otros filmes más modernos como Pretty Woman (1990), Interview with the Vampire (1994), Mighty Aphrodite (1995), o American Beauty (1999). Por el contrario, entre las del segundo grupo existen pocos clásicos: las únicas películas mencionadas anteriores a la década de los setenta son The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), Sunset Boulevard (1950), Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), y, por supuesto, The Graduate (1967). De las demás, la mayoría de ellas fueron estrenadas en la última década del pasado siglo y son, por lo general, minoritarias o menos populares, quizás porque aún nos sorprende más ver en la pantalla una relación entre una mujer visiblemente mayor que su amante, que ver otra en la que los papeles se invierten. Una de las películas de los últimos años que muestra una relación entre un hombre joven y una mujer madura es The Door in the Floor (2004, titulada en español Una Mujer Difícil). El director, Tod Williams, escribió el guión de la película siguiendo con fidelidad la primera parte de la novela A Widow for One Year, del escritor estadounidense John Irving. Por la complejidad y longitud de la obra en cuestión – casi setecientas páginas – resultaba imposible realizar una película de duración comercial estándar sin perder gran parte de la riqueza de sus detalles, o incluso coherencia. Por eso, el mismo John Irving apoyó el proyecto de Williams y la crítica la señaló como, probablemente, la mejor adaptación de 178 CECILIA DÍAZ MARÍN Y ROSA MORILLAS SÁNCHEZ una obra de Irving (aparte de The Cider House Rules (1985), cuyo guión firmó el propio escritor). El romance que aparece en A Widow for One Year (1998) entre Eddie O’Hare, de dieciséis años, y Marion Cole, de treinta y nueve, no constituye una excepción dentro de la obra de Irving, en la cual es frecuente encontrar relaciones entre hombres jóvenes y mujeres mayores que ellos. Efectivamente, la gran mayoría de los protagonistas masculinos de las novelas de John Irving son iniciados en el sexo por una mujer de más edad, al igual que le sucedió, de una forma traumática, al propio escritor. Así ocurre con Garp, de The World According to Garp (1978); con John Berry, de The Hotel New Hampshire (1981), con Jack Burns, de Until I Find You (2005), o con Danny Angel, de Last Night in Twisted River (2009). Todos estos personajes quedan marcados de alguna manera por estas primeras relaciones: por ejemplo, Jack Burns, que sufre abusos sexuales por parte de una mujer de unos cuarenta años cuando él cuenta tan sólo con diez años de edad, necesitará terapia cuando llega a la edad adulta para poder superarlo, mientras que Danny Angel dedicará una novela evocativa y romántica (The Spinster; or, the Maiden Aunt) a su tía materna, que le descubre los placeres de la carne. No hay duda, no obstante, de que al personaje que más le afecta de todos es a Eddie, protagonista de la película The Door in the Floor (2004) y de la primera parte de A Widow for One Year (decimos de la primera parte porque, aunque aparezca, en el resto de la novela su personaje no tiene mucho peso). Eddie, a diferencia de estos otros personajes de Irving que viven su primera experiencia sexual con mujeres maduras, se enamora perdidamente de aquélla con la cual pierde la virginidad y jamás será capaz de superar este amor. Tal vez la diferencia más obvia entre la novela y la película que nos ocupan es la de sus títulos, que viene motivada por el hecho de que el del libro hace referencia a Ruth, la hija de Marion, que sólo tiene cuatro años en la época en la que transcurre la película, por lo cual pierde todo su sentido en relación con el filme. Más reveladora resulta la adaptación del título de la película del inglés (The Door in the Floor) al español (Una Mujer Difícil). The Door in the Floor es el título de uno de los libros infantiles que escribe Ted Cole, esposo de Marion, y a la vez, un doble símbolo. Por un lado, evoca el miedo de unos padres – los Cole – que han perdido a sus dos hijos en un accidente de coche; la puerta del suelo es aquélla que da paso al mundo real, cruel y peligroso, y que los padres siempre intentan mantener cerrada para proteger a sus hijos, aunque éstos al final siempre terminen por abrirla. Por otra parte, hace referencia a la iniciación sexual de Eddie: “There was another kind of door in the floor that Eddie didn’t know about – not yet” (Irving 1998:67), y también guarda relación con el lema Huc Venite Pueri Ut Viri Sitis, 2 escrito sobre el dintel de la puerta del edificio principal del campus de Exeter, donde tanto los hijos de Marion como Eddie estudiaron – y que Marion, oportunamente, cita justo antes de hacer el amor con el muchacho por primera vez. 2. “Venid aquí, niños, y convertíos en hombres”, en español. CRUZANDO THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR DE JOHN IRVING 179 La expresión Una Mujer Difícil también está tomada de la novela pero no tiene nada que ver con el temor por aquello que pueda sucederle a los hijos, ni con el despertar sexual del adolescente (temas capitales no sólo en esta novela, sino en el conjunto de la obra de Irving). “Una mujer difícil” es el calificativo despectivo que Ted aplica a Marion cuando habla sobre ella con Eddie, sin saber que no va a convencer al muchacho, al cual, pese a su juventud y relativa inexperiencia, ya le suena como una expresión manida y machista: 3 Even to a sixteen-year-old, the phrase did not ring true; in fact, it rang utterly false. It was strictly a male expression. It was what men who thought they were being polite said of their ex-wives. It was what a man said about a woman who was unavailable to him – or who had made herself in some way inaccessible. It was what a man said about a woman when he meant something else. And when a man said it, it was always derogatory, wasn’t it? (Irving 1998:219) Otra de las diferencias entre A Widow for One Year y The Door in the Floor es la disparidad de edad entre los protagonistas, que es de veintitrés años en el libro, mientras que en la película la actriz que interpreta a Marion Cole – Kim Basinger – es treinta y un años mayor que Jon Foster, quien da vida a Eddie O’Hare. Además, la menor diferencia de edad que existe en la novela está aún más disimulada gracias al juvenil aspecto de Marion, que pudiera pasar por tener diez años menos; un extraño que la viera junto a Eddie jamás pensaría que ella fuera su madre, aunque por edad sí que pudiera serlo y a pesar de que un mar de experiencias vitales los separen. Kim Basinger había cumplido ya los cincuenta cuando rodó la película y, a pesar de su delicada belleza, no parecía tener los treinta y nueve años que tenía Marion y mucho menos los veintinueve que se dice en la novela que aparentaba tener, mientras que Jon Foster, aun superando ligeramente la edad de Eddie, podía pasar por un muchacho de dieciséis años gracias a su delgadez y la inocencia de su rostro. En otras palabras, la elección de los actores que dan vida a ambos personajes en la película refuerza las connotaciones maternales de la relación entre Marion y Eddie. Sin embargo, en el resto de aspectos, la caracterización de cada uno de los personajes y de su interacción no presenta apenas diferencias entre la novela y la película. Una vez analizadas muy brevemente algunas de las diferencias más interesantes entre A Widow for One Year y The Door in the Floor – otra de ellas sería que el comienzo del libro está ambientado en 1953, mientras que la acción de la película se sitúa en la actualidad –, podemos concluir que el personaje de Marion es muy semejante en ambas y podemos ponerlo en relación con los estereotipos cinematográficos de otras mujeres que viven romances con hombres mucho más jóvenes. Según Frank Pittman (1999:61-62), son cuatro, que se corresponden con “the four archetypes of femininity”: 3. Aparte de “difícil”, otros términos similares, con los que el hombre tradicionalmente ha presentado la conducta femenina como anormal o monstruosa cuando no se ajusta a sus designios patriarcales, son “histérica” o “loca” – véase el capítulo titulado “Infection in the Sentence: The Woman Writer and the Anxiety of Authorship” en el clásico de Sandra M. Gilbert y Susan Gubar The Madwoman in the Attic. The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Imagination. 180 CECILIA DÍAZ MARÍN Y ROSA MORILLAS SÁNCHEZ – la Guerrera o Amazona: Es aquella mujer que ha tenido malas experiencias con los hombres y que, para evitar nuevos daños y traiciones, ha aprendido a vivir sin ellos: “You may love her and she may enjoy you, but she is so distrustful of men and so insecure about the age difference between you that she may have to prove to herself constantly that she can get along with you”; – la Reina, “who gives access to the young man to her power and resources”, pero con la cual se debe de tener cuidado, puesto que “you get all she’s got, but she gets all you’ve got, too”; – la Bruja, harta de los hombres y buscando venganza con la ayuda de su joven amante: “The Witch may exploit a young man’s innocence and relative weakness for her own purposes […] Witches have higher priorities than a young man’s comfort or self-esteem”; – la Amante, “the best, most experienced and least selfish Lover[s] […] Older women have their own reasons for providing sexual initiation, but they are not likely to expect lifetime support and protection in exchange”. Según este crítico, es la única de estas categorías que es al menos parcialmente positiva, y es la más frecuentemente reflejada en el cine. También Richard B. Gartner (1999:47) considera que “such experiences are almost universally portrayed in a positive light, as the sexual initiation of an adolescent into manhood by an experienced, caring and/or attractive older woman”. Marion, en cierta forma, participa de una u otra manera en cada uno de los tipos. Como Guerrera, vive aislada en su dolor sin buscar consuelo en su marido ni en ningún otro hombre y aunque, excepcionalmente, permite que Eddie entre en su refugio, también lo expulsa de él sin contemplaciones cuando decide abandonar a Ted y a Ruth. En la manera de una Reina, Marion proporciona a Eddie acceso a un mundo adulto desconocido para él: no sólo lo inicia en el sexo, sino también lo invita a cenar – las primeras citas de Eddie –, le permite conducir su coche, deja a Ruth a su cargo durante unas horas, etc. La relación entre Marion y Eddie está tratada con buen gusto, pudor y elegancia en la película, hasta en las escenas eróticas, durante las cuales Marion jamás pierde su dulzura, su melancolía y su aura maternal. Seguramente, si la relación tuviera lugar entre Ted y una adolescente, él no saldría tan bien parado, puesto que: mating between women who have been around and boys who have not are generally portrayed as acts of generosity and mercy, rather than child molesting. As long as the older women don’t expect the liaison to be permanent, they won’t frighten boys who want to be sexual but aren’t ready yet to be grown-up. (Pittman 1999:62) Ted aparecería como un hombre egoísta que se aprovecha de la inocencia de la joven, mientras que Marion, como Reina, es la que permite que Eddie disfrute de su cuerpo y de su experiencia de una manera totalmente altruista. Es decir, las relaciones entre un hombre adulto y una adolescente están bajo la sombra de la sospecha de los abusos sexuales, mientras que en el caso contrario el joven es un afortunado por haber sido iniciado en el sexo por una mujer experimentada, lugar CRUZANDO THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR DE JOHN IRVING 181 común que también aparece en otras películas tales como Harold and Maude (1971) o The Graduate (1967), en las cuales, según Gartner (1999:47), “there is virtually no sense in any of these films that a boy may not always be happy to be sexually involved with an older woman”. También es innegable que, como una Bruja, Marion utiliza al muchacho para sus propios intereses cuando se trata de seguir sus planes para abandonar a su marido y a su hija, pero siempre preocupándose por su bienestar: hasta deja organizado quién debe llevar a Eddie en coche para tomar el ferry de vuelta a casa. No obstante, Marion es un personaje positivo, retratado con delicadeza y melancolía, por lo cual la categoría con la que mejor se identifica es la de la Amante. Marion es paciente, maternal y generosa con Eddie, aunque no cabe duda de que tiene sus “propias razones” para iniciar al muchacho en el sexo. Marion es una mujer rota, que ha perdido a dos hijos de quince y diecisiete años en un accidente de tráfico. Casada con un hombre varios años mayor que ella, no parece haber sentido alguna vez atracción hacia los adolescentes. Sin embargo, Eddie se parece físicamente al mayor de sus hijos, Tom, mientras que su carácter se asemeja más al del menor, Tim; al ver una foto de Eddie en el anuario de Exeter, Marion siente un repentino interés por aquel joven que tanto le recuerda a Tom. Su esposo Ted, previendo lo que podría llegar a suceder entre ellos dos, contrata al muchacho como su ayudante durante el verano, pensando no tanto en consolar a Marion, como en utilizar en el futuro su relación con el adolescente como arma en contra de su mujer cuando pida el divorcio, para poder así obtener la custodia de la pequeña Ruth. Lo que en un primer momento es una relación casi de madre-hijo (al menos por parte de Marion, puesto que Eddie se enamora de ella a primera vista), se convierte poco después en otra de carácter amoroso. Marion ve en Eddie a sus dos hijos muertos y, al principio, se deleita en hacerlo feliz tal y como hacía con ellos: paseando juntos, charlando con él, o, simplemente, viéndolo devorar la comida con la voracidad que sólo los adolescentes poseen. Marion fue la madre perfecta para Tom y Tim y durante un tiempo también lo es para Eddie, quien no tiene una relación muy fluida con su propia madre. Pero el día en que encuentra a Eddie masturbándose junto a su ropa interior, torpemente colocada para imitar la disposición que tendría sobre su cuerpo, Marion se da cuenta de los deseos del muchacho, y poco a poco, va cediendo a ellos. ¿Por qué una bella mujer de treinta y nueve años accede a convertirse en la amante de un adolescente? Aunque resulte extraño, más que por deseo sexual, es por instinto maternal. Marion se da cuenta de que, con las edades con las que murieron sus hijos, es muy probable que no hubieran llegado a mantener relaciones sexuales (quizás Tom sí; Tim, seguramente no). En parte por cumplir con los deseos del muchacho, en parte por evitar que, si algo llegara a sucederle, éste muriera virgen, Marion se entrega a Eddie y le muestra los placeres del sexo, disfrutando al ver su apetito sexual como antes lo hiciera al verlo comer. Pero, principalmente, lo hace porque de esta manera se siente como si simbólicamente estuviera dándoles nueva vida a sus hijos muertos, y, aunque no llegue a 182 CECILIA DÍAZ MARÍN Y ROSA MORILLAS SÁNCHEZ enamorarse de Eddie como él lo hace de ella, su affaire con el joven le hace sentirse más viva y feliz de lo que había estado en años: Marion couldn’t help herself. With every act she performed for Eddie, she thought of everything she’d ever done for Thomas and Timothy; she also attended to those pleasures that she imagined her lost sons had never enjoyed. However briefly, Eddie O’Hare has brought her dead boys back to life. (Irving 1998:102) El joven Eddie, por su parte, encaja en el estereotipo, pues una relación como la suya con Marion “transform[s] them [a los muchachos] into ‘real men’” (Gartner 1999:47-48); no sólo en el aspecto puramente sexual de “convertirse en hombre” sino también en otros. En The Door in the Floor queda insinuado cómo Eddie, “suspended somewhere between childhood and adulthood” (Irving 1998:29), siente temor hacia las chicas de su edad y no es lo suficientemente sofisticado ni seguro de sí mismo para invitarlas a salir, ni casi para acercarse a ellas, cuando vemos cómo a Eddie le intimida Alice, la niñera de Ruth, que es aproximadamente de su misma edad. En A Widow for One Year conocemos un dato acerca de Eddie que no se nos facilita en la película: su atracción por las mujeres mayores que él – como Mrs. Havelock o como las modelos maduras de los catálogos de moda de su madre – aún antes de conocer a Marion. A lo largo de la película asistimos al proceso de iniciación de Eddie: la transformación de ese adolescente tímido y vergonzoso en un hombre con más seguridad en sí mismo, más maduro y valiente, capaz de enfrentarse a los adultos de igual a igual, de tomar decisiones, de aceptar las consecuencias de sus actos del último verano, y que además ha encontrado lo que llegará a convertirse en una voz propia como escritor. No cabe duda de que durante ese verano, Eddie conoce a muchas personas – Ted Cole, Ruth o Mrs. Vaughn, principalmente – y vive muchos acontecimientos que contribuyen a su crecimiento personal (por ejemplo, el escuchar la terrible historia de la muerte de Tom y Tim), pero es, sin duda, su romance con Marion lo que lo convertirá en un hombre, en el sentido de que lo marcará de por vida. A pesar de que la película termina con la sensación de que Eddie realmente ha crecido y ha superado sus miedos y también su infancia, en la novela podemos contemplar cuán ilusoria es, en realidad, esta maduración: cómo el escritor cuarentón en que se ha convertido Eddie O’Hare guarda un mayor parecido con el adolescente inseguro que fue antes de conocer a los Cole que con el muchacho resoluto del final del verano del 53, y de qué manera afectan sus sentimientos hacia Marion a su vida amorosa posterior. Eddie no llegará jamás a sentir atracción hacia las mujeres de su edad o más jóvenes, sino únicamente hacia aquéllas que son (bastante) mayores que él – salvo, de una manera tangencial y pasajera, por Ruth Cole, hija de su amada Marion. Si relacionamos la obsesión por las mujeres mayores de Eddie con el estudio de David M. Buss, podemos concluir que, en parte, ésta podría estar motivada por su falta de interés en tener hijos – de hecho, no los tendrá nunca: a Eddie no le importa, por lo tanto, la posible baja fertilidad de Marion ni de ninguna otra amante suya. Pero es de mucha mayor importancia el hecho de que jamás será capaz de superar CRUZANDO THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR DE JOHN IRVING 183 aquel primer amor que el futuro escritor tanto idealizará, y que impedirá que sea capaz de volver a enamorarse de verdad de otra mujer: “He loved Marion – he would never stop loving her” (Irving 1998:22), contraviniendo de esta manera una de las premisas de este tipo de relaciones, que según Frank Pittman (1999:63) no son sino “a young man’s Oedipal fantasy of the ideal Older Lover, who must disappear once the young man is sexually initiated and brought into full manhood”. Lo que comienza como algo tan común como un enamoramiento platónico de un adolescente hacia una mujer mayor se convierte después en un tórrido romance entre ellos – un hecho menos frecuente –, para transformarse finalmente en una perenne atracción por parte del joven hacia las mujeres mayores, es decir, en algo “raro” que degenerará, conforme él y Marion vayan envejeciendo, en matrolagnia, una parafilia que consiste en la “excitación sexual provocada sólo por mujeres mucho más mayores” (Tiffon Nonis 2008:149), y que constituye una variante de la gerontofilia o atracción hacia los ancianos. En la novela, la fascinación de Eddie por las mujeres mayores es percibida por el resto de los personajes como algo anormal: “‘You’ve got to admit that there’s something wrong with the guy’. What Hannah found ‘wrong’ was that Eddie had eliminated younger women from his sexual lexicon.” (Irving 1998:570). Sin embargo, nada de esto se vislumbra en la película: no puede saberse de qué manera esta experiencia marcará a Eddie, ni que el muchacho ignorará la “mythical warning for younger men attracted to older Lovers: it can never last” (Pittman 1999:62- 63). En el filme nada hace pensar que esta experiencia traspasará los límites de la “fantasía de la Amante Mayor” de la que habla Pittman; únicamente podemos intuir esta perpetua fascinación por las mujeres en la breve conversación que mantiene Eddie con la dueña de la tienda de cuadros, en la que se puede adivinar la relación que ambos establecerán en el futuro, según A Widow for One Year. Como hemos podido ver a lo largo de este ensayo, en una primera lectura, A Widow for One Year y The Door in the Floor presentan bajo una luz un tanto idealizada y positiva la relación entre el adolescente Eddie y la madura Marion. Quizás, aunque The Door in the Floor recibió una buena acogida por parte de los críticos y a pesar de su espléndido elenco, no dejó de ser una película minoritaria y no excesivamente popular. Tal vez por ello, Marion Cole no llegará a ser nunca tan conocida como, por ejemplo, Mrs. Robinson o Norma Desmond, pero no cabe duda de que es una de esas “sexy, loving, passionate, older women” necesarias, según Pittman (1999:63), “in our movie mythology” para acabar con los tópicos y poder así erradicar aquella otra mitología en la que la mujer que establece una relación con un hombre mucho más joven que él es considerada como potencialmente peligrosa para éste, además de para conseguir normalizar este tipo de romances, equiparándolos de este modo a los que emparejan a una muchacha y a un hombre maduro. En una segunda lectura más profunda o, si se quiere, más feminista, no podemos dejar de pensar que los términos que se plantean en la película pueden ser un tanto contradictorios. Si partimos de la base de que la relación entre Eddie y Marion comienza siendo por parte de ella una relación cuasi materno-filial para 184 CECILIA DÍAZ MARÍN Y ROSA MORILLAS SÁNCHEZ remplazar simbólicamente la pérdida de sus hijos mayores, ¿por qué abandona a su hija? ¿Tiene esto algo que ver con el hecho de que los hijos que perdió eran varones, y la que concibe para remplazar esa pérdida es una hembra? Recordemos que ella misma admite que fue un error traer esa niña al mundo. ¿A qué obedece exactamente el comportamiento de Marion? Podemos barajar varias hipótesis. Según Ray (2006:25) llega un momento en que las mujeres se ven “atrapadas” en algo que ellas mismas han construido y ese es el momento en el que se preguntan “in the privacy of their own home, if being a wife and a mother is the ultimate goal of every woman, why am I not happy?”