Exchange in and beyond the <i>Cartas marruecas</i> of José Cadalso
2012; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 127; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/mln.2012.0075
ISSN1080-6598
Autores Tópico(s)Colonialism, slavery, and trade
ResumoExchange in and beyond the Cartas marruecas of José Cadalso Travis Landry Several days’ journey removed from the palace of Mulay Mohammad bin Abdallah, the sultan who ruled Morocco in the latter half of the eighteenth century, an anonymous Spaniard recorded a series of observations about the indigenous trees beyond the city of Mogador. Though most would be unrecognizable in Spain, one tree of particular note, the author remarks, bears a fruit that “se asemeja a nuestras aceitunas sevillanas” (Antonio Rodríguez Villa 298). The extensive roots of this tree, the argan, span out in all directions so as to support robust branches that grow up from the ground without a central trunk, and it is added that the inhabitants of the region depend on the abundance of its fruit for their cattle, cooking oil, and other necessities. This account comes from a member of the official entourage of the Spanish ambassador, Jorge Juan, during a six-month state visit in 1767 spent in the company of Juan’s Moroccan counterpart, Ahmad bin Mahdi al-Ghazal, or ‘El Gazel,’ as he was known in Spain.1 At this moment in history, both nations found sufficient diplomatic cause to reach out across the Strait, and al-Ghazal, for his part, had traveled to Spain the year before, in 1766, with a lavish retinue hosted by Carlos [End Page 248] III. His extended visit covered more than fifty Spanish towns, and he, too, left to posterity a detailed record of the experience. Those familiar with the epistolary work Cartas marruecas by José Cadalso, which was written between 1768 and 1774 and published posthumously in 1789, will recall that al-Ghazal’s widely publicized visit to Spain provides the imaginative point of departure for Cadalso’s own central character, Gazel Ben-Aly, and the letters he exchanges with his Spanish confidant, Nuño Núñez, and aging African mentor, Ben-Beley. The above description of this particular Moroccan tree, however, is to be found far from Cadalso and, for that matter, from the time period surrounding the actual visit of Jorge Juan to Morocco in 1767. Instead, it appeared in a resurrected version of the Spanish ambassador’s sojourn published in an 1880 edition of Spain’s Revista Contemporánea, an important journal of the time devoted to international cultural exchange. Antonio Rodríguez Villa, the historian contributor of the piece, there includes a prefatory note that reads: Para su confección me he valido principalmente de un curioso manuscrito de mi propiedad . . . de letra del siglo pasado. . . . Escritos estos apuntes por testigo ocular . . . tienen tal saber de verdad y tan detalladas noticias, que unida esta circunstancia a la no menos atendible de lo casi desconocida que es esta embajada, creo ha de interesar a los lectores ya por uno ya por otro concepto. (258) Strangely, this explanation of curious origins recalls Cadalso’s own preface from a fictitious editor who puts in question the authorial voice of a manuscript that “por muerte de un conocido” (78) fell into his hands. Yet, there is nothing about this document brought to light by Rodríguez Villa that would suggest a similarly ironic intent. On the contrary, this repackaged chronicle offers a faithful reproduction of a log kept by someone with unfettered access to Jorge Juan’s travel experiences while in Morocco on the Sultan’s invitation.2 Therefore, though these three works might come together in such a way, their common ground owes something to the rather inconspicuous argan. This tree indeed should give cause for reflection on world literature today and approaches to reading an intercultural text like Cadalso’s, which endures as a canonical piece of eighteenth-century Spanish literature. Theorizing on the advantages of distant reading for an appreciation of how “form as force” (92) moves across space and time, Franco Moretti draws upon trees to illustrate “divergence [End Page 249] in literary history” (78). In this model, Darwin’s evolutionary tree provides the initial example, as continuous random variation of forms occurs in branch-like succession in response to migrations and fluid environmental pressures. Moretti qualifies, however, that the “tree of culture” thus conceived for literature and as distinct from...
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