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Don Quixote, Don Juan, and Related Subjects: Form and Tradition in Spanish Literature, 1330-1630
By James A. Parr. Selinsgrove, Pa
Susquehanna University Press, 2004. 282 pp. $52.50
Perhaps an appropriate term for describing this study of several canonical pieces of sixteenth- and eventeenth-century Spanish literature is "bricolage," a concept borrowed from Claude Lévi-Strauss in Parr's analysis of El libro debuen amor. Defi ned by Parr as "a kind of improvisation, drawing upon and making use of whatever one fi nds close at hand" (200), "bricolage" captures the strength of this book. With the ease of one who has a profound knowledge of texts, history, previous criticism, and literary theories, Parr draws on whatever is most helpful to construct insightful analyses. Moreover, he uses traditional criticism in refreshing and unpredictable ways while also making newer approaches look quite orthodox. Finally, Parr peppers the entire study with the enticing innuendo that many of the works analyzed here anticipate twentieth-century critical thought and were merely waiting for, say, a Freud or a Derrida to notice their narrative, structural, or linguistic intricacies.
Part I, "Don Quixote and the Narrative Tradition," begins with the chapter "On Translation, with an Overture to Interpretation," in which Parr compares several English versions of the Quixote and discusses knotty problems that stymie even the most meticulous translators. With regard to interpretation, Parr calls for a back-to-basics, "new" New Criticism informed by poststructuralist thought. The chapter entitled "Formal Features and Narrative Technique" tackles the issue that has most attracted recent critics of the Quixote, namely, "who tells the story?" In the opening paragraphs of"Framing, Orality, Origins," Parr acknowledges the "wit and levity" that deconstruction has added to literary criticism. Parr's own style reaches its highest level of playfulness when he applies Derrida's ideas on différance and deferral to the Quixote. The highlight of the chapter is Parr's analysis of the murky dichotomy between orality and literacy. He concludes that it is often diffi cult to separate the spoken from the written word and that, similar to the often-cited baciyelmo, neither entity, or, in this case, medium, is privileged. As suggested by the chapter title "Don Quixote and Le Roman bourgeois: Comparative Anatomy," Parr turns to comparative literature studies to address questions of genre, or, Parr's preferred term, "kind." Basing his analysis on several critical cornerstones, including Northrop Frye's seminal Anatomy of Criticism, Parr makes a compelling case for classifying the Quixote as satire, despite the fact that many critics, particularly Hispanists, insist that it is the fi rst modern novel.
In the opening chapter of Part II, "Don Juan and Classical Spanish Drama," entitled "Don Quixote and DonJuan: The Body in Context," Parr highlights psychological traits that the two heroes have in common, primarily their dedication to the pleasure principle and avoidance of the reality principle. Don Quixote, the sadomasochistic neurotic, and Don Juan, the homoerotic abuser, seek eros but encounter thanatos. Despite opularconnotations to the contrary, quixotic desire is actually a death wish. The first sentence of the next chapter, "El burlador de Sevilla: Authorship and Authenticity," says it all: "The controversy over the authorship of El burlador de Sevilla y el convidado de piedra should now be laid to rest" (138). Parr cogently rejects assertions that Andrés de laramonte authored the original Don Juan play and offers a plausible model of transmission of a play eventually attributed to Tirso.
"Don Juan and His Kind: Generic Irony" opens with the old chestnut about whether or not tragedy could have been produced and appreciated in seventeenth-century Catholic Spain. Parr suggests that the answer is yes, but he urges critics to focus on aesthetic and psychological considerations rather than on the moral and philosophical dimensions of classical tragedy. Finally, Parr inserts El burlador in the continuum of tragicomedy in Peninsular theater. In "Two Characters from Seville: The Canon and the Culture Wars," Parr defends his choice of El burlador de Sevilla and La Estrella de Sevilla for inclusion in the canon, hence the two characters referred to in the chapter title. In an overview of canon formation and revision, Parr censures overly zealous critics who, in the name of political correctness, argue for including in the canon female dramatists whose plays were probably never staged or who may have written only one work. Parr undermines his own assertion when he later describes the Celestina as "the one and only work penned by Fernando de Rojas" (215). While Parr is correct to warn that we may have become too evangelical in our efforts to correct canonical defi ciencies, he does not address suffi ciently the question of how the canon would have been quite different if, in 1939, a formative period of comedia studies, Alpern and COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES Martel had included Zayas or Caro in their anthology or, better yet, if a collection like Teresa Scott Soufas's Women's Acts: Plays by Women Dramatists of Spain's Golden Age had been published. In the third and fi nal part of this study, "Three Periods, Three Classics," Parr analyzes canonical texts from the fourteenth, fi fteenth, and sixteenth centuries. In "The Libro de Buen Amor: A Design for Desire," Parr suggests that good love and crazy love actually complement each other. Indeed, crazy love-base instincts-can serve as a conduit to good love-transcendental spiritualism. Using ideas proposed by Claude Lévi-Strauss and René Girard, Parr focuses on Don Melón's seduction of the widow, Dońa Endira, as an example of carnal seductions that serve as stepping stones to celestial love. Don Melón's lust for Dońa Endira mediates his more spiritual longing for the Virgin Mary.