. Es entonces cuando se produce un punto de inflexión importante pues, según Betty Friedan, después del matrimonio “a woman’s ambitions [are] sublimated to those of her husband and children (Ray 2006:25). La edad de Marion la hace una candidata idónea para ilustrar la teoría de Friedan en The Feminine Mystique (1963): que las mujeres experimentan un miedo a la soledad a los cuarenta que, entre otras cosas, tiene que ver con el síndrome del nido vacío. Dice Friedan que: those who have spent their lives under the influence of the feminine mystique will inevitably suffer another “lonely terror” at forty. Facing menopause, empty nest and a culture that renders older women sexually invisible, women will again confront an identity crisis. (Ray 2006:25) Friedan trata los problemas que se plantean a las mujeres hasta los cuarenta años. Éste es el rango de edad en el que encuadramos a Marion, pero vemos que ésta de alguna forma subvierte el estereotipo. Primero, porque el nido de Marion está doblemente vacío: Tom y Tim han muerto y, por tanto, lo han abandonado para siempre. Y segundo, porque existe Ruth, una hija de cuatro años a la que Marion no duda en abandonar y dejar con su marido, pasando a ser ella misma la que abandona el nido. Por esto, el hecho de que se involucre sexualmente con el joven Eddie cumple una doble función: “llenar” simbólicamente este nido y hacerla sentirse sexualmente deseada. Con ambas acciones Marion no está sino desafiando el orden impuesto por la sociedad patriarcal en la que según Susan Sontag para una mujer “aging means a humiliating process of sexual disqualification” (Sontag 1997:20). Es casi un lugar común que la resolución del conflicto de Marion conlleve el abandonar a su marido, pero no deja de ser sorprendente que también pase por tener que separarse de la única hija que le queda. ¿Qué puede llevar a una mujer a sentir la necesidad de abandonar a su hija? Las explicaciones que se dan tanto en la novela como en la película son claras. La vida de Marion no puede recomponerse tras la pérdida de sus dos hijos y todos los esfuerzos que Ted y ella misma hacen parecen caer en saco roto. Pero resulta curioso analizar la trayectoria de ambos personajes tras el vacío que dejan sus hijos. Ted tiene innumerables aventuras con mujeres casadas con hijas, a las que se acerca con la excusa de hacer un retrato de ambas, para acabar teniendo una relación pictórico- pornográfica con las primeras. Evidentemente, no se trata de una forma al uso de superar una pérdida pero Ted se presenta bajo una luz más favorable que Marion. CRUZANDO THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR DE JOHN IRVING 185 Por ejemplo, se muestra como un padre cariñoso y afable con la pequeña Ruth y, lo que es más importante, no descuida sus obligaciones como padre, cosa que no podemos decir de Marion. Ted no es presa de ese tormento interior con el que convive Marion y que le lleva a experimentar incluso rechazo hacia su propia hija. El hecho de que Ted mantenga relaciones sexuales casi indiscriminadamente con mujeres casadas se presenta como una excentricidad más del escritor, excentricidad perdonable sobre todo porque estas mujeres se presentan como histéricas y desequilibradas. Pero que Marion mantenga una relación sexual con un menor es algo reprochable, que entra en contradicción con los instintos maternales que parecía tener hacia él en un principio. Aunque la evolución de esta relación se presenta de una forma sutil en The Door in the Floor, nuestra teoría es que la manera de resolverse tiene mucho en común con la tradición del cine clásico. Este tipo de comportamiento no es el comportamiento convencional, por tanto se escapa a los parámetros en los que se encuadra a una mujer en la sociedad patriarcal, y como tal es tratado en la película. Según Bellour (2000:87), el cine clásico americano hereda en muchos aspectos la tradición de la novela occidental del siglo XIX. Partiendo de esta base podemos ver cómo The Door in the Floor no es un ejemplo de anti-cine (counter-cinema) sino que entronca con esta tradición clásica. Vemos que el final de Marion (la huida) no es sino una variante de las dos propuestas que el cine clásico ofrece para resolver la amenaza de castración que suponen los personajes femeninos (Smelik 1999). Laura Mulvey (1992:22) utiliza la teoría psicoanalítica para demostrar “the way the unconscious of patriarcal society has structured film form”. El cine clásico establece la dicotomía male/active vs. female/passive, en la que el personaje femenino aparece sistemáticamente con un comportamiento pasivo y carente de poder frente al masculino que se representa como poderoso y activo. Para Smelik (1999:491) el problema radica en que la imagen de la mujer en el cine “is fundamentally ambiguous in that it combines attraction and seduction with evocation of castration anxiety”. Según esta autora, el cine clásico resuelve la “ansiedad de castración” bien a nivel narrativo, bien a través del fetichismo (Smelik 1999:492). Nos interesa, en este caso, partir del nivel narrativo. Para resolver esta amenaza, el personaje femenino se presenta como culpable y expía su culpa de dos formas posibles, que Smelik ilustra con sendos filmes de Hitchcock: The woman’s “guilt” will be sealed by either punishment or salvation and the film story is then resolved through the two traditional endings which are made available to women: she must either die (as in e.g. Psycho (1960)) or marry (as in e.g. Marnie (1964)). (1999:492) Partiendo de esta base podemos afirmar que, aunque Marion aparezca como un personaje subversivo, activo, con capacidad de decisión y, por ende, poderoso, la realidad es que su acción no es aceptable y ha de ser castigada. Una relación sexual con un menor en el cine clásico es algo imperdonable y, por tanto, siguiendo el postulado de Smelik, no puede quedar impune, aunque Laura Mulvey (1992:30) afirme que la mujer en la pantalla “is no longer the bearer of 186 CECILIA DÍAZ MARÍN Y ROSA MORILLAS SÁNCHEZ guilt”. Marion ha de pagar su culpa y por eso podemos considerar la huida de Marion, más que como una liberación, como un castigo, que en cierta manera desmiente la normalización de las relaciones con desequilibrio de edad en las que la mujer es mucho mayor. La única solución posible después de la acción de Marion es que sea obligada a pagar su culpa con una “muerte” simbólica: el destierro, aunque sea voluntario. REFERENCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS Bellour, R. 2000, The analysis of film. Bloomington e Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Buss, D.M. 1989, “Sex differences in human mate preferences: evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures”. Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 12:1-49. Dunn, M.J., S. Brinton, y L. Clark 2010, “Universal sex differences in online advertisers age preferences: comparing data from 14 cultures and 2 religious groups”. Evolution and Human Behavior, 31:383–393. Friedan, B. 1963, The feminine mystique. New York: Dell. Gartner, R.B. 1999, Betrayed as boys: psychodynamic treatment of sexually abused men. Nueva York: Guilford Press. Gilbert, S.M. y S. Gubar 2000, The madwoman in the attic. The woman writer and the nineteenth-century imagination. Yale: Yale University Press. Irving, J. 1998, A Widow for One Year. New York: Random House. Kenrick, D.T., y R.C. Keefe 1992, “Age preferences in mates reflect sex differences in reproductive strategies”. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 15:17-133. “List of films featuring May/December romances”. Wikipedia.com. Visitada 15 mayo 2011. CRUZANDO THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR DE JOHN IRVING 187 Sontag, S. 1997, “The double standard of aging”, en M. Pearshall (ed.). The other within us: feminist explorations of women and aging. Colorado and Oxford: Westview, 19-24. The Door in the Floor, dir. Todd Williams, intérp. Jeff Bridges, Kim Basinger, Mimi Rogers, Bijou Phillips y Elle Fanning. Focus Features, 2004. DVD. Tiffon Nonis, B.N. 2008, Manual de consultoría en psicología y psicopatología clínica, legal, jurídica, criminal y forense. España: J.M. Bosch Editor. “THE MISERABLE, LAUGHABLE THING IT IS”: THE DEMISE OF THE TRADITIONAL MASCULINE ROLE IN ROBERT ANDERSON’S PLAYS MAURICIO D. AGUILERA LINDE Universidad de Granada Regarded as a minor playwright, Robert W. Anderson (1917-2009) posed and gave response to many of the political questions of post-war America. Tea and Sympathy (1953) addresses the McCarthyite witch hunt (the central message of Miller’s The Crucible, also of the same year), and clearly anticipates the denouement of Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955). My contention is that violence in his work is the direct result of the erosion of the dominant image of masculinity (whose order and command, and sexual orientation are now contested) and the decline of the nuclear family (mostly in All Summer Long and in I Never Sang for my Father). By applying Girard’s scapegoating mechanisms to the analysis of Tea and Sympathy I attempt to demonstrate that Tom Lee incarnates the pharmakos of a repressed society. I also contend that in portraying Bill Reynolds as the instigator of prejudice Anderson uses the variables of the F-scale devised by Theodor W. Adorno. Needless to say, his melodramas do not provide a univocal solution to these cultural issues. Far from it they show an ambivalent attitude, both supportive of the demise of the authoritarian, hardboiled masculinity, and nostalgic of the loss of the traditional family model. After watching Vincent Minnelli’s movie Tea and Sympathy, Argentinian writer Manuel Puig became so deeply impressed that he saw two versions of the original play, “one performed by Ingrid Bergman in Paris in 1957, where he sat in the third row” (Levine 2001:99). Decades later, Manuel Puig will reach a conclusion about homosexuality clearly inspired by Anderson’s audacious text: Homosexuality does not exist. It is a projection of a reactionary mind. […] Homosexuals do not exist. There are people who have sex with individuals of their own sex, but this fact does not serve to define them because it does not have any meaning. 1 (1986:86) [my translation] 1. “La homosexualidad no existe. Es una proyección de la mente reaccionaria. Lamentablemente, creo que en materia de sexo somos casi todos bastante reaccionarios: para nosotros la 190 MAURICIO D. AGUILERA LINDE Since the aim of this paper is to analyze how the dominant status quo of the gender roles is the result of the violent exclusion of all those alternative, peripheral attempts to invalidate its hegemony, I would like to define first which notion of gender-based violence I am going to be dealing with before discussing Anderson’s production during the fifties, the “bad decade” (Gore Vidal, qtd. in Kaiser 2007:65), or “one of the worst decades in the history of man” (in Norman Mailer’s words, qtd. in Miller and Novak 1977:12), the age of the totalitarian McCarthyism but also the decade of the explosion of sexualities (D’Emilio and Freedman 1997). My definition of violence owes much to Walter Benjamin and Raymond Williams, and ultimately to Jacques Derrida and René Girard. I start from the premise that violence is a tool of the ruling class to impose conformism to the hegemonic values so that any subversive value or oppositional idea at clash with the establishment culture can be oppressed and silenced (Williams 1973). Violence is therefore a socially conservative political instrument to preserve the allegedly cohesive, seamless structure of the social order. Derrida argues that the determination of the subject’s identity (the mapping of the ethnic, sexual, and cultural frontiers of any social group) involves the exclusion of alternative ways of being and interpreting, so that the fabrication of any particular identity implies a unity which can only be achieved through a violent positioning and exclusion. The subject therefore ignores the existence of the Other (the present, living one) and also wipes out the memory of the dead ones out of fear and panic, and this is the inevitable, originary violence which the constitution of any identity entails (Fritsch 2001). Plurality, diversity, multivocal formations disappear as they seep back into a deceitfully tension-free, homogenous monolith. In Girard’s theory the constitution of any society and the maintenance of any status quo are based upon the religious transformation of mimetic violence (all against all) into the collective sacrifice of a scapegoat. Girard points out some recurring features that define the scapegoat mechanism: (a) any kind of social crisis that affects the whole community; (b) crimes or acts that challenge certain social differences; (c) a set of features that mark the victim as different, unusual, or weak; (d) the act of physical violence (sacrifice), or simply the punishment of expulsion (Burkert 1979). In order to understand Anderson’s dramatic production in connection with gender-based violence and the so-called scapegoating mechanisms we must clarify the ideological conflicts of the fifties, a decade which has been defined as one characterized by a bipolar tension, a tug of war between a centrifugal flight from the norms and a centripetal effort towards homogenization and conformism. The classical study of David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd, classifies homosexualidad existe, ¡y cómo! Pero nos hacemos ilusiones, igual que los que creían en la tierra plana. Me explico: estoy convencido de que el sexo carece absolutamente de significado moral, trascendente. Aún más, el sexo es la inocencia misma; es un juego inventado por la Creación para darle alegría a la gente. Pero solamente eso: un juego, una actividad de la vida vegetativa como dormir o comer, tan importante como esas funciones, pero igualmente carente de peso moral. Los homosexuales no existen. Existen personas que practican actos sexuales con sujetos de su mismo sexo, pero este hecho no debería definirlos porque carece de significado”. THE DEMISE OF TRADITIONAL MASCULINITY IN ROBERT ANDERSON’S PLAYS 191 Americans as “other-directed”, i.e. too frightened about the disapproval of others, subservient to public opinion and eager to conform. Yet the sociologist also speaks about the maladjusted, the anomics, those who do not fit into the socially acceptable patterns (Riesman 1950:240). The “anomic terror” of the American society of the fifties reveals the precariousness of the foundations of the hegemonic values, and thus it is hardly surprising that the fifties is a decade teeming with contradictory images. The metaphor of the “Closed Room” with which Paul Goodman defined America at that time is not so much characterized by competition but by the fear of “being outcast” (qtd. in Miller and Novak 1977:6), the fright of not belonging. Max Lerner in his monumental America as a Civilization (1957) also sees American society as divided by a major conflict: half of it is impelled by the dissolution of constraints (sexual freedom, unlimited individual options, the need to flaunt the moral codes…); the other is eager to impose morality through legislation, or through the vigilantist tradition of the local busybodies. In other words, the American is “caught between the morality breakers and the moralizers” (Lerner 1957:671). “The American society that Kinsey studied” is “half Babylonian and half Puritan” since it is characterized by both “an explosiveness of release of the older taboos” and a “reversion to a new form of the Puritan codes” (1957:686). Not surprisingly, the fifties constantly multiply the bipolar tension by adding terms to this overwhelming dialectical opposition. Norman Mailer (1966:313) sees Americans as either trapped in the totalitarian tissue of American society (the so-called squares) or pushed to become deviants (the so-called Hips). There is no intermediate position. Tennessee Williams (and also Carson McCullers) speaks about the lonely freaks silenced by squares, the violets in the mountains which will end up breaking the rocks, as the famous last line of Camino Real reads (Williams 2008:114). Theodor W. Adorno and the Stanford School build up the core of their study of political prejudice around the famous dichotomy authoritarian vs. democratic personality (Mack is the intolerant bigot; Larry, the unprejudiced liberal type), thereby anticipating the logic of the Cold War (Watten 2006). Finally, in a thought-provoking article Kyle A. Cuordileone (2000) speaks about the schizophrenic culture of the Cold War characterized by the opposition between two world views. The traditionally dominant gender role ceases to provide a unified image and is also split up into two opposing models: on the one hand, the hard masculinity (the label containing the normative ideal: athletic, vigorous, the frontier hero prototype); on the other, the emergent, soft masculinity (domesticated, emotional, sensitive) more in tune with the new demands of the post-industrialized, suburban America. Anderson’s plays of the fifties cannot be alien to the pervasive influence of these ideological shifts and tensions. My contention is that violence in his work is the direct outcome of: (a) the gender dislocations, particularly the complete erosion of the dominant construction of masculinity which the Post-War period is going to consolidate; and (b) the parallel dissolution of the “Happy Home Corporation”, i.e. the decline of the nuclear family as a stable, solid institution despite the efforts to preserve its foundations intact. In Anderson’s I Never Sang for my Father the stage is symbolically divided into two overlapping spaces: the 192 MAURICIO D. AGUILERA LINDE Home area, the domain of a “hard and rough, selfish and prejudiced” father, Tom Garrison, a promoter of a “a phony set of values” who believes in Teddy Roosevelt’s ideals, is addicted to television westerns (Anderson 1968:53-54), and banishes his daughter after getting married to a Jew; and the Graveyard area where the mother’s body rests in the casket. Far from providing a coherent response, Anderson’s plays show ambivalence: they admittedly support the demise of the authoritarian, hardboiled masculinity but, simultaneously, evoke nostalgia for the loss of the traditional family model, disrupted by the sweeping social changes. The encounter of the traditional masculine model (brutal, primitive, animalistic) and the emergent emasculated man (emotional, cultivated, civilized) can only result in a violent collision, for the authority of the former can only be demonstrated through primal aggression and sanction. Gene Garrison is, in Alice’s words, looking for something impossible: “a mother’s love in a father” (1968:54). No matter how hard he tries to discover the emotional side of his father, Tom is only “a selfish bastard who has lived on the edge of exasperation” (1968:42), someone mean and unloving who wants “his son’s balls” and who sees his children not as flesh-and-blood people but “dividends” (1968:57), objects that can be instrumental to his needs. Obviously, Anderson does not hesitate to stress the moral superiority of his soft characters (Gene Garrison, Tom Lee and Willie) by converting the hard masculine models (Tom Garrison, Bill Reynolds and Dad) not only into the antagonistic forces of his plays but also into ineffectual, powerless, pathetic figures whose order and command (Dad), and even sexual orientation (Bill Reynolds) are disputable. In Tea and Sympathy Anderson uses the structure of romance melodrama, particularly the triangle situation, to revalidate his conviction that the right candidate is no longer the hard masculine type but the soft type. Melodrama is, as we know, a drama of deceptive signs preoccupied with the presentation of a moral order which remains occluded, i.e. unrecognizable for the spectator whose goal is to disentangle the web of misleading information to rescue the truth (Gunning 1994:51-54). The allusions to G. B. Shaw’s Candida in Tea and Sympathy anticipate the moral conflict: there is a choice to be made, and Bill and Tom arise as the two opposing masculine roles on which Laura has to take a final decision. Before advancing these ideas it will be advisable though to dwell upon the plays under consideration. Anderson’s contribution to Broadway during the fifties begins with Tea and Sympathy, presented on September 30th of 1953, directed by Elia Kazan and reaching an unprecedented success: the play ran 712 performances, a number that shows the interest of American audiences in homosexuality at a time when “the entire nation [was, or seemed on the verge of] going queer” (Lait and Mortimer 1952:44). Executive Order 10450, passed on April 27, 1953, i.e. five months before the opening night of the play, aimed to maintain the security of the nation by firing from government agencies or departments all those employees who were not “reliable” or “trustworthy” and who could easily subvert the stability of the country. The conflation of the Red Scare and the THE DEMISE OF TRADITIONAL MASCULINITY IN ROBERT ANDERSON’S PLAYS 193 Lavender menace explains why the new subversive citizen is not only the Communist but also the homosexual. John M. Clum argues that the play “challenges the normative equation of sexual orientation and gender” (1992:142) by invalidating the equation macho-man and heterosexuality and therefore the identification of effeminacy and homosexuality. Tom Lee is the “very sensitive boy”, the “lonely” “offhorse” (Anderson 1953:33,26) with long hair who prefers to listen to music, play the guitar — he wants to be a folksinger — and talk with the headmaster’s wife rather than bully around with the rest of the dorm students; the guy who keeps his room neat and tidy, with Indian print curtains matching the bedspread; and whose body movements and gestures are far from being manly: he is told that he should correct the way he walks. Even the way he plays tennis, despite being the school champion, without “any hard drive or cannon ball serve”, is criticized as dubious (1953:31). Yet he is not a homosexual: the gender signs, the bodily hexis (in Pierre Bordieau’s sense) and his refusal to sleep with the prostitute (the litmust test of masculinity for the dorm boys) are misleading signs which do not reveal anything about his sexual orientation. However, the he-man, Billy, the athletic headmaster who loves organizing mountain climbing outings with the boys, proves to be the latent (a word much in vogue after the Kinsey report) homosexual who persecutes in Tom “the thing [he] fear[s] in [him]self” (1953:84). Anderson’s ultimate goal is to knock down at the bottom of the he-man mystique in order to cancel the regulatory regime of the gender traits ascribed to masculinity. His redefinition of masculinity is one which includes, in Laura’s words, “tenderness, gentleness, consideration”. Manliness is not “all swagger and swearing and mountain climbing”. Tom is finally “more of a man than you are”, the neglected wife lashes out at Bill (1953:83). The traditional man’s man image — the tough guy, the Western hero of the frontier past — proves to be a masquerade that has to be removed in the Post War America, despite the revival of the Westerns during the fifties and the failing attempts to reinscribe traditional models of masculinity. Now domesticity, cooperation, dialogue, creativity, sensitiveness (everything that Tom incarnates) become obligatory signs of identity of the new standardized model of masculinity, more in tune with feminine needs and demands, but not homosexual. Not in vain, the setting of the play and the choice of costumes reinforce this dichotomy of the past and present models of gender construction. The scene is “a small colonial house” in New England, i.e. a Puritan order where differences and disconformity are much unwelcome. To a stage designer like Jo Mielziner, interested in creating symbolic spaces which acted like the vehicles of the characters’ conflicts, working on Anderson’s setting must have seemed a very rewarding experience. The rule in the boys’ school is to be a regular guy, this is at least Tom’s father’s concern, and Bill repeats the label “regular” on several occasions. The disruptive element is Tom’s Indian colorful print curtains and bedspread, a setting prop which stands out in a difference-leveling, monochrome cosmos. Bill’s clothes (grey flannel trousers, tweed jacket and a blue button- down shirt, not very different from Sloan Wilson’s popular protagonist, Tom Rath, the exposé of conformity to expectations in the bestselling novel) bespeak 194 MAURICIO D. AGUILERA LINDE of the urgency to fit into the prescribed uniformity and stodginess. Laura’s choice of yellow as the color of her dress for the Saturday dance proves to be also meaningful for it is not only a symbol of decadent aestheticism but also of sexual subversion (Golden 2004:115), and contributes to adding more confusion in a play dealing with hidden truths. McConachie (2003:172-173) argues that the American theater during the Cold War became “emblematic”, an arena with allegorizing tendencies whereby stylized spaces and interiors — Mielziner’s typical gauze and toothpick décor — became the visible signs of characters’ tensions and emotional responses. Mielziner’s selective realism (the elimination of the non-essentials became his motto) naturally evolved into a minimalist conception of the stage: “I got to feel that even realistic plays didn’t need realistic settings necessarily” (qtd. in Barranger 2006:258). Like his contemporary Mordecai Gorelik, Mielziner believed that the true function of the stage design was to provide a visual metaphor of the fabric of the play, and he usually accomplished his goal by strategically placing different settings simultaneously on different levels so as to indicate their symbolic value. In the premiere performance of Tea and Sympathy Mielziner’s stage design, unlike the original play script, comprised only three spaces: Laura’s sitting room on stage right (the feminine space); the boys’ bedroom, lifted a few feet higher upstage and seen as a series of identical cells, and a narrow anteroom — the headmaster’s studio — placed downstage, which stands for Bill’s oppressive, monitoring presence, and suggests “the forced intimacy” of the students and the headmaster (Henderson 2001:198). The anteroom is Bill’s domain, the system of surveillance, “the eye of power” (Foucault 1980) which controls that hard masculine values are reaffirmed; the setting where Ralph and Steve, the bullies, spread the rumors, invent the names and choose their next victim. Yet Anderson