Feminizing the Enemy: Imperial Spain, Transvestite Drama, and the Crisis of Masculinity

Gasta, Chad M.; Donnell, Sidney

doi:10.2307/20063133

Hispania

2005

DOI: 10.2307/20063133

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Feminizing the Enemy: Imperial Spain, Transvestite Drama, and the Crisis of Masculinity

Chad M. Gasta¹,

Sidney Donnell²

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Cited by 9 publications

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Defining the Comedia : On Generalizations Once Widely Accepted That Are No Longer Accepted So Widely

Stroud¹

2006

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How we think about the Spanish comedia as a genre has changed dramatically over the past thirty years. Informed as we are today by a multitude of decentralizing theories, it is hard to believe that so much time and energy was spent, just a generation ago, on trying to establish a list of characteristics and generalizations that would not just define all comedias and exclude those that one would intuitively not include in the genre, but would provide the singular, monolithic approach to understanding the comedia . The assertions reconsidered here include the claims that the comedia was monolithic and conventional, that it faithfully reflected Spanish society, that it was profoundly conservative from social, political, and moral points of view, and that comedia plots uniformly followed a trajectory from order disturbed to order restored. Since many of those assertions are no longer held to be so incontrovertibly true, it is tempting to ask, "Were we wrong then or are we wrong now?" Such a question falls into the trap of assuming that one interpretation or one approach to literature is right and all others are wrong. Ultimately every generation must reconsider everything it knows about the literature that is handed down to it and come to its own conclusions, its own generalizations, and its own definitions. Otherwise, literature, especially that produced centuries ago, runs the risk of becoming irrelevant to readers of future generations.

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Defining the Comedia : On Generalizations Once Widely Accepted That Are No Longer Accepted So Widely

Stroud¹

2006

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The Best Man in the Play: Female Agency in a Gender-Inclusive Comedia

Bayliss¹

2007

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The critical landscape of Comedia studies has been reconfigured in recent years by the recovery and dissemination of plays written by women, and it continues to evolve and revise itself in what we may call the post-dramaturga age. Women-authored dramas are now out of the closet in our field, even though evidence is often scarce as to their public or private reception in the seventeenth century. The works of dramaturgas reflect and refract the "Golden Age" itself in new ways for us, shedding new light on this construct of literary historiography and the male playwrights who dominate its canon. Critics who first brought these alternative early modem voices to our attention were essentially feminist, insofar as they primarily focused on the feminine authorship of such plays as a distinguishing feature, promoting a critical practice of reading women-authored plays as a departure or deviation from the patriarchal norm; this tendency continues in current practice.' While still recognizing the alterity ofthe dramaturgas as a vital element of their work's ideological dynamics, it is possible to critically engage their texts vis-à-vis the male canon in a way that does not stop with establishing their difference. With a focus on the dramatic convention of the cross-dressed woman, in this study I will advocate a reconsideration ofthe critical function of these women writers, who were undeniably marginalized in seventeenth-century society and in literary history until the very end of the twentieth century, in the now gender-inclusive field of Comedia scholar- 303

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La ambigüedad interpretativa de El alcalde de Zalamea

Hidalgo¹

2012

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El alcalde de Zalamea presenta el abuso de poder que don Álvaro y sus soldados infligen al pueblo de Zalamea, y, por consiguiente, se observa la opresión de las clases sociales superiores sobre los estamentos inferiores. Este esquema de dominio clasista invita, junto con la rica polisemia del texto, la dilogía de la germanía y los juegos de palabras, a definir una jerarquía encubierta. A su vez, la interpretación erótica de algunos pasajes en conexión con el habla germanesca apoya esta nueva categorización. Así pues, este trabajo argumenta que Álvaro de Ataide, quien representa el escalafón superior, toma el rol masculino en escenas que se prestan a una valoración homoerótica, mientras que los personajes de los niveles inferiores asumen el papel femenino. La rica anfibología del léxico unida al exceso de poder ofrece la visión de una pirámide social que concede un rol masculino y femenino a sus personajes independientemente de su condición natural de género. De esta manera, el análisis presenta la versatilidad semántica que encierra el texto y el habla de la germanía, y, con ello, aporta una clasificación de género que complementa a la tradicional estratificación social.

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Feminizing the Enemy: Imperial Spain, Transvestite Drama, and the Crisis of Masculinity

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

Defining the Comedia : On Generalizations Once Widely Accepted That Are No Longer Accepted So Widely

Defining the Comedia : On Generalizations Once Widely Accepted That Are No Longer Accepted So Widely

The Best Man in the Play: Female Agency in a Gender-Inclusive Comedia

La ambigüedad interpretativa de El alcalde de Zalamea

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