"La Celestina: Ut Pictura Poesis" momentarily redirects the theoretical premise of this study, from textual studies to "comparative aesthetics," namely, the painterly qualities of Rojas's classic. Parr applies James D. Merriman's theories that formal properties, not content, should be the point of departure for a comparative analysis. Most of the chapter is devoted to an examination of visual and structural triangles in La Celestina and contemporary paintings. Parr convincingly argues that trios are more dynamic than duos and that previous critical attention on interactions between two characters glossed over the catalytic presence of third parties.
"Lazarillo de Tormes: Rhetoric and Referentiality, Fact and Fiction" brings us back to satire and, indeed, Parr echoes some of the same arguments made in chapter 4 and in earlier publications. The most fascinating facet of Parr's analysis, however, is not about fi tting the Lazarillo or the Quixote into generic cubbyholes. Parr unveils two levels of narrative structures directed at two kinds of readers. The less sophisticated reader will easily identify that hypocrisy and anticlericalism in the Lazarillo and chivalric novels in the Quixote are the objects of criticism. The more discerning reader, however, will discover that the Lazarillo censures Carlos V, who spent too much time and money defending the empire while ignoring the nation. The Quixote draws attention to historiography, in which narrators create false, albeit convincing, illusions of disinterested narration. Both works invite the reader to look at the roles of the poet and the historian and their respective relationships to fact and fiction. Frequently, when an author calls for a return to good old-fashioned close reading, as Parr does in chapter 1, he or she ignores the critical and theoretical contributions of the past thirty years. Thankfully this is not the case with Parr, who is familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of most poststructuralist schools of thought. Parr does comes down too hard on the post-poststructuralists, who concern themselves primarily with issues of race, class, and gender, but academia is one of the few arenas in which these concerns can still be debated intelligently and Parr's reservations should be registered. This book can serve as a useful point of departure for that debate, be it in the undergraduate class, the graduate seminar, or the conference and publishing venues for specialists.
Part I, "Don Quixote and the Narrative Tradition," begins with the chapter "On Translation, with an Overture to Interpretation," in which Parr compares several English versions of the Quixote and discusses knotty problems that stymie even the most meticulous translators. With regard to interpretation, Parr calls for a back-to-basics, "new" New Criticism informed by poststructuralist thought. The chapter entitled "Formal Features and Narrative Technique" tackles the issue that has most attracted recent critics of the Quixote, namely, "who tells the story?" In the opening paragraphs of"Framing, Orality, Origins," Parr acknowledges the "wit and levity" that deconstruction has added to literary criticism. Parr's own style reaches its highest level of playfulness when he applies Derrida's ideas on différance and deferral to the Quixote. The highlight of the chapter is Parr's analysis of the murky dichotomy between orality and literacy. He concludes that it is often diffi cult to separate the spoken from the written word and that, similar to the often-cited baciyelmo, neither entity, or, in this case, medium, is privileged. As suggested by the chapter title "Don Quixote and Le Roman bourgeois: Comparative Anatomy," Parr turns to comparative literature studies to address questions of genre, or, Parr's preferred term, "kind." Basing his analysis on several critical cornerstones, including Northrop Frye's seminal Anatomy of Criticism, Parr makes a compelling case for classifying the Quixote as satire, despite the fact that many critics, particularly Hispanists, insist that it is the fi rst modern novel.