goes farther in his negative portrayal of the hard masculinity prototype when he chooses Bill, “large and strong with a tendency to be gruff” (1953:23), as the instigator of prejudice and violent aggression. He does not only consent to the bullying and violence in the dorm: Tom is called Grace, is ostracized, ridiculed and abandoned by his room mate, Al, and finally expelled from school. Bill is also obsessed about demonstrating Tom’s homosexuality right from the very beginning so that the very notion of being queer becomes “the antagonistic kernel of [his] ideological fantasies” (Žižek 1989:176-177). My contention here is that Anderson uses Adorno’s F-scale to build up Billy so that the character itself incarnates most the features of the authoritarian personality. In doing so he converts the hard masculinity ideal he embodies into something pitiable, almost despicable, a superannuated model of imitation which has no place in present-day society. It is beyond the scope of this paper to enter into a detailed discussion of the scale devised by Adorno and the Stanford school (R. Nevitt Sanford, Else Frenkel-Brunswik and Daniel J. Levinson) to gauge the potential for fascism in America. The F-scale includes nine variables which are regarded as central trends in the person: (a) conventionalism, (b) authoritarian submission, (c) anti- intraception, (d) superstition and stereotypy, (e) power and “toughness”, (f) THE DEMISE OF TRADITIONAL MASCULINITY IN ROBERT ANDERSON’S PLAYS 195 destructiveness and cynicism, (g) projectivity, and (i) sex (Adorno et al. 1950:228). Billy reproduces most of them very clearly. He is rigidly attached to conventional, middle-class values. Tradition, the reputation of the school where he went “and my father before me, and one day I hope our children will come” (Anderson 1953:26), is more important than people. He is too eager to punish those who violate conventional values. When he hears that Harris, the teacher, and Tom have been found naked together in the dunes by the beach he is too eager to have both of them booted. Later on, when he is apprised of Tom’s incident with Ellie, the prostitute — his refusal to have sex with her and his attempt at suicide — he is not only happy to be able to expel Tom from the dorm but also satisfied to see his suspicions about the boy’s sexual orientation reconfirmed. He is extremely concerned with homosexuality as an abominable crime, a rotten form of delinquency which did not exist in the past: “Was there anyone around like that in our day…?” (1953:31); and persecutes Tom for being a fairy: “You can’t escape from what you are”, he says (1953:81). Character determines one’s fate, and he looks with “malicious pleasure” (74) when he finds out that Tom was unable to do anything with Ellie. He is reluctant to express any kind of emotional response: “I wish you’d look at the facts and not be so emotional about this”, he advises Laura (81). He confesses having stopped crying his eyes out long ago when he was Tom’s age (28), and very rarely shows any sentimental feeling that may reveal his weaknesses or fears. In fact, he despises any sign of weakness and admires strength as the natural trait of manliness. Losing Al, the team captain, in the dorm is a disgrace, whereas getting rid of Tom, the weakling boy, proves to be a relief. Likewise he regards women as natural inferiors who should have a passive role and limit themselves to being “interested bystanders”, i.e. look on and not participate or interfere in the schoolboy’s problems (28). Undoubtedly, Bill is, using the variables of the F- scale, a high scorer. Not surprisingly, Anderson once defined the theme of his play as “judgment by prejudice”: “What does it mean for an individual to be branded as different?” (Cf. Adler 1978:72). It is by no means far-fetched to see Girard’s scapegoat mechanisms operating in Tea and Sympathy. The overwhelming crisis is the erosion of the traits and hexis of masculinity which Tom enacts, and which becomes the vortex of the anxiety crisis of the fifties. He is chosen as the pharmakos, the pitiable, despicable creature that the community chooses to bull and punish through his expulsion (Girard 2005:99-101) in order to reestablish the unstable balance of the gender binaries. As his name etymologically suggests, Lee (“the direction away from the wind”) 2 is the only boy who moves away or provides some resistance to the man’s man model imposed in the dorm. Like Oedipus he does not walk like the rest. Oedipus, or the “Swollen-foot”, is lame. Tom’s way of walking is decidedly different from a he-man’s walk, Al remarks (Anderson 2. O.E. hleo “shelter”, from P.Gmc. *khlewo- (cf. O.N. hle, Dan. læ, Du. lij “lee, shelter”); no known cognates outside Gmc.; original sense uncertain and may have been “warm” (cf. Ger. lau “tepid”, O.N. hly “shelter, warmth”). Leeward is 1666, “situated away from the wind”, opposite of the weather side of the ship; leeway (1669) is sideways drift of a ship caused by wind. See http://www.etymonline.com. 196 MAURICIO D. AGUILERA LINDE 1953:51). Like in the Greek myth, Tom is also abandoned as a child not by his father but by his mother, and in both cases the double bind imposed by the paternal figure (be like me but do not do like me) unleashes the tragedy: Bill Reynolds 3 wants Tom to be and do like him, but his command rules out desiring his wife, Laura. Tom is the “monstrous double” which Bill wants to destroy and chooses as the object of unanimous violence (Girard 2005:285-286). Tom, the deviant, becomes the regicide and commits the incest. On the 23rd of September 1954 All Summer Long is presented at Coronet Theatre, New York. Although the play is well received by critics, it proves to be a flop (it only runs for 60 performances). Adapted from Donald Wetzel’s novel A Wreath and a Curse, the play is the grim portrait of the internal conflicts of a rural family: an authoritarian father, impersonated by actor Ed Begley, who is powerless to change things around and no longer provides a model of imitation; a crippled elderly brother, Don, who used to be a basketball player and is now confined to a wheelchair; a self-conceited sister who wants to lose her baby because she is petrified to have a big belly and stop being slim; a brother-in-law obsessed about his new Buick; and a young daydreamer, Willie, who is about to celebrate his twelfth birthday. The house is near a river which periodically overflows and is slowly eating away, corroding the foundations of a decayed house. Anderson automatically understands the symbolic underpinnings of the crumbling house: it is a symbol of the disintegration of the family caused by a superannuated patriarchal structure which cannot hold together the members, let alone preserve the foundations of the institution. Dale Bailey (1999), following Leslie Fiedler’s suggestions, argues that the motif of the crumbling house, an essential ingredient of the Gothic genre, contributes to providing a diagnosis of the cultural ills by provoking “our fears about ourselves and about our societies” and questioning everything “we hold to be true – about class, about race, about gender, about American history itself” (1999:6). The house that is finally engulfed by the biblical deluge, a typological motif of clearly Puritan extract (God’s punishment of reprobate elements), stands as a symbol of a dissolving family which can no longer be seen as the preserver of moral values. It is for nothing that Mielziner chooses a skeletal house falling down and a transparent backdrop with water ripples which symbolizes the destructive force of the flooding river. Dad embodies the residual masculinity model: he gives orders, never grows tired of repeating that he is the breadwinner, and that this is the only truthful natural affection which keeps the members of the family united. Isolated from the rest, unable to talk about something other than figures and numbers, powerless to stop the erosion of the river yet, paradoxically, preoccupied about appearances (he wastes his efforts painting a house that is nevertheless falling apart), he only feels important when he shows his superiority by the use of violence directed on something as fragile as a chicken, a mirror-like reflection of 3. Reynolds, a name etymologically associated with ragin (counsel) and wald (rule), fits into the character’s personality, if we see him as the unifying element who attempts to shortcircuit the dissident voices: he rules and dictates after seeking counsel in order to reaffirm the consensus of the community whose integrity and uniformity Tom aims to destabilize. THE DEMISE OF TRADITIONAL MASCULINITY IN ROBERT ANDERSON’S PLAYS 197 Willie’s deep-rooted innocence. The target of his aggression is the next-door neighbor’s poultry which gets through the wire fence into his garden, and which he initially attempts to kill by connecting the fence to the car power. After finding out that the killing method proves to be a failure, he resorts to his shotgun, “a pleased look […] came into his face” (Anderson 1955:99), and manages to kill one. Although the scene closely follows the 1950 novel, Anderson makes Willie lift the dead chicken and smear his shirt with blood seconds before he is asked to make a wish before the birthday cake on the table. The scene with Gothic reverberations which conflate death and celebration — an oxymoronic juxtaposition absent in Wetzel’s novel ― marks Willie’s rite of passage into adulthood: the loss of innocence, the discovery that violence and destruction is the manly thing to do. Not in vain, Dad comments that Willie has “a heart like a girl’s” for he “can’t stand to see a chicken killed” (1955:70). In the meantime, Ruth, obsessed about her beauty, attempts to put an end to her pregnancy by rubbing herself on the electrified fence. Willie evidently embodies the soft masculinity guy. Not only does he favor creation rather than destruction as the answer to vital problems: he never stops building a retention wall that proves a pointless heroic deed for he cannot build up something big enough to stop the flooding waters. While the rest of characters, save for Don who remains both physically and psychologically paralyzed, evade fundamentals and face destruction and violence as self-defense strategies, Willie attempts to save the house and appeals to the ties of brotherhood and unity. He incarnates Huck Finn’s romantic innocence (he also builds a raft) but instead of escaping from the civilizing ties he tries hard to keep the family ties from loosening. Thomas P. Adler (1978:59-61) argues that, in addition to increasing the protagonist’s age from ten to twelve, a fact which makes Willie the right candidate to go through the rite of passage into adulthood, and saving his life (he actually dies in the novel), Anderson introduces an important symbolic prop that does not appear in Wetzel’s work and that parallels the construction of the wall which is never seen onstage: Willie’s afghan (a woolen blanket crocheted in strips and squares), a symbol of unity and social cohesion which should be interpreted as an antidote to a slowly disintegrating family. Willie’s soft masculinity (we see him knitting the afghan throughout the play); his pointless wall construction, and his preoccupation with the dog’s delivery and the survival of the chickens stand in stark contrast with, and can do very little to counteract, Dad’s use of preventive violence against imaginary ills and utter ignorance of real problems, Ruth’s hatred of sex (a “dirty and filthy thing”, 107) and her rejection of offspring (Lady, the dog, should be spayed and she herself wishes to miscarry), Harry’s worship of machines (he spends the whole day in the shed repairing or polishing his Buick), and the Mother’s untimely prayers and faith in absurd traditions (1955:33). 198 MAURICIO D. AGUILERA LINDE CONCLUSION It is precisely the absurdities of the traditional gender division and the family model in post-war America that Anderson encapsulates in his plays. Despite the nostalgic revival of the Westerns during the fifties, hard masculinity and its values (toughness, aggression, resistance to changes, noncooperation in the domestic sphere…) is no longer a model of imitation for the new generations but a masquerade that only leads to emotional isolation, lack of communication and useless violence. Clinging to traditions is not the answer, and societies must not be corporate systems which wipe out any element that undermines their continued existence. Bill’s anteroom becomes an empty anteroom at the end of the play. Tom’s room with Laura in will signal the triumph of the new soft masculinity over the traditional role. The deviant has won over order and normativity. Despite the homeostatic condition of the social system and its adherence to the traditional values — family is no longer the incontestable basis of society but another prop of the Cold War — the voice that reverberates at the end of Anderson’s plays is not Bill or Dad’s but Tom and Willie’s. The flight from hardboiled masculinity can only bring about a new man — soft and feminine — who, far from being out of kilter with the pressing demands, is capable of facing the burdens of manhood. Despite being rejected as the deviant and becoming the victim of scapegoating, he alone holds the key to the survival of the spirit of America. Willie’s Huck-like urge to create and renovate a crumbling house and Tom’s sensitivity in a monochrome world emerge as the antidotes to the permanence of a materialistic, prejudiced social order which insists on preserving a bipolar gender division. In one of the skits of his 1967 production, You Know I Can’t Hear You When the Water’s Running, Anderson will insist (too late, perhaps) upon the same contested truth: man is no longer the center and ruler of creation. In the one–act play Jack Barnstable is the playwright who feels unable to make a producer buy his play, for the sole reason that he has decided to present an ordinary man ― a husband who leaves the bathroom to hear what his wife says and comes out naked onstage ― not as “a romanticized phallic symbol” but “as the miserable, laughable thing it is” (1967:21). It is this shock of recognition — the suspension of the belief in man’s supremacy symbolized in the penis — what the producer is utterly reluctant to have. However, the feminist revolution of the times suddenly made the undisputable superiority of man part of a bygone era. Certainly (Anderson knew all too well) it was not the case back in the fifties. REFERENCES Adler, T.P. 1978, Robert Anderson. Boston: Twayne. 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Abusers’ fear of losing power leads them to subjugate and torture their victims who will inevitably develop mental health disorders and dysfunctional behaviours. While new cases of physical abuse are being uncovered by the media and recognized as despicable acts by society, psychological abuse is still largely ignored. Following Pierre Bourdieu’s definition of “masculine domination”, this article analyses the various types of violence present in the plays Trifles (Susan Glaspell, 1916) and A Streetcar Named Desire (Tennessee Williams, 1946) and how the playwrights develop remarkable thespian skills in order to offer a plausible and somewhat logical rendition of events. Particular attention is paid to the different strategies used to empower female character as their counterparts. VIOLENCE There has always been in me the conviction of Blanche, that deliberate cruelty is the one unforgivable thing. (Tennessee Williams 1977:170) The home has traditionally been considered a safe place, a sanctuary of peace and calm, and the kitchen was the room or area where food is prepared and cooked to nourish family members, relatives and acquaintances. The relationships between members of the family have also been idealized as 1. This paper is part of the research project “De boca en boca: comida y transculturación” (P08- HUM-03956). Thanks are due to the Junta de Andalucía for their support in sponsoring this project. 202 NIEVES ALBEROLA CRESPO respectful and supportive. Needless to say, sometimes reality can be quite different: family members are capable of doing both good and bad and therefore the home, far from being a place of safety, can be a “cradle of violence” and kitchens may also be dangerous places. A good deal of that violence is directed at the weak members of the family whether female, children, or even those with an uncompromised sexual slant. And no one is more aware of this than the playwrights Susan Glaspell, Tennessee Williams and Lynn Nottage. The roots of violence may be found in social, economic and legal structures that have subordinated and discriminated women for centuries. Religious and cultural institutions have joined in, perpetuating male control over women’s 2 lives. Some statements that have been attributed to St. Paul (1 Corinthians 3 4 14:34-35, 1 Timothy 2:11-15) could serve as examples of widely held attitudes about women’s inferior status. In early Christianity there was probably no moment when women were thoroughly allowed to stand on an equal footing with men. Christianity was born and developed out of the context of patriarchal social structures prevailing in both the Jewish and Hellenistic worlds. But even then there were also radical ideas that suggested that gender hierarchy had been dissolved through baptism into Christ and this is expressed in the baptismal formula used by St. Paul in the Letter to the Galatians (3:26-28): 26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Meeks and Fitzgerald 2007:17) Cultural notions that support violence in intimate relationships are also perpetuated through the language of law. In the 19th century, there was a legal doctrine known as “coverture” that claimed that: By marriage the husband and wife are one person in law, that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband’s. (Blackstone 1765) It seems that men from a certain social status have always been entitled to legal identities and have been able to participate in public life and enjoy the full extent of whatever civil and political rights existed. On contrast, women’s identities have derived from their connection with men who were fathers, 2. Some modern scholars suggest that some of those verses were written by some later, conservative Paulinists. 3. The First Letter to the Corinthians (14): “34 Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. / 35 If they want to enquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church” (Meeks and Fitzgerald 2007:40-41). 4. First Letter to Timothy (2): “11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. / 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. / 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. / 14 And Adam was not deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. / 15 But women will be saved through childbearing, if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety” (Meeks and Fitzgerald 2007:126-127). RETHINKING ON THE WORKS OF S. GLASPELL, T. WILLIAMS AND L. NOTTAGE 203 guardians or husbands. In the early normative it was established that the personal welfare of men and their property should be protected by the state from the manifold predations of other men. But the state would not concern itself with the welfare of women because men were supposed to protect their women and their property. This meant that married women were devoid of a legal identity, and therefore they had no rights to be helped by law institutions or by the state when their husbands developed abusive behaviours. Although the legal doctrine of coverture was abolished in 1848, its mechanism continued to operate in the attitudes and beliefs surrounding marriage during the second half of the 19th century and even the first half of the 20th century. An example may be found in the writings of James Fitzjames Stephen, a rather distinguished judge and Victorian moralist, who sought to defend the institution of male-hegemonic marriage in his work entitled Liberty, Equality and Fraternity (1873-1874). An exception in the second half of the 19th century would be the British philosopher John Stuart Mill, who believed in the equality of married people and wrote and gave lectures in favour of greater rights for women. In The Subjection of Women (1869) Mill attempted to prove that the legal subjugation of women was wrong and commented on how gender construction, education and marriage hindered women’s empowerment. In the 19th century the guild of physicians also contributed to the inferiority of women by providing physical and psychological portraits of their weakness and becoming conscience counsellors who emphasized reconciliation even within violent marriages. As we can see religion, law, and medicine did conveniently serve a proliferation of institutional excuses for treating all members of the female sex as weak and inferior before the male. In the first half of the 20th century when Trifles (1916) and the first draft of A Streetcar Named Desire (1946) were written, abuses were not reported. It was a social stigma and was kept secret. We wonder why the legal system has failed for the last two centuries to protect women when they were abused at home. Perhaps one of the reasons was that it was believed that what happened at home was something private, and there was no need for state intervention. Let’s not forget that the meanings of “private” and “public” are based on social and cultural assumptions of what is valued and important, assumptions which are deeply gender-based. Privacy has always implied that something should be underhand and, if family was considered a sphere of privacy, it was immune from state interference. Once coined, the concept of marital privacy reinforced women’s subordination within the family, it masked inequality and even justified the judges’ refusal to intervene. The legacy of viewing male battering of women as a private problem leads to denial of the seriousness of the problem. In Trifles, the rhetoric of privacy seems to devalue women and their functions and apparently implies that women are not important enough to merit legal regulation. The County Attorney, the one who represents the law, postpones talking about the Wright’s married and family life (Glaspell 1987:36,39); he shows no interest in their private relationship and deprives us, or so it seems, of the portrait of the abuser and of the picture of everyday resistance to violence. Language works in mysterious ways because the County Attorney, the one who 204 NIEVES ALBEROLA CRESPO says that Mrs. Peters is “married to the law” (Glaspell 1987:45), is going to mirror himself in John Wright’s violent behaviour towards Minnie. Both physical and psychological abuse are present: examples of psychological abuse would be the following sentences uttered by the County Attorney: “Here’s a nice mess”, “Dirty towels!”, “Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?” (1987:38); these are bits of criticism used to undermine one’s self-respect, self- confidence and self-esteem. In the stage directions, we may detect symbolic violent gestures that stand for physical abuse: “[he] kicks his foot against the pans under the sink” (1987:38). The space of the kitchen is never left but omnipresent throughout the play. The law that has historically refused to intervene in ongoing family relations claims to be absent in the private sphere, and fails to punish intentional injuries to family members. Wife beating was initially omitted from the definition of criminal assault on the ground that a husband had the right to chastise his wife. Private and public exist as a continuum and by declining to punish a man for inflicting injuries on his wife, the law implies she is his property and he is free to control her as he sees fit. In Trifles Hale, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters supply information about John Wright, details that denote his indifference towards his wife’s wishes, his meanness and cruelty: he decides not to have a telephone at home (1987:36), so Minnie has no chance to give her opinion, to communicate with family or friends; her kitchen or the private space of her home becomes the major source of her isolation; the much mended clothing (1987:40) proves that John Wright did not provide for his wife’s needs; the bird’s broken neck – everything points to the fact that John strangled Minnie’s canary (1987:43) – may represent how he silenced