Cervantes, Raphael and the Classics

Abstract

Cervantes, Raphael and Classics. By Frederick A. De Armas. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. xiii+241 pages. De Armas' Cervantes, Raphael and Classics is an absorbing meditation on intertextual of Cervantes' La Numancia (c. 1583), arguably most important tragedy of Golden Spain. Ws reflexes allow great insight and make patent need for comparative approach to text that can seem atypical of rest of work. By unveiling degree to which early play is rooted in classics, D. forces us to reconsider dynamics of late Renaissance literature. In process his control of criticism is exemplary, his passion for his subject contagious, and his adventurous spirit refreshing in field that has only recently overcome idea that its object of study is philological treasure house of Christian humanist sententiae. D's preface lays out premise of CRC: journey to Rome in 1569 exposed him to Raphael's and Romano's masterpieces, indoctrinating him into neo-Platonic cult of classical past. In chapter one D. disputes view put forward by critics like Alban Forcione and Vicente Gaos that C. was biased against classical literature: C.'s anticlassical bias is red herring, deceptive veering away from ancients (2). Ws argument is that although LN may owe its immediate inspiration to Morales's Coronica general, it is in important respects reworking of classical sources. The remainder of CRC moves through series of comparisons, first between LN and paintings by Raphael and Romano for Vatican palace (chapters 2-4), and then Aeschylus's The Persians, Homer's Iliad, Virgil's Aeneid and Fourth Georgic, and Lucan's Pharsalia (chapters v-viii). D. concludes with two chapters that ponder veritable catalogue of possibilities (160), reinforcing CRC's overarching theme of contaminatio-the blending of ancient sources. In first section, D. bases his ekphrastic reading of LN on Frances Yates's understanding of that strain of neo-Platonism which combined poetry and painting as kind of mental visualization (The Art of Memory [Chicago, 1966]). He catalogues mystical, historical, and political symbols of Raphael's and Romano's frescoes and connects them to similar structures in play, arguing that LN reconstructs a Vatican of mind (16-76). D.'s most interesting concept here is what he calls aesthetic of double present, whereby Renaissance artist cultivates heuristic tensions between past and contemporary events. The example of Raphael's painting of encounter between Leo I and Attila, which makes direct reference to battle of Ravenna, allows D. to propose similar strategy at work in LN, which relates ancient siege of Celtiberian city by Roman general Scipio Younger to sixteenth-century enmity between Hapsburgs and Papacy. D. makes convincing case for knowledge of Raphael and Romano, reader is left wondering whether comparison between Roman and Hapsburg politics might have more immediate or multiple sources (Garcilaso de la Vega, for example). The second part of CRC begins with chapter five's comparison between LN and Aeschylus' The Persians. Aeschylus' decentering approach to tragedy, in which Persian enemy Xerxes is paradoxically made hero of drama about Greek victory, might be one of principal models for play. This requires that we read LN, not as tragedy of Numantia, but rather as tragedy of Scipio. Ws first step is to position himself in debate over nature of Cervantine tragicomedy. His intuition about importance of LN, which he calls the single great Aristotelian tragedy of Spanish Golden Age (79), and subsequent polemic he takes up with Paul Lewis-Smith, Joaquin Casalduero, Gustavo Correa, and Arnold Reichenberger over degree of tragic pattern all serves to point up need for generic precision: Although I agree that C. …