THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO “EL MONSTRO CON SU FIGURA”: RUIZ DE ALARCÓN’S TRANSATLANTIC SELF-FASHIONING A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF ROMANCE LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES BY JOSE ESTRADA CHICAGO, ILLINOIS AUGUST 2019 Table of Contents Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..iii Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….......v Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter 1: "Contigo hablo bestia fiera": Monstrosities in Alarcón’s Theater……………….................15 Chapter 2: The Indies in Alarcón………………………….……………………………………………………………..61 Chapter 3: Caves, Magic, and the Debate Between Art and Nature…………………………………..…..114 Chapter 4: Alarcón’s Ludic Self-Fashioning………..……………………………………………………………….158 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………197 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….202 ii Acknowledgements Writing and completing what follows has been a journey possible in part because of the collaboration and feedback from faculty and peers, among others, and I am very grateful for their help. I would like to start by thanking Frederick de Armas for his patience in discussing ideas in the early stages of my project, for his guidance in the program, and for his valuable suggestions in my written work. His calm and peaceful demeanor always brought me the tranquility that I needed in moments of distress. I am very grateful to Miguel Martínez for always being available to talk about my progress, for suggesting helpful readings and texts in the development of my research, and for being approachable when I have questions. His care towards my project is much appreciated. I would also like to thank Glen Carman for his keen observations, his continued support througout the writing process, and for igniting my interest in early modern Spanish studies back in my udergraduate years at DePaul University. Without his class I would not have been introduced to the theater of Juan Ruiz de Alarcón. I am very lucky and thankful that they have served as my dissertation committee. I would like to extend my gratitude to the University of Chicago, the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, the Division of Humanities, UChicago’s Graduate Council, and UChicago GRAD for their financial and academic support. I am specially thankful to the William Rainey Harper Dissertation Completion Fellowship that allowed me to finish writing my dissertation this year. I would like to thank the Western Mediterranean Culture Workshop and the Affiliated Fellows group at the Franke Institute for the Humanities for their suggestions on my work. Additionally, I would like to thank my colleagues in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures for their willingness to exchange ideas with me and for their advise. Particularly, I iii would like to thank Medardo Rosario and Bastien Craipain for the many fun memories while we worked together in our respective projects, and for their continued encouragement and emotional support. Writing this dissertation would not have been as fun without them. I would like to thank my parents, Silviano and Graciela, for their unending emotional support. Having their words of encouragement was often my source of motivation. Likewise, I am grateful for my siblings, Felipe, Gabino, Silviano Jr., Tania, and Emmanuel, who each have taught me different ways of approaching the world. Finally, I would like to thank my grandparents, two of whom were with me when I started writing this project, but have left before knowing of its completion. iv Abstract Among the many authors active during the Spanish Golden Age, Juan Ruiz de Alarcón stands out for his appearance and American background. When Juan Ruiz de Alarcón arrived in Spain for a second time in 1614 he soon became aware of the uses of theater and developed his future as a playwright. Critics have long studied how Alarcón portrays himself in the various characters in his theater. This study builds on these interpretations and claims that some of these characters are best understood as part of a strategy of self-fashioning on behalf of Alarcón: the playwright engages in self-representation in his theater as a strategy to move upward in society and make himself known in Madrid. This study uses monster studies to address the monstrosity behind Alarcón, not so much for his appearance but for the monstrosities that surround him. Furthermore, it uses the approaches suggested by scholars of the Hispanic Baroque as well as transatlantic studies to address the implications of his American background. Bringing together these different approaches, this study will show that Alarcón used his ascribed monstrosity and his networking in Mexico as strategies to compete with his contemporaries and fashion a persona that would allow his success in Madrid. Alarcón’s response to his monstrosity is