his wife. It seems that she was the victim of both physical and psychological violence. In 1916 Glaspell was in Provincetown with her husband. He asked her to write a play. She went to the wharf, sat on the wooden boards and remembered her days as a reporter for the Demoines Daily News when she visited the kitchen of Margaret Hossack (Ben-Zvi 1995:19-48; Ozieblo 2000:82; Gainor 2001:38). The character of Minnie Wright, an abused woman, was born in this town. It was in Provincetown too, in the summer of 1940, when Tennessee Williams wrote about Blanche for the first time. Later on, in 1947, Williams rented a cabin somewhere between North Truro and Provincetown where he continued work on Streetcar and it was in that cabin that he thought of the exit line for Blanche, which later became somewhat historical: “I have always depended upon the kindness of strangers” (Williams 1962:225). Glaspell approaches the theme of violence through the perspective of the observer whilst Williams deals with the topic of violence as someone who has passed probate. We wonder how he could portray the minds of the abuser and the abused so accurately. What could be the source of inspiration? Perhaps the answer may be found in his memoirs. He comments on different episodes of the violence he bore and one is particularly worth mentioning. In the forties he met someone in New York: Now I must invent, much as I dislike invention in these memoirs, a name for my new companion I met in New York. He was sort of an off-beat Saint so I’ll call RETHINKING ON THE WORKS OF S. GLASPELL, T. WILLIAMS AND L. NOTTAGE 205 him Santo. The dark side of his nature (since overcome) was a drinking habit that made him at times disturbingly unpredictable and startling in his behaviour. (Williams 1977:106) He and Santo were in Provincetown when Williams was writing Streetcar. Williams left to visit some friends in New York. Santo followed him and in a fit of rage literally ripped to shreds all of his clothes and demolished his typewriter and suitcase, but by chance he did not destroy his manuscripts. Whenever Williams writes about the ups and downs of this relationship, the reader may visualize scenes from Streetcar (Williams 1977:132,134,135,136). Although there is no “typical” abuser, John Wright and Stanley Kowalski seem to share the same belief: “A man’s home is his castle/his territory”, which speaks to the daily life practices of coverture. Both characters develop impressive thespian skills. Kowalski and Wright use violence to control, to exert power, and they end up abusing those privileges endowed by coverture’s mechanism. According to Pierre Bourdieu, a typical feature of the domineering males is their capacity to convince others to accept as the universal paragon their 5 own and sole behaviour (2000:82). Stanley Kowalski’s practice of domination and control is presented as common sense and it is easily identified. Sometimes it is out there in the open right away, for example in Scene 3 when he beats Stella (Williams 1962:152). He controls the money: “Stella: Stanley doesn’t give me a regular allowance, he likes to pay bills himself, but – this morning he gave me ten dollars to smooth things over” (Williams 1962:161). He does not like to be contradicted and he is the only one who gives orders: “Stanley: Since when do you give me orders?” (Williams 1962:135). He quotes the “Napoleonic code”, his own version of the doctrine of coverture, his way of reminding everyone who is in charge: Stanley: Have you ever heard of the Napoleonic code? Stella: No, Stanley, I haven’t heard of the Napoleonic code and if I have, I don’t see what it – Stanley: Let me enlighten you on a point or two, baby. Stella: Yes? Stanley: In the state of Louisiana we have the Napoleonic code according to which what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband and vice versa. For instance, if I had a piece of property or you had a piece of property – Stella: My head is swimming! Stanley: All right, I’ll wait until she gets through soaking in a hot tub and then I’ll enquire if she is acquainted with the Napoleonic code. It looks to me like you have been swindled, baby, and when you are swindled under the Napoleonic code I’m swindled too. And I don’t like to be swindled. (Williams 1962:133) 5. “Lo típico de los dominadores es ser capaces de hacer que se reconozca como universal su manera de ser particular” (Bourdieu 2000:82). 206 NIEVES ALBEROLA CRESPO In Scene 8 he quotes the American politician Huey Long: 6 “Remember what Huey Long said – ‘Every Man is a King!’ And I am the king around here, so don’t forget it!” (Williams 1962:195). He is threatening Stella, the abusive pattern is perfectly clear: he is in charge of the relationship and it must be structured to his liking and comfort. The same may be said about John Wright, who isolates Minnie from progress, technological communication and social life – she did not belong to the Ladies Aid and stopped singing in the choir (Glaspell 1987:40). Neither Minnie nor Stella seem to be in control of their own worlds. Stanley and John want to maintain their power and control by any and all means available to them. Almost at the end of A Streetcar Named Desire, Stanley Kowalski is described by his own wife as an abuser: “people like you abused her and forced her to change” (Williams 1962:198). Stanley’s attack of his wife’s sister is slow and calculated; he was a soldier and therefore he needs some strategy to win the battle, a plan to attack the enemy unexpectedly. We may identify different types of violence that bespeak of Stanley’s brutal nature and his obsession to destroy Blanche: 1. Symbolic violence. We detect abuse in stage directions: “he kicks the trunk partly closed” (1962:135) – this reminds us of the County Attorney in Trifles (Glaspell 1987:38). Stanley shows his dissatisfaction trying to destroy objects: he seizes the atomizer and slams it down on the dresser (1962:138); he snatches the radio and, with a shouted oath, he tosses the instrument out of the window (1962:151). 2. Criticism used as a tool to undermine one’s self-esteem. He begins to compile information about Blanche’s past life. He has to prove how degenerate she is. He needs to justify punishing her directly for all the indirect insults he has had to suffer from her. 3. Physical abuse. Stanley rapes Blanche because he wants to get rid of her; he justifies his decision by saying: “We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning!” (1962:215) and the abuser’s thoughts may be read between the lines: “She deserved it... She caused dissension between me and my wife... If she has slept so indiscriminately with so many men, she would not object to one more... One more man shouldn’t make any difference”. 4. To lock up someone in a psychiatric ward against his/her will. Stanley has to silence Blanche and convinces Stella of sending her to a mental institution. At that time the male establishment needed to devise new methods for the female disempowerment, the mental hospital was the key. 6. Huey Pierce Long, Jr. (1893-1935), nicknamed The Kingfish, was an American politician from the US state of Louisiana. He served as the Governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932. He created the Share Our Wealth program in 1934, with the motto “Every Man a King”, proposing new socialist wealth redistribution measures in the form of a net asset tax on corporations and individuals to curb the poverty and crime resulting from the Great Depression. His opponents charged that he had concentrated political power in his own hands to the point where he had become a virtual dictator of the state. He was shot in 1935. RETHINKING ON THE WORKS OF S. GLASPELL, T. WILLIAMS AND L. NOTTAGE 207 RESISTANCE Survival! What an epic capacity of the human heart, young and old! (Tennessee Williams 1977:224) Whenever people are badly treated, they resist; that is, alongside each history of violence and oppression, there runs a parallel history of determined resistance. Allan Wade in his essay “Small Acts of Living: Everyday Resistance to Violence and Other Forms of Oppression” says: I believe it is vitally important to show that persons continue to resist, prudently, creatively and with astonishing determination, even in the face of the most extreme forms of violence. (1997:31) Minnie’s story is not only an account of oppression but of resistance and struggle. She seems to take matters into her hands and defends herself. Her act should be understood as an act of self-defense. She ends up in prison because at that time women had no opportunity to talk about their own experience with the abuser, they had no chance to describe the battering. In the trial, it is clear that she will have to face a hostile attitude by a jury made up of men who would certainly be thinking: “If it had happened to me, I would have handled it differently... Why didn’t she leave?” Mrs Hale and Mrs Peters are essential characters not only because they trace Minnie’s history of resistance and survival but because they are going to use “silence” and “privacy” affirmatively to empower Minnie. Even nowadays a battered woman rarely has an answer that satisfies legal or social expectations. Blanche and Minnie are described as “canaries” – Minnie used to sing in a choir (Glaspell 1987:42-43), Blanche sings in the bathroom (Williams 1962:186). Their voices will be muted, silenced. They try to resist, but they have no money, no place to go to, no source of income. Minnie and Blanche (even Stella and Eunice) have to withstand in this struggle for power and control. For them resistance becomes the project of staying alive. These women’s empowerment can only occur when their abusers admit their mischief to a public forum. When accused by Mitch of having raped Blanche, Stanley replies: “Quit the blubber!” (Williams 1962:224), and in the 1951 film adaptation by Elia Kazan he denies it ever happened. Blanche attempts to imagine a life based on respect and equality, and this could be considered an act of resistance. She escapes into her imaginary world because she fears her creativity and imagination are at risk; she doesn’t want her mind to be colonized. She has to fight so that her freedom and dignity will not be lost. Williams writes in his memoirs: “I don’t think I should knock another man’s kick, nor his ego trips, nor the fantasy world he lives in. There are worse things than a fantasy world to live in” (1977:196). No woman is free to enjoy human rights when violence against women is tolerated by her country, community, employer or family. Governments should be urged to take legal and other measures to prevent such violence when domestic battery is rarely investigated, and rape frequently goes unpunished. The 208 NIEVES ALBEROLA CRESPO wide-spread absence of state intervention in crimes against women is not merely the result of governments’ failure to criminalize a class of behaviour, but rather is the result of governments’ failure to enforce laws equitably across gender lines. Historically, domestic violence has been portrayed as a woman with a bruised face, when in fact many women suffer abuse and have no visible signs of bruising. The woman’s individual rights are regarded as less important than the social order that uplifts her abuser. This highlights the discriminatory attitude towards women that permeates this system. Raising awareness of domestic violence is a necessary step. In the United States of America it was not until 1920 that the beating of a wife had become illegal in all the states, but for the first six decades of the 20th century when Trifles and Streetcar were written, the situation of a battered woman remained largely unchanged and unnoticed. It was also in 1920 when women’s suffrage in the United States was guaranteed by the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment and women ceased to be second-class citizens and began to assert their independence. Domestic violence can be minimised and distorted but the strength of those who suffer abuse should not be underestimated. In her 1993 play Poof! the African-American playwright Lynn Nottage finds a new recipe to get rid of abusive husbands and prevent battered women from ending up on death row. The setting of the play is a kitchen, a symbol of imprisonment at the beginning of the play, a symbol of liberation at the end. There are just two characters, Loureen, a battered woman, and her neighbour, Florence. Loureen’s tool to make her husband disappear will be her voice and the ingredients just “5 words” – “Damn you to hell, Samuel!” (Nottage 2004:93) – that have a hidden meaning: “I will not tolerate this!”. As soon as she utters these words, her husband experiences “spontaneous self-combustion” and his body turns into a pile of ashes. When Loureen tells her neighbour what has happened and asks for her advice, Florence’s unexpected request – to go upstairs and help her make her own husband disappear— surprises her. Loureen’s answer will be: “I can’t do that” (Nottage 2004:102). Her negative reinforces the fact that although there maybe shelters, therapists and friends, abused women have got to take the first step. She wonders if she should explain what happened to Samuel to the authorities. Florence tries to calm her down by saying to her that if someone asks her what has happened, she will reply that she only saw a pile of ashes, that as far as she knows Loureen got a little careless and burned the chicken. Loureen wonders if she should mail his ashes to his mother, who could never understand her life. In our opinion, she could follow the example of Wieki Sommers, a Dutch designer, and by means of a rapid prototyping or 3D printing, she could grant Samuel’s human ashes a second life as a toaster, a vacuum cleaner or a rocking chair. She decides to sweep the ashes under the carpet, then proceeds to set the table and sits down to eat her dinner after saying goodbye to the fatty meats and the salty food, goodbye to the bourbon and the bologna sandwiches (Nottage 2004:103). It is important to hear Minnie’s, Blanche’s and Loureen’s voices. It is important to hear the voices of women who have suffered violence and have been condemned to silence whether they are American, Indian, Asian, African or RETHINKING ON THE WORKS OF S. GLASPELL, T. WILLIAMS AND L. NOTTAGE 209 European; their invisibility should be challenged. They are human beings and have the power to shout “we will not tolerate this”. Let us finish by quoting Tennessee Williams’s words: I write of little people. But are there little people? I sometimes think there are only little conceptions of people. Whatever is living and feeling with an intensity is not little and, examined in depth, it would seem to me that most “little people” are living with that intensity that I can use as a writer. Was Blanche a little person? Certainly not. (1977:238) Were Minnie and Loureen “little people”? Who knows better than the writers? What else can we add? So we better leave it here. REFERENCES Ben-Zvi, L. 1995, “‘Murder, she wrote’: The genesis of Susan Glaspell’s Trifles”, in L. Ben-Zvi (ed.). Susan Glaspell: Essays on her theater and fiction, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 19-48. Blackstone, W. 1765, Commentaries on the laws of England (1765-1769). Book I chapter 15 “On Husband and Wife”. Access 22 February 2011. ADAPTING A SHORT STORY INTO A FULL-LENGTH MOVIE: A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE MARÍA ELENA RODRÍGUEZ MARTÍN Universidad de Granada In this paper I aim at analysing how the film A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), directed by Steven Spielberg, offers a recreation of the short story “Supertoys Last All Summer Long”, written by Brian W. Aldiss. The late director Stanley Kubrick began the process of adaptation of the story and worked on it for several years. When he died in 1999, Spielberg decided to finish the project. In the process of adapting a short story into a full-length movie, the addition of new elements to the original seems to be necessary. My intention is to prove that the added elements and the changes introduced to the original reveal the filters through which the story has been adapted. My aim in this paper is to analyse the recreation that Steven Spielberg’s film A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) makes of the short story “Supertoys Last All Summer Long”, written by the British author Brian W. Aldiss. This science fiction narrative, first published in Harper’s Bazaar in December 1969, tells the story of David, a five-year-old boy who never succeeds in pleasing her mother. He is not capable of communicating with her, and his only friend is the robot toy, Teddy. In the last revealing fragments of the story we learn that David, like Teddy, is a robot, a “supertoy” with artificial intelligence, which Henry Swinton, director of Synthank, a company devoted to manufacturing robots, has given his wife Monica as a present. The Swintons live in an overcrowded world where they must win what is called “parenthood lottery” as a prerequisite to conceive a child: “Pressure of population was such that reproduction had to be strict, controlled. Childbirth required government permission” (Aldiss 2001:10). When they finally win the lottery, David will be of no use to them anymore: “Is David malfunctioning?” To Henry’s question, Monica gives a quick and cold answer: “His verbal communication-center is still giving trouble. I think he’ll have to go back to the factory again” (Aldiss 2001:11). The story offers a pessimistic vision of a future world where humans seem to have lost all traces of humanity; a world in which robots are created to fill their 212 MARÍA ELENA RODRÍGUEZ MARTÍN empty and frustrated lives: “An overcrowded world is the ideal place in which to be lonely” (Aldiss 2001:2). The irony of these words by the narrator perfectly describes the life of Monica Swinton, who is portrayed as being alone and feeling lonely. Although having the company of David, she cannot communicate with him since the child is no more than a robot to her. However, in this world where even seasons are simulated, androids, such as David or Teddy, seem to be more real than human beings or, at least, seem to have more humane feelings. As Aldiss explains in the foreword to his collection Supertoys Last All Summer Long and Other Stories of Future Time, this short story impressed the late film director Stanley Kubrick who “was keen to make it into a movie”, and persuaded the British writer to sell him the film rights (Aldiss 2001:vii). This was at the beginning of the 1980s and from that moment, Kubrick began the process of adaptation and worked on the story for several years. During the first stage of the process, he invited Aldiss to work with him on the screenplay. In the foreword to the collection, and in an interview published in the Literature/Film Quarterly, Aldiss gives interesting details about their collaboration through several years. He makes reference to a letter by Kubrick in which the director expressed his belief that “Supertoys” was “a fine beginning for a longer story” (Aldiss 2001:ix). Nevertheless, Aldiss doubted how his story, which he considered “just a vignette”, could become “a full-length movie” (Tibbetts 2004:251). Kubrick convinced him by saying that “it was easier to enlarge a short story than to shrink a novel into a film” (Aldiss 2001:xi). However, their collaboration reached a dead end. One of the problems they met was how to visualize the child-robot: “A real boy could be cast as the android, certainly, but Kubrick, ever the perfectionist, suggested that a real android might be built” (Tibbetts 2004:252). Another point of discussion was Kubrick’s particular reading of the story. It seems he wanted to make his intention clear to Aldiss the very first day they began to work together, because he gave him an illustrated copy of the story of Pinocchio: I could not or would not see the parallels between David, my five-year-old android, and the wooden creature that becomes human. It emerged that Stanley wished David to become human, and wished, also to have the Blue Fairy materialise. (Aldiss 2001:xi) The writer did not like the idea: “Never consciously rewrite old fairy stories, I’d say” (Aldiss 2001:xi). In Aldiss’s words, Kubrick was “basically mistaken” because, “[o]bsessed with the big blockbuster SF movies of the time”, he seemed determined to take the short story’s “sorrowing domestic scene out into the galaxy”. However, Aldiss claims that “Supertoys” speaks of a mystery within. David suffers because he does not know he is a machine. Here is the real drama; as Mary Shelley said of her Frankenstein, it speaks “to the mysterious fears of our nature”. (Aldiss 2001:xvii) ADAPTING A SHORT STORY INTO A FULL-LENGTH MOVIE: A.I. 213 The writer proposes what could be a possible film based upon his story, a continuation focused on “metaphysical puzzles”: The audience should be subjected to a tense and alarming drama of claustrophobia, to be left with the final questions, “Does it matter that David is a machine? Should it matter? And to what extent are we all machines?” (Aldiss 2001:xvii) He believes that Kubrick was attracted by the simple story behind all those metaphysical questions, the story “of a boy who was never able to please his mother. A story of love rejected” (Aldiss 2001:xviii). The relationship Kubrick-Aldiss reveals really interesting aspects of the process of adaptation. Kubrick’s vision of “Supertoys” is only one of the possible readings of the story. Although his interpretation probably departs from the author’s intention, what he planned to do was probably closer to McFarlane’s view of the process of adaptation: “Fidelity is obviously very desirable in marriage; but with film adaptations I suspect playing around is more effective” (McFarlane 2000:165). When Kubrick died in 1999, Steven Spielberg decided to finish the project. In fact, Kubrick had thought of Spielberg as the director of the movie and, during several years, he had shared with him the development of the project. The same year of Kubrick’s death, Aldiss decided to write two new stories to continue David’s adventures: “Supertoys When Winter Comes” and “Supertoys in Other Seasons”. The years of collaboration with Kubrick probably made him consider the possibility of expanding David’s story, and although he did not succeed in making Kubrick share his vision of its development, he nevertheless decided to write the two sequels. Spielberg then took “all three of Aldiss’s ‘supertoy’ stories – including the Kubrickian notions of a ‘Pinocchio’ allegory – as the basis for A.I” (Tibbetts 2004:252). As the conversations between Kubrick and Aldiss have shown, in the process of adapting a short story into a feature film, the addition of new elements to the original seems to be necessary. My intention is to prove that the added elements and the changes introduced to the original reveal the filters or lenses through which the story has been recreated. The idea of adaptation as recreation has been claimed by authors such as Wiltshire, who presents film adaptations “as recreations”, “as coherent readings of the original books, which by their public, objective existence, can throw unique light on the nature of reading” (Wiltshire 2001:6-7). Focusing on the same idea, Silver (1997:58) suggests that adaptations “should be conceived as versions of the work: texts with the same status as any other text in the ongoing, historical construction of a composite, palimpsestic work”. Interesting approaches to the analysis of adaptation offer the possibility of moving beyond the traditional notion of fidelity to the original text and studying film adaptations as individual works of art which weave together several prior texts and several interpretations of the original. As Stam (2000:76) claims, we should give more attention to “dialogical responses”, that is, “to readings, critiques, interpretations, and rewritings of prior material”. 