The Positive Image o f the Jew in t h e C o m e d ia Andrew Herskovits U n iv e r sit y C o ll e g e L o n d o n A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD, University of London UMI Number: U602598 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U602598 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 This thesis contains 98, 321 words ABSTRACT ‘The Positive Image of the Jew in the Comedia ’ by Andrew Herskovits University College London, PhD Thesis I will argue in this thesis that in the comedia the Jew was often but covertly portrayed with sympathy. In the Introduction some complex terms of reference, such as ‘Jew’, will be clarified. Chapter 1 describes the development, from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, of the converso perspective, characterized by a critical attitude to the ruling ideology, based on individualism, heterodoxy and double language. This chapter also describes how the ideas of Christian Humanism were incorporated into the already existing, if limited, converso perspective to form part of the more ample intellectual equipment of Golden-Age dramatists. Chapter 2 deals with) a form of subversive irony, as expression of the converso perspective, which appears first in the double language of La Celestina; this is later enriched by incorporating Erasmian dissimulation theorized as ‘enganar con la verdad’ in the Arte nuevo de hacer comedias and put in practice in Lope’scomedias. It is this technique that will facilitate the presentation, albeit covertly, of a positive image of the Jew. Chapter 3 contains the theory of transposition as a form of engano in comedias de honra and the first appearance in thesecomedias of the positive image of the Jew. Chapter 4 traces the transposition of the ‘bad’ converso into the ‘good’ biblical Jew. Chapter 5 presents the positive image of the Jew created by mocking his stereotypical negative image. The last chapter contains a discussion of six comedias by Lope that present positive images of the Jew in their converso protagonists; as some of these characters in many ways resemble Lope, for example in their problems with limpieza de sangre, this chapter begins with a discussion of Lope’s origin. In all the foregoing I have tried to demonstrate that, contrary to general critical opinion, the Jew in the comedia was often delineated with sympathy. CONTENTS FOREWORD i LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ii INTRODUCTION 1 The Concept of the Jew 1 The Jewish Problem 8 Spanish Racism 14 The Converso Perspective 17 The Positive Image of the Jew 19 Plan 20 1 THE CONVERSO PERSPECTIVE AND CHRISTIAN HUMANISM 23 1.1 Thirteenth Century: Maimonidean Rationalism 23 1.2 Fourteenth-Fifteenth Centuries: First Spanish Humanism 25 1.3 Sixteenth Century: Alumbradism and Erasmism 35 1.4 Seventeenth Century: Humanism in the Comedia 43 2 DOUBLE LANGUAGE IN THE COMEDIA 47 2.1 The Double Language of the Converso in La Celestina 48 2.2 Erasmian Dissimulatio 52 2.3 ‘Enganar con la verdad’ 58 2.3.1 The Aim of Drama according to the Poetics and the Arte Nuevo 61 2.3.2 The Action and Language of Drama in the Poetics and the Arte Nuevo 64 3 THE WOMAN AND THE IMAGE OF THE JEW 75 3.1 The Transposition Limpieza/Honra 78 3.2 The Transposition Jew/Woman 85 3.2.1 The Bases of the Transposition Jew/Woman 86 3.2.2 The Functioning of the Transposition Jew/Woman 93 3.2.3 The Passive Woman as Image of the Real Jew 94 3.2.4 The Active Woman as Image of the Ideal Jew 99 3.3 The Consciousness of Transposition 101 4 THE IMAGE OF THE JEW IN BIBLICAL COMEDIAS 108 4.1 David and the Transposition of the Converso 113 4.1.1 El arpa de David 115 4.1.2 La venganza de Tamar 118 4.1.3 Los cabellos de Absalon 120 4.1.4 Davidperseguido y montes de Gelboe 123 4.1.5 Las lagrimas de David 127 4.2 Ester, the Saint o f the Conversos 131 4.2.1 La hermosa Ester 132 4.2.2 Aman y Mardoqueo 135 4.2.3 Transpositions in La hermosa Ester and Aman y Mardoqueo 145 5 THE SUBVERSION OF THE NEGATIVE IMAGE OF THE JEW 149 5.1 El retablo de las maravillas 153 5.1.1 The Stupidity o f Racial Prejudices 155 5.1.2 The Villagers as Representatives of the Whole of Society 157 5.1.3 The Mockery of the Negative Image of the Jew 159 5.2 El arbol del mejorfruto 161 5.2.1 Mingo as the Comical Image of the Inquisition 165 5.2.2 Judas: the Jew as Innocent Victim 171 5.2.3 The Ridiculing of the Negative Image of the Jew 177 5.3 Raquel, the Jewess of Toledo 184 5.3.1 Las paces de los reyes y judla de Toledo 184 5.3.2 La desgraciada Raquel 194 5.4 El nino inocente de La Guardia 197 5.4.1 The Two Actions of the Play 202 5.4.2 The Dramatic Inversions 207 5.4.3 The Subversion of the Negative Image of the Jew 210 6 THE CONVERSO AND THE IMAGE OF THE JEW 220 6.1 Lope, a Converso? 