Diana Galarreta-Aima
Book
Review
Feliciana
Enríquez de Guzmán, Ana Caro Mallén, and Sor Marcela de San Félix, Women Playwrights of Early Modern Spain.
Edited by Nieves Romero-Díaz and
Lisa Vollendorf. Translated and annotated by Harley Erdman. The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The
Toronto Series, Vol. 49, ITER Academic Press & Arizona Center for
Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Toronto, Canada & Tempe, Arizona, 2016), 272 + xii pp. ISBN: 9780866985567
1> By providing an English translation of the works of three
female playwrights of Golden Age Spain who lived and wrote between 1569 and
1687, Women Playwrights of Early Modern Spain seeks to revise the
canon of Spanish drama, bringing to light the importance of female writers in
seventeenth-century Spain’s changing society and theater. This book is part of
a larger project, the “Other Voice” in Early Modern Europe, which has brought
to light texts otherwise forgotten or overlooked. This first-ever English translation will be
of great interest to scholars and students of theater, gender, and conventual
life in Golden Age Spain.
2>
This collection is divided into a succinct introduction to early modern Spanish
theater (including a table of known women playwrights in Iberia and
Ibero-America from 1500 to 1750); a note on the translations that explains the
unique features of the Golden Age Spanish dramatic verse, and the reasons for
some translation liberties in word-selection and rhyme scheme; biographical
notes, select bibliography, plot summary and short analysis before each play;
and a final bibliography that includes editions of the works translated in the
volume.
3>
Nieves Romero-Diaz and Lisa Vollendorf explain that the playwrights featured in
their volume were chosen “for diversity of audience, genre and style they
represent” (1). Notably, the plays in this collection have never been
translated into English or any other language, which is an important goal of
this text. The first work are the four interludes of the best-known two-part
play of
Feliciana Enríquez de Guzmán, Tragicomedy of the Sheban Gardens and Fields.
The decision of selecting a minor genre, the Spanish comedia’s interlude, by the first female playwright to write for
the Spanish public stage, is not a coincidence: it introduces readers to a
minor but important genre of Spanish theater, and also gives a glimpse into a
female writer’s incursion into the more playful side of theater. The second
work is Ana Caro Mallén’s Count Partinuplés that features a strong female character,
Rosaura, who challenges gender norms, devising a complex scheme to choose her
own husband. The last works were written by one of Lope de Vega’s daughter (the
most important playwright of Golden Age Spanish theater), Sor Marcela de
San Félix. Her work represents the
female literary talent found within the convent walls in early modern Spain.
4>
One common element of the plays in this collection is their deviation from the
traditional comedia as outlined by
Lope in El arte nuevo de hacer comedias
en este tiempo (The New Art of Writing Comedias
in These Times). Enríquez
de Guzmán’s bawdy comic interludes
mirror the main play’s plot and characters in a parodic way. Contemporary
audiences often only read and/or see the comedia’s
main text, but in the seventeenth century, going to the theater was considered
a full-day activity that included loud music, dances, and entremeses (short interludes). The interludes from this collection,
therefore, offer readers a glimpse into a more accurate experience of the most
popular form of entertainment in early modern Spain. Ana Caro is a well-known
female writer, but Count Partinuplés is not her most popular work. However,
this comedia represents the
improvements in stagecraft that European theater experienced during this time. Finally,
the four loas and the coloquio by Sor Marcela gives readers
insight into this nun’s great literary skills, and, because of the many
specific references to its original context, they shed light into conventual life
and drama.
5>
This collection’s introduction emphasizes the changing role of women in Spanish
theater and society. Despite the uniqueness in styles and themes, all of the
female playwrights’ works had to deal with issues of gender and decorum in a
Catholic society concerned by the concept of masculinity and sex. The
introduction places writing by early modern Spanish women within the broader
context of cultural and economic changes in the society. Since the expected
audience for this collection is a reader familiar with English Renaissance
drama, the introduction draws connections between, for instance, the Spanish
public theaters, the corral de comedias,
and English public theaters like London’s Globe. In addition to a panoramic
view of Golden Age Spanish theater, the introduction highlights the role of
women as writers and consumers in a time when Spain was experiencing great
changes in its economy and urbanization. The shifting rules that regulated
theater was a sign of the anxiety provoked by gender and masculinity’s unstable
conventions in the time when the playwrights of this collection lived.
6>
The introduction and the footnotes create a good balanced background for, on
the one hand, readers who are not familiar with early modern Spanish drama and,
on the other hand, readers who are well-versed but might not be familiar with
the female writers of this time. For more advanced readers, the footnotes
provide information for a deeper independent study in topics such as female
friendship, changing roles of women in early modern European societies, gender issues,
Spanish conventual life, and Spanish nation-building processes.
7> Harley Erdman’s translation
work is outstanding. His translation respects the originality and uniqueness of
the Spanish dramatic verse and forms without making the plays sound antiquated
or domesticated. The footnotes that accompany the plays make important
clarifications about word selection and verse shift, and explanations about jokes
or other allusions that get lost in translation.
8> In summary, Women
Playwrights of Early Modern Spain enhances substantially our understanding
of women’s role in early modern Spanish history and theater, and, therefore, complicates
the relationship between the canon and non-canonical writers. The overview of different sites of theater
and performance (cape and sword drama at the corrales, auto sacramental performances at the palace, and convent
plays) in the introduction contextualize the ten works from this collection
that encompasses distinctive styles and themes. This new monograph, although
directed to English-speaking audiences, can be used in any introductory class
for graduate students interested in broadening the canon to include other
voices of Early Modern European literature. My only criticism is the brevity of
the biographical notes and play analysis. This short length represents, however,
how little we know about these women and their work, and the important work
scholars have to do to unearth their literary voices.
_____
Diana Galarreta-Aima, PhD,
is Spanish Assistant Professor Coordinator of the minor in Medical Spanish, and
Faculty advisor of the JMU MEDLIFE chapter at James Madison University.
_____
APPOSITIONS:
Studies in Renaissance / Early Modern
Literature and Culture,
Literature and Culture,
http://appositions.blogspot.com/,
ISSN: 1946-1992,
ISSN: 1946-1992,
Volume Ten (2017): Artefacts
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