214 MARÍA ELENA RODRÍGUEZ MARTÍN In this process of recreation, we should take into account not only factors related to the audiovisual codes, which influence the adaptation from a written text to an audiovisual one, but also other types of factors which play a role in the process – temporal, ideological, contextual factors and those related to the film industry (commercial demands, film genre, etc.). For instance, Berghahn (1996:74) points towards the necessity of studying other factors, such as the ideological or artistic stance that the filmmaker has adopted in his reading and reinterpretation of the original text. Focusing on the film recreation of Aldiss’s story, it is important to consider that, although the project was developed by Kubrick through years of work on “Supertoys” and even if the idea of Pinocchio is present in Kubrick’s vision, Spielberg brought to the process of adaptation his artistic stance and his particular reading of the story. In fact, his use of the Pinocchio motif is influenced by his revision of fairy tales and by his previous filmography. Spielberg’s words in relation to the character of Gigolo Joe – an addition to Aldiss’s story – are quite revealing about the recreation process he undertook taking as a basis Kubrick’s project: 1 I was like an archaeologist […] trying to find out what he [Stanley] intended. What story did he want? My job was to honor his story without forgetting about myself. I wanted also to be able to include my own sensibilities […] Gigolo Joe was an invention of Stanley but he never really fleshed him out. These words reveal the existence of different layers of recreation in the process of adapting Aldiss’s “Supertoys”: from the story to Kubrick’s project; from Kubrick’s project to Spielberg’s movie. The process of adaptation turns the short story into a full-length movie in which several changes and additions can be traced. At the beginning of the movie, we listen to a voice-over giving us the necessary background information about the future world we are going to enter. Some details of this description are present in Aldiss’s story: overpopulation, legal sanctions for pregnancy, etc. The voice-over serves in this way as an introduction to the story. The following scene introduces Professor Hobby talking to a group of colleagues in a meeting about a new project his company is undertaking, the construction of “a Mecha of a qualitatively different order”, “a robot who can love”. 2 A woman colleague poses an important question which will permeate the whole understanding of the story: “Can a human love them back?” Hobby’s answer is quite revealing: “God created Adam to love him”. He is playing to be God, to be a creator. Twenty months later we see Henry and Monica Swinton visiting his son in hospital. He is in a coma. This character is an addition to Aldiss’s narrative, although in the second of his “Supertoys” stories, we infer that Monica has lost a son or the baby she was expecting after winning the lottery in the first story of 1. Interview on the A.I. Artificial Intelligence DVD, Special Features, Warner Bros. and DreamWorks LLC, 2001. 2. “Mecha” is the word they use for robots to distinguish them from “Orgas” or humans. ADAPTING A SHORT STORY INTO A FULL-LENGTH MOVIE: A.I. 215 the series (Aldiss 2001:13-14). Henry works in Professor Hobby’s company, devoted to manufacturing robots – this can be contrasted with the original story where Henry was not a mere employee but the director of the company. Due to his personal history, he is chosen as the appropriate person to test David, the first child-robot the company has created and who will be capable of loving the person who imprints him. Although at the beginning Monica is not really happy with the child-robot and her behaviour towards him is very similar to the one shown in Aldiss’s story, David’s love towards “his Mommy” makes her change her mind, and she begins to enjoy his company and to love this special child. She even gives him a toy that belonged to her son: Teddy, the robot teddy bear who will become David’s best friend and company, performing a similar role to that in the source story. A turning point in the movie takes place when Martin, Monica and Henry’s biological son, recovers and returns home from hospital. This will produce a big change in David’s life with the Swintons. Martin treats him as another supertoy and, jealous of Monica’s care for the child-robot, he is even cruel to David, persuading him to do strange things, like cutting a lock of Monica’s hair while she is sleeping. Henry, who has always considered David as “creepy”, tries to persuade Monica to take him back to the factory. But she has begun to love the child and will not be won over by her husband’s idea. In his cruelty towards David, Martin asks Monica to read for them the story of Pinocchio: “David’s going to love it”, he says. And the reading of the tale probably brings about the most important change of the movie with respect to the source story. Aldiss’s narrative is going to be recreated through the filter of fairy tales, in particular through The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. As previously mentioned, the Pinocchio motif was present in Kubrick’s reading of the story from the very beginning. And his wish to have Spielberg as director of the project was probably motivated by this particular vision of the story. Spielberg’s filmography offers several examples of movies infused with elements of fairy tales and children’s stories, and the recreation of “Supertoys” as a fairy tale could be perfectly linked to his sensibility. The Pinocchio motif is introduced when Martin suggests that his mother should read for them the tale of the wooden child. David listens to his “Mommy” telling the story to her human son. From this moment, he will wish to find the “Blue Fairy” to make him a real human child, the same way she did with the wooden Pinocchio. Surprisingly, a very similar scene can be found in E.T., when the Extra-Terrestrial listens to Elliott’s mother telling the story of Peter Pan to her daughter. This reveals how a revision of fairytale topics is present in Spielberg’s films and how this influences his recreation of the story by Aldiss and of Kubrick’s project, blending elements of science fiction with children’s bedtime stories. The parallelism with Pinocchio, which is much more evident in the film than in the short story, reveals those aspects that the film changes or adds, the filters or lenses through which Spielberg, using Kubrick’s ideas and notes as a basis, reads the story. 216 MARÍA ELENA RODRÍGUEZ MARTÍN While David listens to Monica, we can feel his desire to become real. This wish will become the driving force of the movie when, after an accident in a garden party in which David pulls Martin towards the bottom of the swimming pool, Henry at last persuades Monica to take him back to the factory. When she arrives at David’s bedroom to tell him they must go for a walk, she finds on his desk several drafts of letters expressing his love for her – a scene which is based upon a similar episode in Aldiss’s story (Aldiss 2001:8-9). Incapable of leaving him in the factory where he will be probably destroyed, she instead abandons him in the woods with Teddy – who has become David’s Jiminy Cricket. This is the beginning of David’s search for the Blue Fairy to make him human. From now on, Davis’s adventures begin. In the wood, he meets hundreds of mutilated Mechas looking for spare parts in a rubbish dump – this scene seems to be based on the third story by Aldiss, in which David is sent to “Throwaway Town” (Aldiss 2001:23-24). There he meets Gigolo Joe, a last generation love-maker Mecha. They are captured and sent to the “Flesh Fair”, ironically called “Celebration of Life”, where humans enjoy a macabre show in which Mechas are destroyed in dreadful ways. After running away from the Fair, David, Teddy and Gigolo Joe go to Rouge City, the city of sex and entertainment. Once there Joe takes David to Dr. Know, a kind of virtual encyclopedia, to ask him about the Blue Fairy. Following Dr. Know’s directions, they travel to “the lost city in the sea at the end of the world”, which happens to be Manhattan, a Mecha restricted area, partly submerged under the waters. There they meet Professor Hobby, and we discover his was the voice behind Dr Know. He is David’s creator, like Geppeto in Collodi’s tale. And David’s wish seems to be doomed to failure as he discovers that he is only one in a chain of hundreds of replicas, hundreds of robots manufactured by Hobby’s company – the idea of the replicas seems to have been taken from Aldiss’s third story (Aldiss 2001:33-34). The terrible discovery is followed by David’s decision to throw himself from the top of the building. Surprisingly, under the water, he finds the Blue Fairy. In fact, what he has found is a representation of Collodi’s tale in a submerged Coney Island. After Gigolo Joe is captured by the police, David and Teddy go again under the water in the amphibicopter they used to arrive in Manhattan and find the statue of the Blue Fairy. A big wheel falls over the amphibicopter and they get imprisoned, while we listen to David’s prayer to the fairy: “Please, please, make me into a real boy”. Suddenly, the voice-over of the beginning of the movie is heard again. We discover it belongs to one of the robotic beings, advanced products of artificial intelligence, who have survived mankind, now extinct, and who find David after 2000 years of praying for his becoming real. Playing the part of the Blue Fairy, they will fulfil David’s wish: he will be able to be with Monica again only for one day and will hear her saying: “I love you David”. Finally, the story of love rejected which, as Aldiss said, seemed to have inspired Kubrick when he had the idea of adapting “Supertoys”, becomes a story of love rewarded, and David’s wish turns real. ADAPTING A SHORT STORY INTO A FULL-LENGTH MOVIE: A.I. 217 To sum up, A.I. Artificial Intelligence is the result of a complex process of adaptation where different layers of recreation of the original text can be traced to reveal the filters through which Kubrick and Spielberg read the story. REFERENCES A.I. Artificial Intelligence, 2001, dir. Steven Spielberg, perf. Haley Joel Osment, Frances O’Connor, Sam Robards, Jude Law, and William Hurt. Warner Bros. Pictures and Dreamworks Pictures. Aldiss, B. 2001, Supertoys Last All Summer Long and Other Stories of Future Time. London: Orbit. Berghahn, D. 1996, “Fiction into film and the fidelity discourse: A case study of Volker Schlöndorff’s re-interpretation of Homo Faber”. German Life and Letters, 49(1):72-87. E.T. The Extraterrestial, 1982, dir. Steven Spielberg, perf. Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, and Peter Coyote. Universal Pictures. McFarlane, B. 2000, “It wasn’t like that in the book”. Literature/Film Quarterly, 28(3):163-169. Silver, B. R. 1997, “Whose room of Orlando’s own: The politics of adaptation”, in D. C. Greetham (ed.). The margins of the text. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 57-81. Stam, R. 2000, “Beyond fidelity: The dialogics of adaptation”, in J. Naremore (ed.). Film adaptation. London: The Athlone Press, 54-76. Tibbetts, J. C. 2004, “Brian Aldiss’s Billion Year Spree: An interview.” Literarture/Film Quarterly, 32(4):246-254. Wiltshire, J. 2001, Recreating Jane Austen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. WARPED DISCOURSES: THE LOGIC OF ABSENCE IN DEMOCRATIC DISCOURSE MIRIAM FERNÁNDEZ-SANTIAGO Universidad de Granada Two weeks after the death of Osama Bin Laden, more than twenty-seven million pictures result from a google search of “picture of the death of bin Laden”. Most of them show the face of Osama bin Laden himself, but none is the picture of his actual corpse. Fortunately, the public opinion in the free and oppressed worlds is not left alone to surf so many millions of fake Photoshop versions without a glimpse of some certainty. Shortly after, a White-House copyrighted picture of President Obama with the National Security Team was circulated showing them as they watched bin Laden’s death live. The picture should definitely illustrate a forthcoming edition of Baudrillard’s Simulations (1983), but it is not only a paradigmatic instance of Postmodern representation. In fact, the visual void left by bin Laden’s corpse is a logical necessity of democratic discourse that can be traced back to the very origins of American Democracy. In this essay, I will analyze the discursive mechanisms that provide the legitimacy and allow for the constitution of such democracy on the basis of absence and its expression by means of what I will define as “discursive warping”. I will do this by making a comparative analysis of “The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America” and the above-described “official” picture of the death of Osama bin Laden; first and last instances of democratic discourse in the United States. The issue I am concerned with is at stake since the 1980s, but a Marxist approach permits to extend its shadow retrospectively to the roots of Western Capitalism itself as it might be portrayed by the birth of the United States of America. The hyperreal substance underlying the late financial crisis that served as the model of a non-existing American real estate in the early 21st century can well illustrate ― and even somehow re-present― the absence of the original States that signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Thus, Baudrillard’s claim of the dissapearance of the real America as it is replaced by its third-order simulacrum ― Disneyland — might well provide the basis of a retrospective, critical reading of the United States Declaration of Independence. But its 220 MIRIAM FERNÁNDEZ-SANTIAGO applicability even extends to a further hyperrealization of the US that Baudrillard could have hardly foreseen in the 1980s: the virtualization of simulacra. Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011. This undeniable victory of American political proselytism will have to be weighed against the economic difficulties of Barack Obama´s presidency in the 2012 future elections, but before this it must face the question of its conditions of actual possibility. Compared to the hard images of the live execution of Sadam Husseim on December 30, 2006 during the Bush presidency, the visual representation of Osama bin Laden’s execution is an exercise of visual decorum where the taboo of bin Laden’s corpse is replaced by its simultaneous, official reception in the White House. This impeccable act of political propaganda of Obama’s presidency adds up to the long record of similar hits that picture the public image of his political career, with the particularity that this one represents his government, and not just himself. The official picture of bin Laden’s execution distributed by the White House replaces bin Laden himself as the center of attention, and substitutes the face of his corpse by the faces of the National Security Team as they watch it. We take it for granted they are watching the live execution online as it is taking place in Pakistan as some kind of flashback to the futurist 1984, with the leader of the free world peeping into the remotest latitude. The official picture of Osama bin Laden’s execution is in fact the picture of the official reaction to it in the White House and even of the intended reaction of the candid world. With an official photographer in the room, the National Security Team must have been aware that the eyes of all people would be upon them at a very critical moment, which makes the act of posing not such a trivial matter to consider from a present and future historical perspective. In fact, their faces show a permitted range of decorous and respectful reactions to the event they are supposedly witnessing at that moment. The most powerful reactions are Obama’s tension and Clinton’s consternation ― a rather sexist difference ― but there is also the bored look of vice president Biden and even the background, tourist-like glances of National Security Advisor Toni Blinken and Director of Counterterrorism Audrey Tomason. A web search of the topic shows the US National Security Team ―or Osama bin Laden himself when alive ― as the image that illustrates his execution. This fact has caused much speculation about the actual death or real circumstances of bin Laden’s death. But even more interesting than that from a representational point of view is that the picture itself is an act of speculation or mirroring of bin Laden’s execution where the actuality of the people living through the looking glass precedes the actual image of the live execution in the factual world, an image so long postponed, that it has finally been replaced by its reflection. The invisible screen supposedly represents bin Laden’s live execution, but even this screen ― the mirroring surface ― has been replaced so that the medium of reproduction does not interfere with the precession of its final representation, namely; the official picture. Still, the immediacy effect is sustained with the freshness of a graffiti tag on a city wall as it bears witness of a painting-less WARPED DISCOURSES 221 authorship. Did they have the time to turn the computers off before the picture was taken at that critical moment, or perhaps props just cannot be turned on? Anyway, Yes, we could. Some will argue that this occurrence is typical of postmodenity and a reality attributable to the phenomenon of the cyberspace. But the precession of simulacra is inherent to the performative function of certain seminal, political texts. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza The origin of the United States of America is often traced back to the signing of a document that was in fact previous to the actual American independence from the British Empire with the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Such document is known as “The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America” and was composed seven years before that date. The political relevance and poetic beauty of this text make it one of the most important documents in American history. But the Declaration of Independence also makes a most ― politically and poetically ― obvious simulacra of the origin of the United States as an independent nation. Previous analyses of the Declaration of Independence (centering their attention on its content 1 or form 2) merely focus on the enunciative/argumentative aspect of its text and forget the fact that the 1. Such is the approach in the works of Bailyn, Gerber, or Nash. 2. We can mention Becker's “The literary qualities of the Declaration”, Ginsberg’s “The Declaration as rhetoric”, or Lucas’ “Justifying America: The Declaration of Independence as a rhetorical document”, among others. 222 MIRIAM FERNÁNDEZ-SANTIAGO Declaration has a performative dimension. An analysis of the textual warping 3 produced at the enunciative 4 level reveals the argumentative invalidation of the text as a simulacrum that does not represent, but substitutes reality. However, such invalidation only affects the enunciative dimension of the Declaration; the level at which any text can be easily deconstructed thanks to the inherent economy of language and the necessary selection of information. At the performative level, the revelation of its simulated nature shows the most violent exercise of power through simulation: that of producing reality. 5 The text of the Declaration of Independence is structured around a triple distribution that matches Montesquieu’s division of political power into the three branches of government; the legislative (in the introduction and the preamble, founded on natural philosophy); the judicial (indictment of George III and denunciation of the British people) and the executive (the conclusion that finally performs independence). Both the introduction and the preamble constitute what might be considered a rudimentary legislative frame that justifies the declaration ― enunciation ― on the basis of a moral imperative, 6 and independence on the basis of a logical imperative ― axiomatic self-evidence and subsequent necessity. 7 However, it must be noticed that the whole corpus of British Law that any colonial authority was subject to is never explicitly mentioned. The indictment of George III and the denunciation of the British people stage a trial of the British King and the Parliament by which the direction of authority is reversed, making the river of justice flow upwards. The fact that no court has been previously established, or that there is no counsel for the defence of the accused are silenced too. 8 3. Since the simulacrum precedes the real, the existence of the latter can only be ascertained by its simulacrum. However, its absence can be detected by the textual warping that appears to fix the discursive void left by its absence. This textual warping causes a certain discursive distortion or deviation that reveals the absence of the real, and whose calculation might lead to the revelation of the real. For a discussion of textual warping, see Fernández -Santiago (2005:263-273). 4. The term “enunciative” is used here in relation with Foucault’s The archaeology of knowledge. At the enunciative level a statement “is linked rather to a ‘referential’ that is made up not of ‘things’, ‘facts’, ‘realities’, or ‘beings’, but laws of possibility, rules of existence for the objects that are named, designated, or described within it, and for the relations that are affirmed or denied in it” (103). 5. Baudrillard (1983) expresses it in terms that distinguish the specular function of representational imagery from the nuclear and genetic operations of simulacra. 6. “[D]ecent respect to the opinions of mankind”. 7. “[I]t becomes necessary”, and “truths [that are] self-evident”. 8. Were it not because the Declaration of Independence actually enforced American independence, these two sections could be considered the staging of a mock trial with obvious reminiscences of the celebration of a Feast of Fools in the sense that the Declaration uses legislative and logical formulae and style of legal and philosophical texts in order to subvert them. Harvey Cox reports that during the Feast of Fools, “[s]ometimes a Lord of Misrule, a Mock King, or a Boy Bishop was elected to preside over the events. In some places the Boy Bishop even celebrated a parody mass” (3). In his study on the figure of the Fool Willeford adds: “the Feast of Fools at Sens, in which the prescribed vespers were replaced by a medley of all the vespers throughout the year — clown patches of religious text” (16). WARPED DISCOURSES 223 Finally, the conclusion appeals to an ultimate religious authority 9 and a non- existent democratic representation 10 to declare (perform) both the independence and the union of the colonies. Again, the text does not mention the fact that the “Representatives of the United States of America” do neither hold any religious authority nor are they elected by any good people of states that do not exist or are united yet. 11 Such textual holes or, in Derrida’s words, erasures, 12 leave some textual wrinkles in the form of terminological hesitations and inconsistencies, or persistent repetitions that are very obvious even to the most careless reader’s eye. The piling up of sources of authority (other than the king’s) that justify the Declaration of Independence (including religion, natural philosophy, logic and democracy) without considering that they may even contradict each other (revealing what Foucault would call “spaces of differentiation”) 13 suspiciously recalls Freud’s description of the slip of the tongue of the man who, after being accused of having borrowed a kettle and returned it with a hole, would answer with the triple excuse that he had returned the kettle undamaged, that it was already broken when he borrowed it, and finally, that he did not borrow it at all. George III, the legal authority who at that moment ruled over the American colonies, and who was also the representative of God’s authority for the whole extension of the British Empire, is absolutely ripped out of the text of the Declaration as a source of political authority. Convincing as all those alternative sources of authority might be, their “differentiation” becomes obvious when they are all gathered upon a not less obvious absence (the reference to the king’s authority), hiding the wound that the Declaration of Independence inflicts on the authority then in force. There is also certain terminological inconsistency in the use of the words “Colonies” and “States” to refer to the same political reality. Such inconsistency reflects a conceptual hesitation of no little importance, since colonies would be subject to imperial authority whereas states would not. However, I would also hesitate to consider this ambiguity one more slip of the pen, and am rather inclined to see it as an enunciative necessity that is an integral aspect of its performative function. A more consistent use of the term “States” would make the Declaration unnecessary (if they were already free independent states, there would be no need of a Declaration of Independence), whereas the exclusive use 9. “[T]he Supreme Judge of the world” . 