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Imperial Stagings: Empire and Ideology in Transatlantic Theater of Early Modern Spain and the New World by Chad M. Gasta

2014; American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese; Volume: 97; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/hpn.2014.0104

2153-6414

Geoffrey M. Voght,

Early Modern Spanish Literature

Reviewed by: Imperial Stagings: Empire and Ideology in Transatlantic Theater of Early Modern Spain and the New World by Chad M. Gasta Geoffrey Voght Gasta, Chad M . Imperial Stagings: Empire and Ideology in Transatlantic Theater of Early Modern Spain and the New World. Chapel Hill : U of North Carolina P , 2013 . Pp. 297 . ISBN 978-1-469-60996-6 . Noted cultural historian José Antonio Maravall characterized Habsburg Spain as monolithic and the Spanish theater of those times as serving to explain and defend orthodox social structures, political commitments, and religious doctrines. Until the last few decades, Maravall’s understanding guided the approach of many investigators to the comedia and the auto sacramental. More recent scholarship has demonstrated that Spanish society was much more diversified than Maravall assumed and that playwrights found safe ways to call attention to the manifold crises plaguing their homeland. One recent example of this broader appreciation of Golden Age Spain is the special issue of the Bulletin of the Comediantes (2013, Vol. 65.1) focusing on “The Legacy of José Antonio Maravall.” Another is Chad M. Gasta’s book, Imperial Stagings: Empire and Ideology in Transatlantic Theater of Early Modern Spain and the New World: a discussion of four seventeenth-century plays in which sets of references touch on a wide variety of problems and offer suggestions for the improvement of both society and empire. Lope’s Fuenteovejuna contains a series of remarks about the decline of agriculture and the economic woes of peasants—resulting from wrong-minded government policies—which form part of the villagers’ motivation for revolt. In El dueño de las estrellas, Alarcón offers, with obvious allusion to Olivares, explicit suggestions regarding the qualities and policies that a good privado should exhibit. Gasta situates Calderón’s operetta, La púrpura de la rosa, and its loa within the context of the “Paz de los Pirineos” and the marriage between Philip IV’s daughter María Teresa and Louis XIV of France. In the author’s view, these two works were written by the famous dramatist to convince skeptical audiences that these political arrangements would bring about peace for Spain and lead to a rewarding life for the infanta as queen of France. Finally, Gasta highlights aspects of Sor Juana’s auto sacramental, El divino Narciso, that present a sympathetic view of Aztec religious practices as a prefiguration of Catholic sacraments (e.g., baptism and the Eucharist), a view that suggests a non-violent strategy for converting the natives to Christianity. Gasta’s approach to these plays is very ambitious because it requires a broad knowledge of multiple aspects of contemporary Europe, and of Baroque Spain and its empire. The author has informed himself well on an impressive array of topics, including literary trends, political history, economic decline, poverty and social unrest, and legislation in Spain and the New World, to name a few. The documentation he includes will be helpful to any reader wishing to dig deeper into these and many other particulars of seventeenth-century Spain. Following the author’s presentation of ideas, however, requires that the reader be armed with persistence and determination because of poor proofreading, flawed source and fact verification, and a style marred by inexplicable phraseology. Perhaps most disturbing are inaccuracies in historical information. Among such errors is Gasta’s assertion that Calderón enjoyed the protection of Olivares after he became a priest in 1651 (p. 23, lines 2–4) while the famous privado died six years earlier (in 1645). Other such oversights in dating occur regarding the death of Philip III (p. 107, lines 5–6) and that of Philip IV (184n21). At times parts missing from quotations make the meaning impossible to decipher (e.g., 90n55). Verifying sources is also difficult on occasion for various reasons, including the failure to specify which of two works by an author is being cited (e.g., Sage on p. 180, line 18), incorrect page or folio numbers (e.g., 90n55, p. 190, lines 32–33), and textual reference to items missing from Gasta’s Works Cited; e.g., studies by Miguel Lasso de la Vega (184n22) and Cruickshank (p. 185, lines 4–6). Further confusion...