observed in the paratexts of his two volumes of theater where he exposes the monstrous in his readership. He also evokes his nautical experiences when he compares his comedias to ships that navigate the theaters of Madrid. In two plays, El desdichado en fingir and Todo es ventura, the monstrosities found in Madrid are related to views of poetry and the political environment Alarcón encountered in Madrid. As an emerging playwright, Alarcón exposes deficiencies in the metropolitan center and in doing so in a subtle and comic manner, he brings attention to himself. His birth and upbringing are particularly relevant in El v semejante a sí mismo and La industria y la suerte, where Alarcón caracterizes the Indies not as a source of wealth, as it was constantly portrayed in literature at the time, but as a place of unattainable wealth. This contrast makes Alarcón stand out when compared to his contemporaries, but also allows him to emulate Lope de Vega in his description of the Mexican drainage system as a Wonder of the World. America becomes one of Alarcón’s tools for upward mobility. His affinity for enclosed spaces and magic is addressed in two plays, La cueva de Salamanca and La prueba de las promesas where both comedias also evince a preocupation with the rivalry between art and nature. In both instances, Alarcón favors art over nature or the ability of outward appearances to influence reality. Lastly, I address Alarcón’s affinity for games in his two most famous plays, Las paredes oyen and La verdad sospechosa. Both comedias have a character that is new to court and seeks advice. The situation of the characters allows the plays to be interpreted as court manuals. In these guides of courtly behavior, the use of a ludic language instructs the spectator, or the reader, that approaching life as a game leads to success. The use of ludic lexicon also fashions Alarcón as an emerging playwright when compared to Lope de Vega because he self-fashions as a poet that values innovation and originality more than his contemporary. vi Introduction: Alarcón’s Monstrosity and Transatlantic Self-Fashioning . pues como el temperamento desta Nueva España sea más caliente que frío, síguese ser acomodado para producir buenos ingenios, y esto es en cuanto al temperamento de la región . Henrico Martínez, Repertorio de los tiempos, y historia natural desta Nueva España (181). In the second half of 1613, less than a century after the Conquest of Mexico, the criollo lawyer Juan Ruiz de Alarcón left his native New Spain for the second time, this time to settle in Madrid. He arrived at the metropolitan center around the same years that Miguel de Cervantes published his Viaje del Parnaso, Lope de Vega entered priesthood, and Tirso de Molina travelled to the West Indies. Pedro Calderón de la Barca, still a teenager, had not yet become the revered playwright that replaced Lope de Vega as the finest of his time. Interestingly, shortly after his arrival Alarcón turned to writing for the theater. This writing of theater is odd because Alarcón did not arrive in Madrid to become a famous playwright but rather to seek an administrative position as a lawyer. So how and why did Alarcón compose theater? How did he successfully ascend to the high literary circles of Madrid in only a few years after his arrival? Especially after being constantly marked as an outcast not only because of his place of origin but also because of his physical deformity, hunches on his back and chest that often were the cause of monstrous diatribes from contemporaries. I argue that Juan Ruiz de Alarcón self-fashioned through his theater, and this practical use of theater allowed him to invert his monstrosities in Madrid. That is, he took advantage of an artistic medium that reached the masses to publicize to his name and fashion a persona through his characters and their situations. Theater was his catalyst to fame, which in turn enabled him to have a stable career in the Council of the Indies that would provide him with a decent life in Madrid. 1 Alarcón was born to Pedro Ruiz de Alarcón, from Spain, and Leonor de Mendoza, from New Spain. His mother came from a mining family that owned estates in Zumpango and Taxco, Mexico. Documents suggest that Alarcón was born in Taxco, Mexico in 1572, but Alarcón himself says he was born between 1580 and 1581 in Mexico City.1 No one knows why Alarcón would give a different city and year of birth; perhaps this is one of many examples where Alarcón starts to mold aspects of his identity. It is known that his family moved to Mexico City from Taxco in the early 1580’s after their mines were exhausted. In June of 1596 he begins his studies in Canon Law at the Royal Pontifical University of Mexico, and after four years he embarks on his first journey to Spain, specifically to the University of Salamanca where he matriculates in Civil Law. He remains in Spain until 1608, the year he returns to Mexico.