10. “[I]n the name of the good people of these Colonies”. 11. It must not be forgotten that the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Second Continental Congress; a colonial body of representatives appointed by the legislature of the colonies that were ― or were supposed to be — under the control of the Governor’s Councils that the Continental Congress was rebelling against. 12. For a discussion of the connection between Derrida’s notion of “erasure” and my own vision of “textual void”, consult Fernández-Santiago (2005:359-372). 13. In relation with what he calls “the enunciative level of a formulation”, that he distinguishes from the grammatical and the logical levels, Foucault argues that “the description of this enunciative level can be performed neither by a formal analysis, nor by a semantic investigation, nor by verification, but by the analysis of the relations between the statement and the spaces of differentiation, in which the segment itself reveals the differences” (2005:103). 224 MIRIAM FERNÁNDEZ-SANTIAGO of the word “Colonies” would make it illegitimate, depriving the Declaration of any performative authority. Such terminological inconsistency opens up an enunciative gap of undecidedness whose void vacuums in the performative power of the text. In his exhaustive rhetorical analysis of the Declaration of Independence, Lucas (1989) praises the tone, cadence, symmetry, dramatic appeal and rhetorical power of repetition in the text. In this sense, he pays special attention to the indictment of George III and accusation of the British brethren, remarking the distance created between third-person pronouns “he” and “they” and the first person pronoun “we” that separates the King and the British brethren from “the Good People of these Colonies” (Declaration of Independence). The political relevance implicit in the use of such pronouns was noticed by Thomas Hutchinson 14 already in 1776. It is remarkable that Hutchinson perceived the performative violence silencing the fact that the colonies were not “distinct” from, but part of the British kingdom. However, although he perceives the revolutionary action implied in the use of such pronouns, he missed (perhaps because it was necessary) the violence of one more absence behind those pronouns. The most violent absence in the Declaration does not lie in performing independence through the distinction American vs. British created by pronouns, but in generating the power that silences such absence, or, in Baudrillard’s terms, the liquidation of all referentials. The logical construction of the Declaration as it is advanced in the introduction (it is necessary that we dissolve the political bands because of the following reasons; the continuous injustices lead to such dissolution) runs opposite to the textual performative effected by the Declaration. In fact, the arguments piled up against both George III and the British people are not presented as a legal or political requirement previous to the Declaration, but as a requirement of another, different source of authority: “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind”. 15 In this introduction, the Declaration is most subtle in its composition, since it meets one of the requirements of Independence: the rejection of British authority. Were it expressed in different terms, such as “We 14. Tomas Hutchinson was the colonial governor of Massachusetts from 1771 to 1774. He noticed that “[t]hey begin […] with a false hypothesis. That the Colonies are one distinct people, and the kingdom another, connected by political bands. The Colonies, politically considered, never were a distinct people from the kingdom. There never has been but one political band, and that was just the same before the first Colonists emigrated as it has been ever since, the Supreme Legislative Authority, which hath essential rights, and is indispensably bound to keep all parts of the Empire entire, until there may be a separation consistent with the general good of the Empire, of which good, from the nature of government, this authority must be the sole judge” (1776:9). 15. The argument is not “we declare ourselves independent because we have suffered injustice from the competent authority”, but “we declare our independence because we respect the opinions of mankind, also referred to as ‘candid world’”. In this sense, either the authors of the Declaration miss the double ― not merely declarative, but also performative ― functions of the Declaration and simply pile up reasons (indictment ) that justify it , thus implicitly recognizing the king’s authority; or they use such double function to distinguish between the enunciation of reasons: submitting to the authority of the opinions of mankind (possibly the French), and performative declaration of independence: the denial of the king’s authority over the colonies. WARPED DISCOURSES 225 proceed to name the reasons that force us to reject British authority”, it would implicitly recognize the existence of such authority: it is required by such authority that we name the reasons before we declare our independence. But as I mentioned above, the rejection of British authority over the British colonies in America is not previous to their performative Declaration of Independence; it is rather a side effect of such performative. The performative itself, the en-act-ment of independence is in fact produced by the reference to the Thirteen Colonies as “one people”. National identity is certainly an astonishing issue in the sense that it implies the construction of a most narrow common identity by virtue of the erasure of the widest local and individual differences. Neither geography, nor birth, nor marriage are exclusive arguments to determine national identity; it is rather something that you adhere or are adhered to as an individual that can be as inclusive of difference as multinational firms such as Benetton, Coca Cola or McDonald’s. But the adherence to a national identity that is non-existent until the very moment you adhere to it is just a performative miracle. At least, the creation of light by God was subject to omnipotent authority. American Independence is born out of the blue void of authority by virtue of spontaneous generation. Strictly considered, the Declaration of Independence was signed 16 by colonial representatives who were so thanks to the same imperial authority they reject in the Declaration. Thus, the first simulacrum of American History, located at the very root of American nationality is the answer to the most obvious question that must have astonished both George III and the British Parliament most: “Where does the authority to declare the independence of the colonies come from?” The answer provided by the Declaration itself in the introduction is simply that “it becomes necessary”; a performative only comparable to the well-known “I Am Who I Am”, whose comparison adds an odd Satanic tone to this text. In the mouth of George III himself, the most prominent interlocutor of the Declaration, the question becomes rhetorical, and its answer can only be “nowhere”. Such absolute lack of authority underlying the American Declaration of Independence would certainly be something worth being silenced by any (firstly) Colonial or (later) American government. However, such an absence is something that must have left a huge textual void around which the text of the Declaration might warp producing textual scars and wrinkles that should be not only perceivable but even obvious to the reader. Its resulting textual void leaves the trace of a textual warping that reveals the nature of the text as simulacrum, and not as mere representation. In this case, the warping is as obvious as big is the need to hide this absence; an insistent repetition of the first-person plural pronoun. Lucas (1989:117) records twenty- six occurrences of the word “our” and eleven occurrences of the word “us” in the 16. In fact, the Declaration itself is dated before the actual signature. Most of the delegates signed the Declaration on August 2, 1776, which only piles up layers of simulation onto its textual performativeness. 226 MIRIAM FERNÁNDEZ-SANTIAGO Declaration. I have counted eleven more occurrences of the pronoun “we”. The first-person plural pronoun is also the first word of both the preamble and the conclusion. It is also remarkable that there should be seventy-two pronouns in the Declaration that refer to the American Colonies as “one people”. 17 Such insistence on repetition reinforces the perception of the colonies as a united people, but it also calls attention to the fact that the pronoun repeated represents no pre-existing political reality at all. The American Colonies as a unity speaking with a single voice in order to declare (perform) their unity and independence, constitute an astonishing exercise of syncretism that produces a previously non-existent political reality. The writing of the pronoun “we” enforces a never signed treaty of union that fabricates the political authority of a new nation. The argumentative flow of the Declaration of Independence focuses on the justification of independence, but the ultimate violence of its text rests not on the performative function of the declaration of independence, but on the spontaneous generation of a nation out of the pronoun “we”. The arguments that would justify independence can be refuted, the discursive basis working as their reference point ― God, nature and logic ― can be said not to pertain to the political character of the text; but the absolute violence of the pronoun “we” produces its own reality by itself and performs itself. One might question its authority to perform its independence (limit its action), but no one can deny its existence once it has been written. The repetitions and cadence of the Declaration work as some kind of political ensalmus 18 that would perform independence as its magical result on the basis of the structure “Let there be Independence”. But the writing of the pronoun “we” is even more Satanic since it does not parallel divine creative action, but divine essence: “I Am Who I Am”, or rather “we become who we are”. The significance of the number thirteen adds the cabalistic dimension. Despite the hesitations, repetitions and inconsistencies revealing the occultation of the fact that there is no legal or political authority behind the Declaration to sustain it ― revelation of the secret that would destroy the power silencing it ―, such invalidation does not occur because the text performs/creates its own source of political authority (we) right before the writing of the action that performs independence. The “necessity” and “requirement” that are found in the introduction of the Declaration are thus not only a historical or political ― enunciative ― necessity, but the logical quality of the ultimate axiom of self-evidence, with the particularity that it “becomes” in the text and as the text. Therefore, the rest of the Declaration, the whole enunciative frame of its performative “we” is not superfluous or unnecessary. The whole of its structure, 17. To these, we must add five occurrences of the pronoun “they”, nine occurrences of “them” and ten occurrences of “their” related (either directly or indirectly) to the same referent in the third-person plural. 18. Check Maggi (2001:8-56) or Fernández-Santiago (2005:196-198) for an explanation of the structure and mechanisms of ensalmi. WARPED DISCOURSES 227 rhetorical force, argumentative progress and scientific, philosophical, legislative or religious background also serve a necessary purpose; that of erasing any trace of reality that might invalidate the power that sustains them. In that sense, the whole of the Declaration (it) “becomes necessary” at both the enunciative and performative levels. The most obvious absence in the Declaration of Independence, the one that lies behind and explains the mystery of the acausality of the American essence, is substituted by the logical and practical necessity of its simulacrum. There is no more bin Laden after the simulation of his execution. The real corpse of bin Laden is cursed to roam the Arabian Sea and be devoured by carrion fish as a submarine, twenty-first century equivalent of the Sophoclean Polyneices. Contrary to the obscene exposure of Polyneices’ corpse, bin Laden’s corpse is hygienically absent from the representation of his death. Compared to the pale white, dead face of Sadam Husseim in a dark background at the end of his execution, bin Laden is denied the heroic pose and the invocation to Allah. His face can only be perceived by its reflection on the other side of a screen as it is filtered by one more lens on a picture. Like the face of God Himself, bin Laden’s death can only be directly contemplated by a few elect. The result might be more ephemeral, but just as effective as a horse-rearing, bronze statue of Barak Obama in the New York Zero Zone. The miracle of the simulacrum is that even though it displaces the real, it still works. What is more, its effect lies precisely in the necessity of such displacement, in the fact that “it becomes necessary for a people” to take some action, and to show “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind”. But the action taken is neither independence from, nor the execution of a particular enemy. The action taken is an action of erasure and displacement, of the murder of reality by the sign that replaces it. Taken to the political sphere, simulation is found to be at the very root of democracy as a system based on representation, but also on the displacement of the people. It was the representatives of the people in Congres, July 4, 1776, who signed the Declaration of Independence, not the people themselves. It is also the eyes of the National Security Team that watch the execution of Osama bin Laden, not mankind. When a justification is sought, the only one provided leads back to Logical and practical necessity. REFERENCES Bailyn, B. 1967, The ideological origins of the American revolution. Harvard, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Baudrillard, J. 1983, Simulations: The precession of simulacra. Trans. P. Foss and P. Patton. New York: Semiotext[e]. Becker, C. 1922, “The literary qualities of the Declaration”, in The Declaration of Independence: A study in the history of political ideas. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 194-223. 228 MIRIAM FERNÁNDEZ-SANTIAGO Cox, H. 1969, Feast of fools. A theological essay on feast and fantasy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Derrida, J. 1978, Writing and difference. Trans. A. Bass. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Fernández-Santiago, M. 2005, The voice and the void. Huelva: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Huelva. Foucault, M. 1980, Power/Knowledge: selected interviews & other writings 1972-1977. Ed. C. Gordon. New York: Pantheon Books. Foucault, M. 2005, The archaeology of knowledge. Trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith. London and New York: Routledge. Freud, S. 1989, Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company. Gerber, S. D. (ed.) 2002, The Declaration of Independence: Origins and impact. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press. Ginsberg, R. 1967, “The Declaration as rhetoric”, in R. Ginsberg (ed.). A casebook on the Declaration of Independence, New York: Crowell, 219-244. Götz, I. L. 2002, Faith, humor and paradox. Westport: Praeger Publishers. Hutchinson, T. 1776, Strictures upon the Declaration of the congress at Philadelphia in a letter to a noble lord. London. Lucas, S. E. 1989, “Justifying America: The Declaration of Independence as a rhetorical document”, in T. W. Benson (ed.). American rhetoric: Context and criticism. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 67-130. Maggi, A. 2001, Satan’s rhetoric. A study of Renaissance demonology. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Nash, G. B. 2005, The unknown American revolution: The unruly birth of democracy and the struggle to create America. New York: Viking. Shannon, C.E. 1948, “A mathematical theory of communication”. Bell System Technical Journal, 27:379-423, 623-656. Souza, Pete. “May 1, 2011” White House official website: IV POESÍA Y ARTE PLATONISMO Y ECOS DE A DEFENCE OF POETRY, DE P. B. SHELLEY, EN EL PENSAMIENTO POÉTICO DE ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI ÁNGEL E. DÍAZ-PINTADO HILARIO Universidad de Granada En el pensamiento poético de Adam Zagajewski, poeta y ensayista polaco contemporáneo (Lvov, 1945), hay dos ideas de inequívoca filiación platónica: la idea de la “belleza ajena” (“cudze piękno”) y la consideración de la poesía como “metaxý”. En estas dos ideas zagajewskianas, íntimamente relacionadas entre sí, confluyen un platonismo directo, bebido esencialmente en los diálogos Ion y Banquete, y un platonismo indirecto, recibido de autores como P. B. Shelley, Simone Weil y Eric Voegelin. El presente trabajo propone una lectura en paralelo de pasajes escogidos de A Defence of Poetry y de algunos textos, tanto poéticos como ensayísticos, de Adam Zagajewski, para, a partir de ellos, remontarse luego a las fuentes platónicas mismas. El objetivo último es contribuir a situar con precisión y a entender en todo su alcance el pensamiento poético de Zagajewski – e, indirectamente, y en la medida de lo posible, del mismo Shelley – en esa dilatada estela del platonismo que atraviesa toda la cultura occidental, poniendo de relieve lo que en ambos autores hay de tradición y lo que hay de originalidad. En A Defence of Poetry; or, Remarks Suggested by an Essay Entitled “The Four Ages of Poetry”, escribe P. B. Shelley: The great secret of morals is Love; or a going out of our own nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own. A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is the imagination; and poetry administers to the effect by acting upon the cause. (Shelley 2002:517) Notopoulos trae a colación, a propósito de estas líneas, el pasaje platónico del Banquete en que Sócrates explica a Agatón que el amor surge no de la riqueza y la plenitud, sino de la indigencia y la necesidad. Una de las frases clave de Sócrates reza en la correspondiente traducción de Shelley: 232 ÁNGEL ENRIQUE DÍAZ-PINTADO HILARIO Love, therefore, and everything else that desires anything, desires that which is absent and beyond his reach, that which it has not, that which is not itself, that which it wants; such are the things of which there are desire and love. (Notopoulos 1969:440) Nos dice también Shelley en su clásica obra apologética: Poetry turns all things to loveliness; it exalts the beauty of that which is most beautiful, and it adds beauty to that which is most deformed: it marries exultation and horror, grief and pleasure, eternity and change; it subdues to union under its light yoke all irreconcilable things. It transmutes all that it touches, and every form moving within the radiance of its presence is changed by wondrous sympathy to an incarnation of the spirit which it breathes; its secret alchemy turns to potable gold the poisonous waters which flow from death through life; it strips the veil of familiarity from the world, and lays bare the naked and sleeping beauty which is the spirit of its forms. (Shelley 2002:533) A la vista de estos textos, los de Shelley y el del Banquete traducido por el poeta inglés, Notopoulos llega a la siguiente conclusión: Poetry has for Shelley the same function as Eros in the Symposium: it is an intermediary daemon between man and the divine; like Love it leads us from the earthly to the divine; it strips the world of the veil of unreality and enables us to see the Ideal Beauty. (Notopoulos 1969:347) Como es sabido, Shelley extiende el término poeta a toda mente creativa que sabe remontarse por encima de las condiciones de su propio tiempo y espacio históricos en orden a descubrir nuevos valores. Esta categoría incluye no sólo a los escritores en verso y prosa, sino también a los artistas en general, e incluso a los legisladores, profetas y fundadores de nuevas instituciones sociales y religiosas (Greenblatt y Abrams 2006:837). Mas ¿quién es Eros, tal y como nos lo presenta Platón en el Banquete? “Eros es necesidad de lo Bello, es adquisición siempre creciente de aquello de lo que se carece, con la meta puesta en la fruición de lo Bello absoluto” (Reale 2002:240). Sobre el trasfondo del contexto cultural griego, el Eros platónico destaca por sus características revolucionarias, por cuanto no nos es presentado como un “dios”, sino un “demon” (δαίµων) (Reale 2002:240). En la concepción platónica, Eros es un “intermedio”, es decir, algo que está en medio entre dos extremos: un metaxý (µεταξύ), propiamente, entre lo mortal y lo inmortal, entre lo divino y lo humano. Pero, además de “intermedio”, Eros es también “mediador”, un gran “demonio mediador” (Reale 2004:178-179); como tal, es, en efecto, fuerza mediadora entre los opuestos que “conduce siempre más cerca del término positivo” (Reale 2004:178) y que impulsa “a la búsqueda y a la adquisición de lo inmortal” (Reale 2002:240). Precisamente de su condición de “intermedio” y “mediador” le viene a Eros su extraordinario poder: “Al estar en medio de unos y otros cumple una función integradora, de modo que el todo queda unido consigo mismo” (Reale PLATONISMO Y ECOS DE A DEFENCE OF POETRY EN ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI 233 2004:179); así, pues, Eros “es una auténtica copula mundi” (Reale 2004:179). Escuchemos, en el Banquete, el siguiente diálogo entre Sócrates y Diotima: – ¿Qué puede ser, entonces, Eros? – dije yo –. ¿Un mortal? – En absoluto. – ¿Pues qué entonces? –Como en los ejemplos anteriores – dijo –, algo intermedio entre lo mortal y lo inmortal. – ¿Y qué es ello, Diotima? – Un gran demon, Sócrates. Pues también todo lo demónico está entre la divinidad y lo mortal. – ¿Y qué poder tiene? – dije yo. – Interpreta y comunica a los dioses las cosas de los hombres y a los hombres las de los dioses, súplicas y sacrificios de los unos y de los otros órdenes y recompensas por los sacrificios. Al estar en medio de unos y otros llena el espacio entre ambos, de suerte que el todo queda unido consigo mismo como un continuo. (Banquete:202d) Acto seguido, Platón recurre, una vez más, al mito, y nos narra el nacimiento de Eros. Estando los dioses festejando el nacimiento de Afrodita, se llegó al banquete Penía, diosa de la pobreza, a pedir limosna, y, para salir del estado de carencia total en que se hallaba, intentó unirse con Poros, que, por el contrario, encarna la capacidad de procurarse en toda circunstancia aquello de lo que se carece. Encontrábase Poros a la sazón ebrio de néctar, adormecido en el jardín de Zeus, lo que facilitó que el intento de Penía pudiera coronarse con éxito… A una pregunta de Sócrates, así lo cuenta Diotima: Entonces Penía, maquinando, impulsada por su carencia de recursos, hacerse un hijo de Poros, se acuesta a su lado y concibió a Eros. Por esta razón, precisamente, es Eros también acompañante y escudero de Afrodita, al ser engendrado en la fiesta del nacimiento de la diosa y al ser, a la vez, por naturaleza un amante de lo bello, dado que también Afrodita es bella. Siendo hijo, pues, de Poros y Penía, Eros se ha quedado con las siguientes características. En primer lugar, es siempre pobre, y lejos de ser delicado y bello, como cree la mayoría, es, más bien, duro y seco, descalzo y sin casa, duerme siempre en el suelo y descubierto, se acuesta a la intemperie en las puertas y al borde de los caminos, compañero siempre inseparable de la indigencia por tener la naturaleza de su madre. Pero, por otra parte, de acuerdo con la naturaleza de su padre, está al acecho de lo bello y de lo bueno; es valiente, audaz y activo, hábil cazador, siempre urdiendo alguna trama, ávido de sabiduría y rico en recursos, un amante del conocimiento a lo largo de toda su vida, un formidable mago, hechicero y sofista. No es por naturaleza ni inmortal ni mortal, sino que en el mismo día unas veces florece y vive, cuando está en la abundancia, y otras muere, pero recobra la vida de nuevo gracias a