223 6.2 Six Converso Comedias of Lope 236 6.2.1 La villana de Getafe 236 6.2.2 El galan de La Membrilla 242 6.2.3 Elpremio del bien hablar 248 6.2.4 El galan escarmentado 253 6.2.5 El Brasil restituido 262 6.2.6 Lapobreza estimada 270 CONCLUSION 284 BIBLIOGRAPHY 288 INDEX 305 FOREWORD Most Hispanists describe Spanish Golden-Age society as anti-Semitic, offering, for example, El niho inocente de La Guardia as confirmation that even great writers like Lope de Vega supported the marginalization of the descendants ofjudeo-conversos. This play was painful to read, but there was something puzzling in it that made me read it again. This time I found myself amused by parts that horrified me before; I began to suspect that, while on an explicit level the play was anti-Semitic, on an implicit level the negative image of some Jews could be seen as positive and the positive image of some Christians could correspondingly be seen as negative. This led me to study the dramatic production of the Golden Age to discover if El nino inocente de La Guardia was an exception. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that this comedia was not exceptional in presenting, albeit covertly, a positive image of the Jew; this is surprising because it was produced in the midst of a society that encouraged intolerance. In this thesis I propose to trace the genesis and the development of this positive image. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AUT Diccionario de Autoridades , in Nuevo Tesoro Lexicografico de la Lengua Espanola, ed. by Real Academia Espanola <http://buscon.rae.es/ntlle/SrvltGUILoginNtlle> [accessed 10 March 2003] BAE Biblioteca de Autores Espaholes (Madrid: Rivadeneyera, 1850- 1872-A tlas, 1946-56) COV Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastian de, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o espanola , ed. by Felipe C.R. Maldonado (Madrid: Castalia, 1995) DRAE Diccionario de la Real Academia Espanola , 21st edn (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1992) RAE Obras de Lope de Vega , ed. by Emilio Cotarelo y Mori (Madrid: Real Academia Espanola, 1916-30) 1 INTRODUCTION My aim in this thesis is to demonstrate that the image of the Jew in the comedia is more open to a positive interpretation than has previously been acknowledged by most critics. This positive presentation of the Jew by some Golden-Age dramatists may be related to their tendency to be critical of the ruling anti-Jewish ideology of their time and having a special way of looking at life which some critics have associated with descendants of judeo-conversos; it may also be related to some dramatists being of judeo-converso origin (Fernando de Rojas, Felipe Godinez, Miguel de Barrios and Antonio Enriquez Gomez, and perhaps also Miguel de Cervantes and Lope de Vega). As some of the terms of reference are ambiguous, such as ‘Jew’, ‘racism’ and so on, I will try and throw some light on them in this introduction. The C oncept of the Jew What does the term ‘Jew’ signify in the Spanish Golden Age? As after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain there were officially no Jews in the Peninsula, ‘Jew’ may be thought to refer only to the period before 1492. While I will be writing about Jews in biblical and historical comedias, my principal objective will be the contemporary 4 Jew’ in some plays in which the plot is set in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Even so, a Jew in the Spanish Golden Age appears to be a paradox, as in this period there were no Jews in Spain, only the descendants of converted Jews. Would it therefore not have been more accurate to entitle this thesis ‘The Positive Image of the Judeo- Converso'l The problem is complex.