Purdue University
Melancholy as a physical, mental and psychosomatic disturbance
describes a wide range of illnesses in Renaissance and Baroque literature. The
phenomenon has received considerable attention with regard to British literary
texts, but similar studies dedicated to Spanish prose, poetry and theater are
not as prevalent. In
Melancholy and the Secular Mind in Spanish Golden
Age Literature, Teresa Soufas elaborates upon her previous studies and
definitively elevates melancholy from the status of
topos to its appropriate central position
within the literature of Golden Age Spain. Throughout the preface and five
chapters, Soufas cogently undertakes a reexamination of melancholy's importance
as reflected in the Catholic, post-Tridentine authors who «engage[d]
in a dialectical transvaluation of values, that is, a reexamining and
redefining of society and traditional norms that nevertheless does not seek to
invalidate those norms or their inversion»
(ix). She
analyzes the scientific and literary transvaluation of melancholy in Cervantes
(Chapter 1), religious melancholy in Tirso (Chapter 2), love melancholy in two
different manifestations in Lope and Calderón (Chapter 3), the
melancholy malcontent in picaresque narrative (Chapter 4), and the melancholy
debate as exemplified in the
conceptista/culteranista controversy,
particularly in Góngora (Chapter 5).
The chapter on Cervantes, with its primary focus on
Don Quixote, is a logical introductory
locus for a general discussion of
melancholy. Soufas brings to bear the important sources of Spanish and English
Renaissance views on the illness as well as contemporary critics' readings of
these sources. She provides concise summaries of Marsilio Ficino, Robert
Burton, Timothy Bright, Juan Luis Vives, Alonso de Freylas and, naturally,
Huarte de San Juan; the contemporary readers include Otis Green, Daniel Heiple,
—136→
William Melczer, and others who have seen melancholy exemplified
in Cervantes' characters. After carefully defining the kind of melancholy
experienced by literary characters and authors who overexercise the intellect,
Soufas shows how Don Quixote suffers from the excessive dryness brought on
through study that leads to his insanity. At the same time she refutes those
critics who see Cervantes's character as inspired in Huarte's
Examen (which maintains that certain humoral
types are predisposed to certain occupations). This, Soufas argues, is counter
to Catholic doctrine of free will; rather, Cervantes mocks Huarte's
descriptions by relegating Don Quixote to the life of letters, since Huarte
would argue that Don Quixote as
ingenioso is inherently wicked. In the
end -and at the risk of this reviewer's egregious oversimplification- Don
Quixote dies of his prolonged melancholy; Cervantes, for his part, through a
melancholy character, has recognized «the secular mind's power and
autonomy while consciously advocating the continued validity of a system of
thought... intent upon performing 'reasoning practices' upon the
world»
(36). Don Quixote may have taken his appropriate
place within society, but he has also recanted of «sins of the
intellect»
(36).
In her chapter dedicated to religious melancholy, Soufas discusses
acedia, or a weakness of the spirit related
to
tristitia, and focuses specifically on
El condenado por desconfiado. Her treatment
of this aspect puts this chapter somewhat at odds with the title and purpose of
her book -«the secular mind»- and invites further questioning of
the relationship between melancholy and religious asceticism (Fray Luis) and
mysticism (San Juan and Santa Teresa). Nevertheless, Soufas details the role of
melancholy and Saturn in Paulo's turn to a life of crime and in Enrico's
decision to seek forgiveness and salvation. She shows again how the intellect
is susceptible to the effects of melancholy; in this regard, her conclusions
echo those of other critics, but much greater light comes from Soufas's
explanation of melancholy's importance: «Through the spiritual victory
of Enrico, Tirso portrays the human capability to resist the devil's sway by
means of turning to the higher power of divine forgiveness and grace. Paulo's
damnation represents the alternative defeat through continued reliance upon the
melancholic intellect that is corrupted by satanical manipulation»
(63). Paulo, like Don Quixote, has succumbed to the temptations of
the intellect and must pay the price for that sin.
Chapter 3 (whose Latin epigraph is the only non-English quotation
not translated) offers intriguing analyses of Lope's
El caballero de Olmedo and three Calderonian
wife-murder plays (A secreto agravio, secreta venganza,
El médico de su honra, and
El pintor de su deshonra). I will direct my
comments to the first part of the chapter (with no implied negative criticism
of Soufas's treatment of Calderón), in which the author undertakes a
reexamination of «amor
eroico» and the effect of love melancholy upon
Inés, Alonso, and Rodrigo. Alonso and Inés are «quite
simply two young people mutually in love»
(73), yet
Alonso s reliance upon rumination and his failure to act on his honorable love
for Inés create a «seriously afflicted pathological
melancholic»
—137→
(77) who then suffers from
true melancholy that ultimately leads to the tragedy. To hold, as Soufas does,
that his propensity for thought («a self-isolated thinker») turns
him into an actor among the people of Medina, the spectators, is perhaps to
belabor the obvious (El caballero de Olmedo as
metatheater has been well studied). According to Soufas, Lope undermines the
conventions of love and courtship that Alonso emulates in part by becoming
melancholic. The greater his surrender to the illness, the more Lope subverts
his character. This analysis seems a bit forced. To consider Alonso as a victim
of self-induced melancholy is to undermine both the forcefulness of his
character and the tragedy of his death. I would suggest that Soufas take into
account Lope's
El halcón de Federico; while many
plays deal with love and love-sickness, few are as graphic in tracing a love
melancholic's downward spiral into insanity.