la naturaleza de su padre. Mas lo que consigue siempre se le escapa, de suerte que Eros nunca ni está falto de recursos ni es rico, y está, además, en el medio de la sabiduría y la ignorancia. (Banquete:203b-203e) Nace, por tanto, Eros con una naturaleza doble, bifronte, “sintéticamente mediada” (Reale 2002:241), recibida de la madre y del padre; y, por haber sido 234 ÁNGEL ENRIQUE DÍAZ-PINTADO HILARIO concebido en el transcurso de la fiesta del natalicio de Afrodita, es asimismo, por naturaleza igualmente, seguidor de la diosa. Tenemos, pues, en primer lugar, que “Eros es una fuerza dinámica y sintética, mediadora de los opuestos” (Reale 2002:242). En segundo lugar, para Platón, Eros es, en sí mismo, la fuerza que impulsa no sólo algunas acciones particulares del hombre, sino todo obrar humano que se encamine a la búsqueda del Bien y lo que se sigue de su posesión: la felicidad. Por otra parte, se da una íntima relación entre Eros y filosofía, hasta el punto de que han de considerarse “dos caras de la misma realidad” (Reale 2002:248). Precisamente por su papel esencial de “intermediario”, Eros se identifica con el filósofo. En efecto, los dioses no pueden ser filósofos, dado que están en posesión perfecta de la sabiduría; ni tampoco pueden serlo los ignorantes, que no piensan tener necesidad alguna de esa misma sabiduría ni, por ende, la desean; entre ambos extremos se sitúan los amantes de la sabiduría: los “filó-sofos”, exactamente. Prosigue el diálogo entre Diotima y Sócrates: – […] ninguno de los dioses ama la sabiduría ni desea ser sabio, porque ya lo es, como tampoco ama la sabiduría cualquier otro que sea sabio. Por otro lado, los ignorantes ni aman la sabiduría ni desean hacerse sabios, pues en esto precisamente es la ignorancia una cosa molesta: en que quien no es ni bello, ni bueno, ni inteligente se crea a sí mismo que lo es suficientemente. Así, pues, el que no cree estar necesitado no desea tampoco lo que no cree necesitar. – ¿Quiénes son, Diotima, entonces – dije yo – los que aman la sabiduría, si no son ni los sabios ni los ignorantes? – Hasta para un niño es ya evidente – dijo – que son los que están en medio de estos dos, entre los cuales estará también Eros. La sabiduría, en efecto, es una de las cosas más bellas y Eros es amor de lo bello, de modo que Eros es necesariamente amante de la sabiduría, y por ser amante de la sabiduría está, por tanto, en medio del sabio y del ignorante. Y la causa de esto es también su nacimiento, ya que es hijo de un padre sabio y rico en recursos y de una madre no sabia e indigente. Ésta es, pues, querido Sócrates, la naturaleza de este demon. (Banquete:203e-204b) Unas palabras aún sobre el camino erótico ascensional que conduce a la visión y a la fruición de lo Bello absoluto: la escalera de Eros. El primer peldaño de esta escalera lo constituye el amor por la belleza de los cuerpos, no tanto el placer ligado al sexo cuanto la búsqueda de aquella emoción – de aquel “shock metafísico” (Reale 2002:250) – que suscita la visión y la fruición de la belleza. Mas, según la concepción platónica, la verdadera belleza del hombre radica en su alma; la belleza de su cuerpo es la apariencia de lo Bello, mientras que la belleza del alma es la verdadera belleza del hombre. Mediante esta relación con la belleza del alma nacen, en la dimensión del Eros, los discursos capaces de hacer crecer a los jóvenes en la virtud, y al amante junto a ellos; y aquí estamos ya en el segundo peldaño. PLATONISMO Y ECOS DE A DEFENCE OF POETRY EN ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI 235 El tercer peldaño es el de la belleza de las actividades y las leyes humanas, belleza consistente en la “armonía” y, en consecuencia, en la “justa medida” que produce la virtud. El cuarto peldaño consiste en la belleza propia de las ciencias. El “orden”, lo “definido” y la “justa medida” constituyen notas esenciales de lo Bello, notas que las ciencias – particularmente, las matemáticas – ponen de manifiesto y hacen comprender. En fin, el grado quinto y más encumbrado coincide con la visión de lo Bello, lo Bello en sí: estamos ante el momento en el que “lo Bello se manifiesta en sí mismo, por sí mismo, consigo mismo, en aquella unidad de forma que existe siempre” (Reale 2002:252). Y, puesto que “lo Bello no es sino el Bien que se manifiesta” (Reale 2002:252), en lo más alto de la escalera de Eros se llega a la visión del Bien, que es el Uno, medida suprema de todas las cosas. “Se trata – concluye Reale (2002:252) – de aquel Uno y de aquella medida suprema que se manifiestan precisamente como visibles mediante lo Bello”. Bien se comprende, entonces, que Reale (2004:190) afirme taxativamente que el de metaxý es uno de los conceptos clave de la metafísica platónica, de todo punto esencial “para la comprensión del estatuto ontológico de Eros”. Consideraremos ahora algunos textos de Adam Zagajewski, quien, como se echa de ver en más de una de sus páginas ensayísticas, conoce y admira la Defensa de la poesía de Shelley, como conoce y admira asimismo la de Sir Philip Sidney. Pero antes recordemos lo afirmado por Shelley: The great secret of morals is Love; or a going out of our own nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own. (Shelley 2002:517) Pues bien, al término de la conferencia que dictó en el aula magna de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Granada el viernes 27 de febrero de 2009, y en el transcurso de una entrevista concedida al periodista Jesús Arias para el diario Granada hoy, Adam Zagajewski declaraba: “La belleza es algo que siempre está en los demás, no en nosotros” (Arias 2009:69). Estamos aquí ante una de las ideas fundamentales del pensamiento poético de Zagajewski, quien no por casualidad ha dado a su libro de memorias-diario, aparecido en 1998, el título de En la belleza ajena (W cudzym pięknie). Sobre este libro se ha escrito: Throughout Another Beauty, Zagajewski whispers the advice to absorb all that life has to offer and appreciate the beauty which exists in other people, in other objects, because doing so can bring us closer to universal goodness, to that untouchable God which exists in each one of us, to our own centers of beauty. (Caprio 2000) Zagajewski ya le había dado este título a un poema de su libro Carta. Oda a muchos (List. Oda do wielości), publicado en 1983. Se trata de un poema que las antologías del autor recogen a menudo y que, dentro de su brevedad, viene a 236 ÁNGEL ENRIQUE DÍAZ-PINTADO HILARIO constituir todo un prontuario, por así decirlo, de estética zagajewskiana, un auténtico manifiesto de este singular poeta polaco. He aquí el poema “En la belleza ajena” (“W cudzym pięknie”): Sólo en la belleza ajena hay consuelo, en la música ajena y en los poemas ajenos. Sólo en los otros hay salvación, aunque la soledad sepa como el opio. No son el infierno los otros, si se los ve por la mañana, cuando limpia tienen la frente, lavada por los sueños. Por eso pienso tanto qué palabra emplear, “él” o “tú”. Cada “él” es una traición a cierto “tú”, más, en cambio, en un poema ajeno fiel aguarda un sereno diálogo. 1 Es evidente que en la expresión usada repetidamente por Zagajewski el adjetivo es tan relevante como el sustantivo: “belleza ajena” (“cudze piękno”), es decir, de otros, presente en otros, producida por otros, recibida de otros; algo, en suma, que no está en nosotros, sino en otros; algo de lo que estamos menesterosos y, por lo mismo, deseamos y buscamos. Y ¿dónde encuentra el poeta esa “belleza ajena”? En primera instancia, en la música compuesta o interpretada por otros, en la poesía escrita por otros. Queda claro, así, que la intención del autor es introducirnos de inmediato en el reino de la poesía y el arte; o de la poesía a secas, lato sensu, con el sentido amplio con que utiliza el término Shelley en A Defence of Poetry. Ahí, gracias a sus prójimos creadores, encuentra nuestro poeta “consuelo” (“pocieszenie”) y “salvación” (“zbawienie”). “No son el infierno los otros”, afirma Zagajewski, enmendándole líricamente la plana a lo que Jean Paul Sartre (1947:75), por boca de Garcin, ha dicho en la escena V de su drama A puerta cerrada (Huis clos, 1944): “l’enfer c’est les Autres”. Volvamos ahora a Shelley y al pasaje de A Defence of Poetry que arriba reproducíamos: A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is the imagination; and poetry administers to the effect by acting upon the cause. (Shelley 2002:517) 1. ”Tylko w cudzym pięknie / jest pocieszenie, w cudzej / muzyce i w obcych wierszach. / Tylko u innych jest zbawienie, / choćby samotność smakowała jak / opium. Ni są piekłem inni, / jeśli ujrzeć ich rano, kiedy / czyste mają czoło, umyte przez sny. / Dlatego długo myślę jakiego / użyć słowa, on czy ty. Każde on / jest zdradą jakiegoś ty, lecz / za to w cudzym wierszy wiernie / czeka chłodna rozmowa” (Zagajewski 1983:25). Traducción nuestra. PLATONISMO Y ECOS DE A DEFENCE OF POETRY EN ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI 237 En efecto, una posición central en el pensamiento de Shelley la ocupa el concepto – desarrollado ya por filósofos del siglo XVIII – de la “imaginación empática” (“sympathetic imagination”), es decir, la facultad en virtud de la que un individuo es capaz de identificarse con los pensamientos y sentimientos de otros; en otras palabras, de “ponerse en el lugar del otro”. Shelley insiste en que la facultad que en la poesía nos capacita para compartir las alegrías y los sufrimientos de caracteres inventados constituye también la base de toda moralidad, por cuanto nos compele a sentir por otros como sentimos con respecto a nosotros mismos (Greenblatt y Abrams 2006:844); claro está que esa facultad, tan esencial en Shelley como en Zagajewski, es la imaginación. Esta idea de Shelley está muy presente asimismo en Zagajewski, quien considera que en la empatía – die Einfühlung –, precisamente, reside el valor principal de los poemas de uno de sus poetas más leídos y admirados, de uno de sus maestros: su compatriota Zbigniew Herbert. A propósito de Herbert, escribe Zagajewski en una de sus páginas ensayísticas: […] lo que constituye el valor principal de sus poemas es la empatía, una categoría estética actualmente pasada de moda, die Einfühlung, como decían en el siglo XIX los filósofos alemanes hoy despreciados, la ternura para con el mundo, la comprensión para con los actores del cosmos grandes y pequeños […] (Zagajewski 2005:130) 2 Por lo demás, también en íntima relación con la categoría estética de la empatía – o “imaginación empática” – consideramos que ha de entenderse la idea zagajewskiana de la de la “belleza ajena” (“cudze piękno”), empática en tanto que ajena, precisamente. Sólo que esa empatía en Zagajewski se expresa preferentemente en lo dialógico y en el encuentro que en el diálogo se funda: “Por eso pienso tanto qué / palabra emplear, ‘él’ o ‘tú’. Cada ‘él’ / es una traición a cierto ‘tú’, más, / en cambio, en un poema ajeno fiel / aguarda un sereno diálogo”. Como ha observado Cabanowska-Wróbel (2005:69), en Zagajewski, la belleza se revela en diálogo, y es siempre “belleza ajena”, exactamente, don de los otros, y, en último extremo, del Otro. Por ello, cabe, a nuestro entender, razonablemente situar este poema zagajewskiano en el contexto de lo que se ha dado en llamar “filosofía del encuentro”, o, también, “pensamiento dialógico” o “personalista”. En otras palabras, estimamos que el poema “En la belleza ajena” (“W cudzym pięknie”) es susceptible de leerse, y leerse con provecho, en clave personalista; tanto más cuanto que en él se polemiza, como hemos visto, con otra corriente poderosa dentro del pensamiento del siglo XX: el existencialismo sartriano. Martin Buber, en su libro La vie en dialogue (1959), ha considerado, desde el pensamiento dialógico precisamente, al caso especial de la obra de arte: 2. ”[…] to empatia, niemodna obecnie kategoria estetyczna – die Einfühlung, jak mówili w dziewiętnastym wieku lekceważeni dziś filozofowie miemieccy – stanowi pierwszą warstwę jego wiersza, czułość dla świata, zrozumienie dla małych i wielkich aktorów kosmosu […]” (Zagajewski 2002:110). 238 ÁNGEL ENRIQUE DÍAZ-PINTADO HILARIO Todo arte es, por su origen, esencialmente dialógico. Toda música se dirige a un oído, que no es el del músico mismo; toda escultura o pintura se dirige a un ojo que no es el del escultor o pintor…; y ellas dicen todas a quien las acoge aquello que no se podría decir sino en ese lenguaje. (Jiménez 1999:115) Del pensamiento “dialógico” del siglo XX tornaremos ahora al diálogo platónico, en la Atenas del siglo V a. C.: Zagajewski pertenece a esa tradición que si no nació a la sombra de un plátano en un camino ateniense del siglo V a. C., al menos ahí conoció un momento de su itinerario fundacional. Cuenta Platón que el joven Fedro atisbó la auténtica belleza en tales circunstancias asistido por Sócrates, que no casualmente era hijo de comadrona. La belleza le sacaba a uno del tedio, la belleza estaba fuera, junto con la salvación, porque de algún modo entusiasmante la belleza era la salvación. Zagajewski nos lo ha recordado en sus poemas y sus prosas, oponiendo un terco romanticismo al dicho sartriano de que el infierno son los otros. El poeta nos viene a decir – coincidiendo con el título de su obra memorialística – que la belleza es ajena, chispea más allá de nosotros y a su encuentro vamos en pos de una misteriosa redención. (Mora Fandos) Este texto de Mora Fandos nos parece muy iluminador, por cuanto ubica con toda exactitud el pensamiento poético de Adam Zagajewski en la tradición a la que inequívocamente – como Shelley mismo – pertenece: la ilustre tradición platónica. Al encuentro de la belleza – escribe Mora Fandos – “vamos en pos de una misteriosa redención”. Estas palabras nos dan pie a considerar la insoslayable dimensión religiosa de la idea zagajewskiana de la “belleza ajena” (“cudze piękno”). Esta dimensión ha sido subrayada por Czabanowska-Wróbel y Bolewski, quienes, a propósito de Zagajewski, y remitiéndose al pensador y teólogo ruso Pavel Evdokimov, uno de los más grandes cultivadores de la teología ortodoxa del siglo XX, y su célebre ensayo titulado El arte del icono. Teología de la belleza (L'Art de l'icône, théologie de la beauté, 1970), llegan a hablar incluso de una “teología de la belleza ajena” (“teologia cudzego piękna”). Escriben, en efecto, Czabanowska-Wróbel y Bolewski: Siguiendo el ejemplo de Evdokimov, quien, refiriéndose al icono, habla de la “teología de la belleza”, puede hablarse de una teología de la belleza – y, propiamente, de la “belleza ajena” – en Zagajewski, cuya obra ensayística titulada precisamente En la belleza ajena desarrolla la idea de manera lapidaria expresada ya en su poema de juventud […] (Czabanowska-Wróbel y Bolewski 2000:4) 3 Y a continuación copian los cuatro primeros versos del poema “En la belleza ajena”. A juicio de Czabanowska-Wróbel y Bolewski, son éstas de Zagajewski 3. Traducción nuestra. PLATONISMO Y ECOS DE A DEFENCE OF POETRY EN ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI 239 palabras extraordinariamente importantes, y no sólo por su oposición a lo que aseveraba Sartre, sino también, y sobre todo, porque en ellas reencontramos la idea, procedente tanto de Atenas como de Jerusalén, de la salvación por el arte, mas no por un frío esteticismo, sino, propiamente, por la coparticipación, por la comunidad con los vivos y los muertos. 4 En esa “comunidad con los vivos y los muertos” consiste, precisamente, para Adam Zagajewski la tradición; comunidad en la que se participa de modo efectivo en el acto de la lectura o en la escucha de una obra musical, o en la contemplación de las artes plásticas; en otras palabras, en el ámbito de la “belleza ajena”. Czabanowska-Wróbel y Bolewski toman prestado para su artículo el título de otro poema de Zagajewski: “Mística para principiantes” (“Mistyka dla początkujących”), inserto en su libro Deseo (Pragnienie) (1999), título que apunta, una vez más, a esa dimensión propiamente religiosa que posee la “belleza ajena” zagajewskiana. Y es que para Zagajewski, como para Casas Otero (2003:5), “la experiencia estética se convierte así en via quaedam ad Deum”. Estamos ante la via pulchritudinis, propiamente; vía de desvelamiento de la realidad – según Shelley – cuyo objetivo último lo constituye la contemplación de la “Ideal Beauty”. En otro pasaje de A Defence of Poetry leemos: What were Virtue, Love, Patriotism, Friendship &c.― what were the scenery of this beautiful Universe which we inhabit ― what were our consolations on this side of the grave ― and what were our aspirations beyond it ― if Poetry did not ascend to bring light and fire from those eternal regions where the owl-winged faculty of calculation dare not ever soar? (Shelley 2002:531) Aquí queda ya del todo claro el papel de “mediador” (“metaxý”) de la poesía, que, a semejanza del Eros platónico, en el desempeño de su función mediadora, emprende regularmente vuelos hacia lo alto, excursiones ascensionales “a las regiones eternas”, para luego, en un incesante va-et-vient, tornar a la tierra e iluminarla y caldearla con “la luz y el fuego” traídos de las alturas. Que sepamos, Shelley no emplea nunca el término metaxý; sí lo emplea, en cambio, Zagajewski: Uno tiene la impresión de que la contemporaneidad no favorece sino una etapa de un peregrinaje eterno e interminable. Lo que mejor describe aquel peregrinaje es el término metaxú, tomado en préstamo de Platón: estar “entre”, entre nuestra tierra, nuestro entorno harto conocido (así lo creemos), concreto y material, y la trascendencia, el misterio. El metaxú define la situación del hombre como la de un ser que irremediablemente está “a medio camino”. (Zagajewski 2005:18) 5 4. Traducción nuestra. 5. ”Odnosi się wrażenie, iż nasza współczesność faworyzuje jeden tylko etap pewnej wiecznej, nigdy nie kończącej się, wędrówki. Wędrówkę tę najlepiej opisuje zapożyczone od Platona pojęcie mataxu: bycia „pomiędzy”, pomiędzy naszą ziemią, naszym (jak sądzimy) dobrze znanym, konkretnym, 240 ÁNGEL ENRIQUE DÍAZ-PINTADO HILARIO El concepto platónico de metaxý se ha revelado particularmente fecundo en el pensamiento de un Eric Voegelin o de una Simone Weil, de quienes lo retoma el poeta polaco. Adam Zagajewski, para quien no hay definición alguna capaz de contener el “elemento de la naturaleza” que designamos con el nombre de poesía, nos propone contemplarla precisamente en su movimiento “entre” (“metaxý”), como uno de los vehículos más eficaces para trasladarnos hacia lo alto. Así lo hace Zagajewski en el siguiente pasaje ensayístico, donde hallamos otro concepto clave de su pensamiento poético: el de “fervor” (“żarliwość”), contrapuesto a la ironía: ¿Qué es la poesía? Por suerte, no lo sabemos muy bien y no necesitamos saberlo de un modo analítico; ninguna definición (¡y hay tantas!) es capaz de formalizar este elemento de la naturaleza. Yo tampoco tengo ambiciones definidoras. Sin embargo, resulta atractivo contemplar la imagen de la poesía en su movimiento “entre” – la poesía como uno de los vehículos más importantes que nos transportan hacia arriba – y descubrir que el fervor precede a la ironía. (Zagajewski 2002:26) 6 Como luego lo reconocerán Shelley y Zagajewski, ya había reconocido Goethe la función mediadora del arte. En efecto, en la sección de sus Maximen und Reflexionen que lleva por título “Kunst und Künstler”, en el número 729, anota el poeta alemán: “Die Kunst ist eine Vermittlerin des Unaussprechlichen” (Goethe 1960:468): “El arte es un mediador de lo inefable”. También en las Maximen und Reflexionen, en el número 18, bajo el rótulo de “Gott und Natur”, leemos: ”Die wahre Vermittlerin ist die Kunst. Über Kunst sprechen, heißt die Vermittlerin vermitteln wollen, und doch ist uns daher viel Köstliches erfolgt” (Goethe 1960:367). Para el autor de Fausto, pues, “el verdadero mediador es el arte”. Pero, entonces, sigue diciendo Goethe, hablar de arte significa “querer servir de mediador al mediador”, y, sin embargo, “muchas cosas maravillosas nos son deparadas de este modo”. Buena prueba de ello son, sin duda, A Defence of Poetry, de P. B. Shelley, y, de Adam Zagajewski, tantas páginas de sus ensayos. Recordemos la conclusión a que llegaba Notopoulos (1969:347): “Poetry has for Shelley the same function as Eros in the Symposium”. A la vista de los textos de Adam Zagajewski aquí aducidos, pensamos que puede decirse lo mismo sobre la función que la poesía tiene para el poeta polaco. Tanto para uno como para otro la poesía es un “metaxý”; como Eros, que, deseoso en todo momento de materialnym otoczeniem – a transcendencją, tajemnicą. Metaxu definiuje sytuację człowieka jako istoty bedącej nieuleczalnie „w pół drogi”” (Zagajewski 2002:14-15). 6. ”Czym jest poezja, nie wiemy na szczęście zbyt dokładnie, i wcale nie musimy wiedzieć na sposób analityczny; żadna definicja (a jest ich tyle) nie umie sformalizować tego żywiołu. I ja też nie mam ambicji definicyjnych. Jest jednak coś kuszącego w tym, by zobaczyć poezję w owym ruchu „pomiędzy” – jako jeden z kilku najważniejszych wehikułów, porywających nas w górę; i żeby zrozumieć, że żarliwość poprzedza ironię. Żarliwość; płomienny śpiew świata, na który odpowiadamy naszyn własnym, niedoskonałem śpiewem” (Zagajewski 2002:21). PLATONISMO Y ECOS DE A DEFENCE OF POETRY EN ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI 241 procurarse aquello de lo que carece, constituye un mediador entre lo expresable y lo inefable, entre lo visible y lo invisible; o, por decirlo con palabras del mismo Zagajewski (2005:18), entre “nuestro entorno harto conocido (así lo creemos), concreto y material, y la trascendencia, el misterio”. REFERENCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS Arias, J. 2009, “La belleza es algo que siempre está en los demás, no en nosotros”, entrevista a Adam Zagajewski, en Granada Hoy, sábado 28 de febrero, 69. Caprio, Ch. 2000, “Divinity in the Everyday”. Central Europe Review, 43(2), en 242 ÁNGEL ENRIQUE DÍAZ-PINTADO HILARIO Zagajewski, A. 1983, List. Oda do wielości. Paryż: Instytut Literacki. Zagajewski, A. 1998, W cudzym pięknie. Kraków: Wydawnictwo a5. Zagajewski, A. 2002, Obrona żarliwości. Kraków: Wydawnictwo a5. Zagajewski, A. 2003, En la belleza ajena. Trad. A. E. Díaz-Pintado Hilario. Valencia: Pre-textos. Zagajewski, A. 2005, En defensa del fervor. Trad. J. Sławomirski y A. Rubió. Barcelona: Acantilado. FLOATING DOWN BEYOND CAMELOT: THE LADY OF SHALOTT AND THE AUDIO-VISUAL IMAGINATION MARGARITA CARRETERO GONZÁLEZ Universidad de Granada Alfred Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott” provided the perfect nourishment for a Victorian reading public fascinated by tragic stories of damsels in distress, particularly if the setting was medieval and King Arthur made an appearance. The story of the fair Lady, cursed to die after disobeying the mysterious command that forced her to weave in her tapestry the images reflected in her mirror without looking directly at Camelot, captivated the imagination of contemporary artists, including members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Although it ceased to be a favoured subject matter for painters after the First World War, the appeal of the Lady never died. Her story keeps inspiring writers, musicians and filmmakers; quotations from the poem are used in books, sometimes providing a novel its title, in songs and films. My purpose in the pages that follow is to look at the journey travelled by the Lady from a 13th-century Tuscan novella to a 21st-century TV series, using my own encounter(s) with her as narrative thread. It is a modest but heart-felt attempt to thank María Luisa Dañobeitia Fernández for having fanned my passion for literature and sharing with me her knowledge about virtually everything for almost two decades. INTRODUCTION: THE JOURNEY BEGINS Whenever I am writing on my computer at home, as is the case now, all I have to do is lift my eyes from the screen to be greeted by a framed print of John William Waterhouse’s Lady of Shalott. The original painting, finished in 1888, is one of the many pictorial interpretations of Tennyson’s poem and the first by Waterhouse, who painted three different canvases, each corresponding to a distinct moment in the poem. The print in front of me is possibly the most popular of the three. Sitting in her boat, the Lady is holding in her hand the chain which tied the vessel to the pier, letting it go so that the boat can float down the river, whilst opening her mouth in what seems to be the beginning of her dying song. The light wind