In the opening chapter of Part II, "Don Juan and Classical Spanish Drama," entitled "Don Quixote and DonJuan: The Body in Context," Parr highlights psychological traits that the two heroes have in common, primarily their dedication to the pleasure principle and avoidance of the reality principle. Don Quixote, the sadomasochistic neurotic, and Don Juan, the homoerotic abuser, seek eros but encounter thanatos. Despite opularconnotations to the contrary, quixotic desire is actually a death wish. The first sentence of the next chapter, "El burlador de Sevilla: Authorship and Authenticity," says it all: "The controversy over the authorship of El burlador de Sevilla y el convidado de piedra should now be laid to rest" (138). Parr cogently rejects assertions that Andrés de laramonte authored the original Don Juan play and offers a plausible model of transmission of a play eventually attributed to Tirso.
"Don Juan and His Kind: Generic Irony" opens with the old chestnut about whether or not tragedy could have been produced and appreciated in seventeenth-century Catholic Spain. Parr suggests that the answer is yes, but he urges critics to focus on aesthetic and psychological considerations rather than on the moral and philosophical dimensions of classical tragedy. Finally, Parr inserts El burlador in the continuum of tragicomedy in Peninsular theater. In "Two Characters from Seville: The Canon and the Culture Wars," Parr defends his choice of El burlador de Sevilla and La Estrella de Sevilla for inclusion in the canon, hence the two characters referred to in the chapter title. In an overview of canon formation and revision, Parr censures overly zealous critics who, in the name of political correctness, argue for including in the canon female dramatists whose plays were probably never staged or who may have written only one work. Parr undermines his own assertion when he later describes the Celestina as "the one and only work penned by Fernando de Rojas" (215). While Parr is correct to warn that we may have become too evangelical in our efforts to correct canonical defi ciencies, he does not address suffi ciently the question of how the canon would have been quite different if, in 1939, a formative period of comedia studies, Alpern and COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES Martel had included Zayas or Caro in their anthology or, better yet, if a collection like Teresa Scott Soufas's Women's Acts: Plays by Women Dramatists of Spain's Golden Age had been published. In the third and fi nal part of this study, "Three Periods, Three Classics," Parr analyzes canonical texts from the fourteenth, fi fteenth, and sixteenth centuries. In "The Libro de Buen Amor: A Design for Desire," Parr suggests that good love and crazy love actually complement each other. Indeed, crazy love-base instincts-can serve as a conduit to good love-transcendental spiritualism. Using ideas proposed by Claude Lévi-Strauss and René Girard, Parr focuses on Don Melón's seduction of the widow, Dońa Endira, as an example of carnal seductions that serve as stepping stones to celestial love. Don Melón's lust for Dońa Endira mediates his more spiritual longing for the Virgin Mary.
"La Celestina: Ut Pictura Poesis" momentarily redirects the theoretical premise of this study, from textual studies to "comparative aesthetics," namely, the painterly qualities of Rojas's classic. Parr applies James D. Merriman's theories that formal properties, not content, should be the point of departure for a comparative analysis. Most of the chapter is devoted to an examination of visual and structural triangles in La Celestina and contemporary paintings. Parr convincingly argues that trios are more dynamic than duos and that previous critical attention on interactions between two characters glossed over the catalytic presence of third parties.
"Lazarillo de Tormes: Rhetoric and Referentiality, Fact and Fiction" brings us back to satire and, indeed, Parr echoes some of the same arguments made in chapter 4 and in earlier publications. The most fascinating facet of Parr's analysis, however, is not about fi tting the Lazarillo or the Quixote into generic cubbyholes. Parr unveils two levels of narrative structures directed at two kinds of readers. The less sophisticated reader will easily identify that hypocrisy and anticlericalism in the Lazarillo and chivalric novels in the Quixote are the objects of criticism. The more discerning reader, however, will discover that the Lazarillo censures Carlos V, who spent too much time and money defending the empire while ignoring the nation. The Quixote draws attention to historiography, in which narrators create false, albeit convincing, illusions of disinterested narration. Both works invite the reader to look at the roles of the poet and the historian and their respective relationships to fact and fiction. Frequently, when an author calls for a return to good old-fashioned close reading, as Parr does in chapter 1, he or she ignores the critical and theoretical contributions of the past thirty years. Thankfully this is not the case with Parr, who is familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of most poststructuralist schools of thought. Parr does comes down too hard on the post-poststructuralists, who concern themselves primarily with issues of race, class, and gender, but academia is one of the few arenas in which these concerns can still be debated intelligently and Parr's reservations should be registered. This book can serve as a useful point of departure for that debate, be it in the undergraduate class, the graduate seminar, or the conference and publishing venues for specialists.
Denise M. DiPuccio, University of North Carolina, Wilmington <Top>
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