Chapter 4 undertakes a discussion of the melancholy malcontent as seen in the picaresque. Though Soufas sees melancholy as a general condition of society and as an implied aspect in depictions of malcontentedness, her argument is refracted somewhat by the marginal character of the «pícaro». Nevertheless, Soufas suggests that the rogue figure displays melancholic characteristics similar to those witnessed in certain stage characters. She equates theater audiences with readers, a comparison that yields a partial reception of melancholics. Soufas rightfully underscores the metatheatrical nature of the picaresque, particularly in light of Alban Forcione's conclusions concerning the Cynics' vision of life as a theatrical performance. Yet the readers of the picaresque differ from the spectators of, say, El caballero de Olmedo. Theater-goers are constituted by a much more heterogeneous population, and the less educated will, perhaps, recognize only the outer manifestations of melancholy and thus understand it on a very different level. Melancholy may be a pervasive symptom of the times (as is desengaño), but the ability to identify with it are two separate processes. Don Alonso of El caballero de Olmedo reaches one kind of audience, Guzmán de Alfarache touches a more select and thus limited one. It is that very limitation that more fully describes Guzmán's alienation from society.
Absent from this chapter is a description of the
pícara, in spite of a reference
to «the
pícaro and his or her
text»
(120). This female character represents further
marginalization of an already marginalized figure and raises a series of
questions: Are the sources and manifestations of melancholy the same for female
rogues? What can be said of
La pícara Justina -a female rogue
created by a male author? Are there melancholic symptoms unique to female
characters (or any characters) drawn by female authors? Do differences arise in
this representation of melancholy?
The final chapter of Soufas's book is a synthesis of the preceding
discussions, given the centrality of the
conceptismo/culteranismo debate to
seventeenth-century poetics. Góngora presents «the darker, more
self-consciously melancholic, introspective, and disjointed
discourse»
of the age, which offended Lope de Vega, Quevedo, and
other
conceptistas (125). The effect of
Góngora's
culteranismo is, then, a
«recognition of the efficacy of
—138→
privileging the
intellect»
(125). The conflict between the two schools
of thought centers on the source of creative activity. Soufas argues that Lope
reaffirms image production through mimesis via imagination, where
Góngora (considered by Paravicino as a source for the muses) relies upon
the intellect (entendimiento) for inspiration.
Góngora is, then, marginalized socially and spiritually. In the
Soledad I, Góngora's reference to
Euterpe «functions to transcend the myth of her influence over
tragedy» because the poem tells of a wedding and thus implies a happy
ending. In
Soledad II Góngora becomes independent
of the influence of mythological figures (and thus the muses) in that he does
not even make reference «to such a mythical figure»
(135). He has taken a «naturally evolutionary
step»
(136) in humanism, and in the
Polifemo, Soufas implies, the poet subverts
the poetic tradition of which he is part. Polifemo becomes the author of his
poem; the muses are «the medium of its repetition»
(136).
The analysis of the
Polifemo ties together many aspects of
melancholy Soufas has set out to delineate. Polifemo's song arises from his
amor eroico and has a correspondingly
melancholic effect of Galatea. Furthermore Polifemo recounts his own enactment
of «Saturn's role as patron of shipwrecked sailors», thus forging
an even stronger link with Saturn and melancholy. The imagery of
Góngora's major poems is but formal evidence of the «ideological
implications of the melancholy mind» to be found in
culterano poetry, and emanates from
Góngora's peculiar vision and «melancholic stance of isolation
and uniqueness»
(147-48). In his epistemology of
«difference»
, Góngora fashions «a new
reality out of words»
that is «a combination of destructive
and constructive efforts»
(154-5). The extremes are
inherently necessary to his art as well as to «the dialectical nature
of melancholy»
which, to the Golden Age, suggests «the
dangers of thinking gone wrong»
(155; 165).
Góngora becomes in this light the
sine qua non of melancholy writers who
subverts an entire poetic tradition at the same time that he advances it.
Nonetheless, the melancholy mind produces the great works of literature, even
when it evinces «a brilliance that cannot be trusted»
(165). In the final analysis, Teresa Soufas's book is essential
for a comprehensive understanding of Spain's Golden Age. She has written a
discourse on melancholy, a running commentary of commentaries that exposes,
analyzes, synthesizes, and subsumes primary texts, as well as treatises and
critiques of melancholy. The author exhibits a sharp critical eye, a well-honed
critical voice, and a comprehensive bibliography that amplify and expand upon
work done by her predecessors. Few critics today can claim such widespread
knowledge of Renaissance and Baroque melancholy as Teresa Soufas, and we should
be thankful to her for opening new directions in looking at melancholy in the
Golden Age of Spanish letters.