that blows her long, red hair has extinguished all but one of 244 MARGARITA CARRETERO GONZÁLEZ the three candles placed on the prow, next to a crucifix, as if anticipating her imminent death. No matter how often I stare at it, it never fails to move me. There are innumerable replicas of this painting in different formats spread all over the world. Since my first encounter with Waterhouse’s Lady at the Tate in 1993, I have seen her not only in art books, postcards and posters, but also on mouse-pads, mugs, notebooks, fridge-magnets and, needless to say, countless internet sites. It is always the same Lady, with the same sorrowful face, the same white gown and long, red hair; and yet each reproduction is different, not just in the inevitable slight changes in colour, but also in the way each of them interacts with its particular environment and with the personal narrative of its beholders. My very own print is over a sofa that is in my study mostly for my cats’ benefit. On some occasions, all four of them are sleeping on it, sometimes there is only one (or two, or three), and others it is empty; the cats move, change position, leave, and come back again. Human members of the family are also allowed to sit or lie on the sofa, usually sharing it with its righteous feline owners. Irrespective of what is going on below her, outside the margins of her frame, the Lady remains immutable. As in Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, “[s]he cannot fade”, forever starting her song, forever loosening her hold on the chain, forever beginning to die whilst not quite doing so; frozen in time, yet forever speaking to the viewer. Indeed, far from ending in death before she reached Camelot, the Lady’s journey continues. Having travelled from Scalot to Shalott via Astolat, she still appeals to different imaginations, moves into sundry genres, generates multiple interpretations. She keeps floating down beyond Camelot. THE LADY OF SHALOTT AND THE AUDIO-VISUAL IMAGINATION 245 I first met the Lady of Shalott not in Tennyson’s ballad but in Loreena McKennitt’s magnificent musical rendition of the poem. The album in which the song is included, The Visit, was released in 1991. I was then in my fourth year at university and taking my first course in English Literature, but no poem by Tennyson was part of the syllabus. I was incredibly moved by the song and, having read in the booklet included in the CD the name of the author of the lyrics, I took the second volume of my Norton Anthology of English Literature, hoping to find it. There it was: “ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON (1809-1892)”, on page 1092; “The Lady of Shalott”, on page 1100. I still remember the thrill of the moment, the watery eyes that made it difficult to read the poem and, then as now, McKennitt’s song accompanying my reading. I have never been able to read the poem without listening to her song in my mind. A couple of years later, in the autumn of 1993, I visited the Tate Gallery (now Tate Britain) for the first time, looking for “the Lady”. Not having seen any reproduction, it was an extraordinary experience. Overwhelmed by its beauty and pathos, I stood looking at the painting for I don’t know how long, completely enthralled, once again moved to tears and, inevitably, listening to McKennitt’s song in my mind. Twenty years have passed since my first encounter with the Lady of Shalott, and in the course of this time, I have always kept an eye on her. Although not my field of expertise, I developed a passion for the Pre-Raphaelites and their followers and for Victorian narrative painting in general. All this started with Loreena McKennitt’s song, one of the many prints left by the Lady on a long journey that is recorded as having started in an anonymous 13th-century Tuscan novella. “WHO IS THIS? AND WHAT IS HERE?” FROM SCALOT TO SHALOTT When Tennyson wrote the first version of “The Lady of Shalott” in 1832 he was only twenty-three years old, not yet as well versed in medieval scholarship and Arthurian lore as he would become later in life. In 1842, he published a revised version of the poem, which has remained the definitive one, and some years later went back to the story of the Lady’s unrequited love for Lancelot in the episode “Lancelot and Elaine” of his Idylls of the King, the cycle of Arthurian legends which he published between 1856 and 1885. In January 1868, Tennyson connected his Lady of Shalott to Malory’s Maid of Astolat when he told F.J. Furnivall: I met the story first in some Italian novella […] the Lady Of Shalott is evidently the Elaine of the Morte D’Arthur, but I do not think I had ever heard of the latter when I wrote the former. […] I doubt whether I should ever have put it in that shape if I had been then aware of the Maid of Astolat. (Quoted in Hodder 1989:62) The source Tennyson referred to turned out to be a story included in a collection of medieval Tuscan novelle known as Il Novellino: “Novella LXXXI 246 MARGARITA CARRETERO GONZÁLEZ ‘Qui conta come la damigella di Scalot morì per amore di Lancialotto del Lac’” (Potwin 1902:237). The poet’s statement regarding the source of his story remains interestingly vague and makes one wonder about his sincerity. It may very well be the case that the Italian story was more present in his mind, but it is almost certain that Tennyson must have read Malory in his childhood, since one of the 1816 editions of the Morte D’Arthur was in his father’s library, to which the young Tennyson had free access. According to Hodder (op.cit.:63), this elusiveness may not necessarily mean that Tennyson was lying, but it does display “a reluctance to be seen as too thoroughly under the influence of a source”. Be it as it may, after reading the Italian novella and Malory’s account of the tragic story of the fair maid of Astolat, one has to agree with L.S. Potwin in that “Tennyson’s poem deviates as much from this novella as from Malory” (op. cit.: 238); he took whatever he pleased from both sources while composing a story of his own, including the magic element of the curse, the web and the mirror. Like any other text, Tennyson’s ballad constructs itself, following Foucault, “only on the basis of a complex field of discourse [...]. [I]t is caught up in a system of references […] it is a node within a network” (1972:23; quoted in Harrison 2002: 260). Malory and the anonymous author(s) of Il Novellino worked on a story of unrequited love, while Tennyson chose to focus on the Lady’s cursed isolation and the weariness this state brought upon her. In 1970, Flavia M. Alaya summarised as follows the different interpretations “The Lady of Shalott” had been subjected to: Treated as one of Tennyson’s psychological cryptograms, it has been construed as an equivocal statement of the paradox of desire and denial (what the Lady wants she cannot get) or desire and death (what the Lady wants is taken from her by death). Treated as a companion piece to other early Tennyson poems allied in theme – “The Hesperides,” “The Lotos-Eaters,” and “The Palace of Art,” in particular – it is usually read as an expression of the unresolved dialectic assumed to be characteristic of the early Tennyson, artistic detachment vs. social responsibility. (Alaya 1970:273) Whereas Potwin had summarised the story as “a new version of the old theme of Dying for Love” (op. cit.:239), feminist critics 1 establish a clear link between the situation of the Lady and the condition of women living in Victorian England, while others, such as Hodder, consider some of those readings “literal- minded and facetious” (1989:72, referring to Henderson (1978)) and argue that “the persona of the Lady allegorizes Tennyson’s own existence as an artist” (op. cit.:73). Jeffers (2001:60) brings together the implications that the Lady’s gender and her role as artist may bear on the interpretation of the poem. For him, it is necessary to see the Lady as an artist 1. See, for instance, Henderson (1978), Plasa (1992), Sutphin (2000), or Peterson (2009). THE LADY OF SHALOTT AND THE AUDIO-VISUAL IMAGINATION 247 who is not simply a stand-in for Tennyson, the poet, manifesting his feelings of effeminization and marginalization, but who is specifically a woman artist. She shares some of the advantages and disadvantages a man artist had in Tennyson’s time to contend with, but she has advantages and disadvantages peculiar to her sex, too. 2 Furthermore, the reader versed in mythology will not fail to notice the Lady’s particular craft, which connects her to famous mythological female weavers, such as the doomed Arachne or the powerful Nordic and Germanic goddesses, becoming even more meaningful in the context of the Arts and Crafts Movement, when weaving became an esteemed art in its own right. Weaving tapestries on a hand-loom had been one of [William] Morris’s passionate projects while running his furnishing and decorative arts company, Morris & Co. (Stevens 2008:72) Given that weaving was a very important symbol for the Pre-Raphaelites (ibid.) it should come as no surprise that the story of the Lady of Shalott became a favourite subject matter for their paintings. “SHE LOOKED DOWN TO CAMELOT”: FROM WORD TO IMAGE Much to his chagrin, Tennyson was one of the most illustrated poets in the Victorian period, only surpassed by Longfellow (Kooistra 2002:394). Of his poems, “Mariana” and “The Lady of Shalott” were the most frequently illustrated. According to Jeffers (2002:205), there were at least 35 recorded versions of each poem, while Kooistra elevates the number of illustrations of “The Lady of Shalott” to 50, “a particularly good example of a poem with multiple illustrators” (op.cit.:401) and, consequently, with multiple visual interpretations. The Moxon edition of Tennyson’s poems (1857) contains two illustrations for “The Lady of Shalott”, a headpiece by William Holman Hunt and a tailpiece by D.G. Rossetti. Tennyson’s wife had recommended Elizabeth Siddall as illustrator, but Moxon rejected her sketch (Hodder 1989:79-80). The selected plates provided two different readings of the poem, Holman Hunt’s being rather moralistic in its presentation of the Lady as a “fallen woman”, with her Medusa- like hair and the religious symbols included in the plate. Following Kooistra (2002:403-404): The reader is offered the option of receiving the poem as a general spiritual allegory showing the inevitable downfall of those who follow an earthly rather than a spiritual path in life; or as a specific social allegory expressing anxiety 2. Apart from Jeffers’s, some other interesting readings of the Lady as artist are provided by Alaya (1970), Killham (1974), Chadwick (1986), Jeffers (2002) and Wright (2003). 248 MARGARITA CARRETERO GONZÁLEZ about unlicensed female sexuality. The two readings are not, of course, incompatible. In contrast, the tailpiece by D.G. Rossetti gives prominence to Lancelot, who looks down at the dead Lady, unaware that he has been the cause of her demise. They are physically together but separated by death, which renders their union impossible while elevating the Lady to a different level. For Kooistra: Rossetti’s illustration thus responds to the scopic and sexual themes of a text concerned with desire and its limits. His image makes the Lady herself – rather than Hunt’s crucified Christ – the icon and spiritual centre of the poem. (op. cit.:404) Tennyson expressed his dissatisfaction with both illustrations, but particularly with Holman Hunt’s reading of the poem, arguing that “[a]n illustrator ought never add anything to what he finds in the text” (quoted in Bolen 2004:13). Ruskin replied to Tennyson’s complaints in a letter containing a very accurate statement about the relationship established between a poem and its illustrations, one that is applicable in our days to the ongoing debate concerning film adaptations of literary works. For Ruskin, good pictures could never be just illustrations of a poem: they are always another poem, subordinate but wholly different from the poet’s conception, and serve chiefly to show the reader how variously the same verses may affect various minds. (Quoted in Jeffers 2002:232) Holman Hunt had chosen to illustrate the climactic moment of the poem, when the curse falls upon the Lady, whereas Rossetti selected the ending. Many other painters favoured these two events, while some preferred to portray the Lady at her loom. 3 Of the latter group, Sidney Harold Meteyard and John William Waterhouse concentrated on portraying the Lady’s weariness, presenting her taking a rest from her work, reclining on her chair (much more languidly in the case of Meteyard’s), and looking at the couple of lovers reflected in her mirror. Both Meteyard and Waterhouse entitled their versions of 1913 and 1916, respectively, “I am Half-Sick of Shadows”, Said the Lady of Shalott. Waterhouse had worked on yet another version of the story, choosing the climax of the poem for The Lady of Shalott Looking at Lancelot (1894). On this occasion, Waterhouse captures the instant in which the Lady turns her back on the mirror, which reflects Lancelot’s helmet, and looks directly at the viewer, positioned where the window should be, while the thread traps her legs, making it difficult for her to advance towards the window and the viewer. Thus, Waterhouse depicted three key moments of the poem: the Lady at her loom 3. An extensive collection of paintings on the topic of the Lady of Shalott can be found at The Lady of Shalott in Art ( THE LADY OF SHALOTT AND THE AUDIO-VISUAL IMAGINATION 249 (1916), the Lady looking at Lancelot (1894), and the Lady in her boat (1888), telling the story backwards, if we look at the dates of composition of each painting. The three of them, together with Holman Hunt’s canvas of 1886-1905 and George Henry Boughton’s The Road to Camelot (1901) are acknowledged as the visual sources of inspiration for the film The Lady of Shalott, an audiovisual rendering of Tennyson’s poem released in 2009. However, the choice of actress, red-haired Victoria Rigby (below in a scene from the film), hints at Waterhouse’s earliest painting as the first source of inspiration. The 1888 painting is possibly the most easily recognisable portrait of the Lady. Its popularity has been recently used to provide a visual comment on the issues raised in the film V for Vendetta (2007). As I have argued somewhere else (Carretero González 2010:214), in a movie which uses the mask and the mirror as tropes to reinforce the pervasive contrast between appearances and reality in a totalitarian state, Waterhouse’s painting, kept protected with many other works of art by the terrorist/hero V in his aptly named Shadow Gallery, speaks volumes without uttering a single word. The painting also anticipates V’s ending, since challenging reality, as the Lady did, brings about the protagonist’s death. And yet, just as the Lady before dying saw “the water lily bloom [...] the helmet and the plume”, preferable to the shadows offered by the mirror, V succeeded in shaking his fellow citizen off the half-dead existence they had unwittingly chosen in exchange for safety. 250 MARGARITA CARRETERO GONZÁLEZ “THEY HEARD HER SINGING HER LAST SONG”: FROM VERSE TO MUSIC Just as “The Lady of Shalott” became a fruitful source of inspiration for painters, some of its lines have been used as titles for books, quotes within stories, or have inspired parallel narratives with an alternative ending. 4 The poem has not failed to captivate some musicians’ imagination. As early as 1917, when he was only 19, Olivier Messiaen composed his first work, a piece for piano entitled La dame de Shalott. It remains unpublished, and the composer regarded it as “a very childish piece” (“Messiaen: A short biography”). Yet, it is interesting to know that his very first attempt at composing was inspired by Tennyson’s poem. I knew of Messiaen’s composition only after an internet search which led me to other works, including a reference to Shalott in the song “Left me a fool”, by the Indigo Girls, and in “If I die Young”, by The Band Perry. For my purposes here, I just want to comment briefly on two artists whose work is much more than a musical rendition of Tennyson’s poem. Loreena McKennitt’s “The Lady of Shalott” and Emilie Autumn’s “Shalott” provide two very interesting cases of refractive intertextuality, in the sense intended by Onega and Gutleben: We have applied the visual metaphor to designate a double process involving the ways in which a text exploits and integrates both the reflections of a previous text and the new light shed on the original work by its rewriting. In contrast to the often studied notions of parody or intertextuality, which usually concentrate on the result of the interaction between a text and its hypotext(s), refraction involves the assumption of a dialectic relationship between the canonical and the postmodernist texts, affecting the result as well as the source, the new text as well as the old one, the modern product as well as the original prototype. (Onega and Gutleben 2004:7) Born in Manitoba, Canada, in 1957, Loreena McKennitt’s music is the result of her fascination by the Celts and their history and of her constant exploration of the “rich, ancient tapestry of sounds and rhythms and stories [my italics]” (“Loreena McKennitt introduces herself”) woven together by common threads discernible in folk music, legends and literature. As she explains in the documentary No Journey’s End (2004), while studying Spanish medieval literature, McKennitt was intrigued by the way Arthurian legends could have been influenced by poetry coming from the North of Africa via Spain through the Moorish community. In composing “The Lady of Shalott” she was paying tribute not only to Tennyson, but also to these southern influences on Arthurian legends. McKennitt’s live performances are a delight for the senses, a sort of neo-medieval musical celebration. Even her looks, with her long red hair and long skirts contribute to the performance, making her a perfect model for a Lady 4. Some well-known examples are Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side (1962), David Benedictus’s Floating Down to Camelot (1985), and the more recent parallel novel for young adults Song of the Sparrow (2007), by Lisa Ann Sandell. THE LADY OF SHALOTT AND THE AUDIO-VISUAL IMAGINATION 251 of Shalott, the web substituted by a Celtic harp. As I said at the opening of this essay, her rendering of Tennyson’s words have shapen the way I experience any contact with the Lady of Shalott, in any of the many adopted formats. Just as Loreena McKennitt draws her inspiration mostly from folklore and the medieval period, Emilie Autumn (Los Angeles, 1979) looks back on the Victorian era for her songwriting. Although she best describes her music as “glam rock”, Autumn is also happy with the term “Victoriandustrial” (Ohanesian 2009), as her music is inspired by Victorian themes and the locomotive sounds of the Industrial Revolution. The album Opheliac, in which the song “Shalott” is included, revolves around the Victorian fascination with tragic heroines, like Shakespeare’s Ophelia or the ubiquitous Lady of Shalott. In “Shalott”, Autumn refuses to make the Lady the passive victim of the mysterious curse, and transforms her into a woman who, “half-sick of shadows”, decides to confront her fate and bravely meet her death, rather than wait for it to come while she leads an already half-dead existence, choosing the open air, rather than her stifling prison, as her grave. Before dying, the Lady even sarcastically acknowledges her upcoming immortality when she realises that “some drama queen is gonna write a song for me”. Autumn’s Lady does not die singing but anticipating that Autumn herself will be the author and performer of her song. CONCLUSION: THE JOURNEY NEVER ENDS My most recent encounter with another textual reference to the Lady of Shalott happened in the course of writing this essay. After almost a month had gone by since I had received the fifth series of the TV drama Lewis (a spin-off from the Inspector Morse TV series) I decided that it was time to open the box and watch the first episode, “Old, Unhappy, Far Off Things”. I could hardly believe my ears when, in the last minute of the film, DS Hathaway, Lewis’s extremely intelligent and learned assistant, quoted from Tennyson’s poem: “Out flew the web and floated wide”. Lewis recognises the line but wonders what brought it to Hathaways’s mind. “A pure and virtuous maiden cursed to fall in love and die half-mad for the want of it” is Hathaway’s reply, thus explaining the reasons that led the murderer in this episode to kill her lover and, years later, immolate herself. As I type the finishing words in this essay, I cannot help but wonder what shape my new encounter with the Lady will take. I wonder, too, how many people will be looking right now at Waterhouse’s painting, either in her room at the Tate or in any of the formats chosen to reproduce her. I have visited her on quite a few occasions since our first encounter in 1993. Although time must be leaving an imprint on her that my untrained eyes fail to see, I have changed in a way the Lady cannot. Life has also changed at home since I started writing this essay. Just a few days before the submission deadline expired, a new kitten decided to share his life with ours, and is now a fully-fledged member of the family who has already 252 MARGARITA CARRETERO GONZÁLEZ spent some time on the sofa below “the Lady”. For the moment, however, he prefers to contribute to this essay by following me around with my computer, typing on the keyboard or lying on my books. Life goes on around the dying Lady, and yet I know better than to think she will ever die. She cannot fade, there is no end to the Lady’s journey; or, as Bilbo would word it, her road “goes ever on an on”. REFERENCES Alaya, F.M. 1970, “Tennyson’s ‘The Lady of Shalott’: The triumph of art”. Victorian Poetry, 8(4): 273-289. Autumn, E. 2006, “Shalott.” Opheliac. Trisol Music Group. Bolen, A.E. 2004, “From verse to visual: An analysis of Alfred Tennyson and William Holman Hunt’s The Lady of Shalott”. Unpublished Masters Thesis. Ohio University. Carretero González, M. 2010, “Sympathy for the devil: The hero is a terrorist in V for Vendetta”, in N. Billias (ed.). Promoting and producing evil. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 207-218. Chadwick, J. 1986, “A blessing and a curse: The poetics of privacy in Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott”. Victorian Poetry, 24(1): 13-30. Foucault, M. 1972, The archaeology of knowledge. Trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith. London: Tavistock Publications. Gutleben, C. and S. Onega. 2004, “Introduction”, in S. Onega and C. Gutleben (eds.). Refracting the canon in contemporary British literature and film. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 7-15. THE LADY OF SHALOTT AND THE AUDIO-VISUAL IMAGINATION 253 Harrison, A.H. 2002, “Arthurian poetry and medievalism”, in R. Cronin, A. Chapman and A.H. Harrison (eds.). A companion to Victorian poetry. Oxford: Blackwell, 246-261. Henderson, P. 1978, Tennyson, poet and prophet. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Hodder, K. 1989, “The Lady of Shalott in art and literature”, in S. Mendus and J. Rendall (eds.). Sexuality and subordination. Interdisciplinary studies of gender in the nineteenth century. London and New York: Routledge, 60-88. Jeffers, T.L. 2001, “Nice threads: Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott as artist”. Yale Review, 89: 56-68. Jeffers, T.L. 2002, “Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott and Pre-Raphaelite renderings: statement and counter-statement”. Religion and the Arts, 6(3): 231-256. Killham, J. 1974, “Tennyson and Victorian social values”, in D.J. Palmer (ed.). Writers and their background: Tennyson. London: G. Bell and Sons, 157- 179. Kooistra, L.J. 2002, “Poetry and illustration”, in R. Cronin, A. Chapman and A.H. Harrison (eds.). A companion to Victorian poetry. Oxford: Blackwell, 392-418. The Lady of Shalott. 2009. Dir. N. Loven. Perf. Ben Poole, Victoria Rigby and Jason Kingsley. Wag Screen and Crow’s Eye Productions. The Lady of Shalott in Art. 254 MARGARITA CARRETERO GONZÁLEZ V for Vendetta. 2007, dir. J. McTeigue, perf. Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, Stephen Fry, John Hurt. Warner Bros. Wright, J. 2003, “A reflection on fiction and art in “The Lady of Shalott”. Victorian Poetry, 41(2):287-90.