El arte de la subversión en la España inquisitorial: Fernando de Rojas y Francisco Delicado (con dos notas de Cervantes) by Manuel da Costa Fontes

Abstract

Reviewed by: El arte de la subversión en la España inquisitorial: Fernando de Rojas y Francisco Delicado (con dos notas de Cervantes) by Manuel da Costa Fontes Patricia W. Manning Manuel da Costa Fontes. El arte de la subversión en la España inquisitorial: Fernando de Rojas y Francisco Delicado (con dos notas de Cervantes). iberoamericana / vervuert, 2018. 470 pp. in the preface to this translation and update of his study of literary modes of subversion (originally published in 2005 as The Art of Subversion in Inquisitorial Spain: Rojas and Delicado [Purdue UP]), Manuel da Costa Fontes affirms: "traté de poner el libro al día, incorporando la crítica pertinente que ha aparecido durante los últimos años" (15). While the Spanish-language version represents a solid contribution to the field, it would have benefited from deeper engagement with scholarship published since 2005. This is not to suggest that no changes have been made. In this new edition, Costa Fontes cites from the Spanish translation of Henry Kamen's now classic book on the Spanish Inquisition (La Inquisición española: mito e historia, translated by Juan Rabasseda and Teófilo de Lozoya, Crítica, 2013). And the bibliography relating to the literary works that Costa Fontes analyzes generally has been updated; however, gaps become more apparent in the volume's underpinning arguments. For example, chapter 1 ("El problema converso") characterizes the first centuries after the Muslim conquest of 711 as a "período de tolerancia en el que cristianos, musulmanes y judíos vivían juntos, en coexistencia pacífica" and "convivencia" that came to an end as Christians came to control more territory (17–18). This notion of medieval convivencia overlooks recent work that offers a more complex picture of coexistence among the three religious communities in Iberia. To mention only one example, David Nirenberg's assertion "that violence was a central and systemic aspect of the coexistence of majority and minorities in medieval Spain" (Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages, Princeton UP, 1996, p. 9) offers an important counterpoint to the picture of amicable cohabitation that should have been taken into consideration. Moreover, this and Nirenberg's other books, along with Patricia E. Grieve's monograph (The Eve of Spain: Myths of Origins in the History of Christian, Muslim and Jewish Conflict, Johns Hopkins UP, 2009), could have enriched [End Page 251] an argument that at times seems overly focused on Christian-Jewish (or -converso) relations. Another shortcoming is that Costa Fontes includes relatively few references to Muslims (or Moriscos) in Iberia and only considers the Mediterranean settings of the Retrato de la Lozana andaluza (hereafter La Lozana) in appendix 2, which discusses Moriscos in Don Quijote. Also in chapter 1, Costa Fontes alludes to rumors about Jewish residents' purported murders of children in Spain without referencing Grieve's analysis of devotion to El Niño de la Guardia, a folk saint whose popular devotion fanned the flames of anti-Semitism (Grieve 98–104). Another issue emerges when Costa Fontes draws attention to the tendency to encode erotic language in the guise of less sexualized content (195n158, 255); on such occasions, his arguments would have been enhanced by reference to Adrienne Laskier Martin's study (An Erotic Philology of Golden Age Spain, Vanderbilt UP, 2008). An important addition Costa Fontes makes to his study of subversion with this Spanish translation relates to the two appendices concerning works by Miguel de Cervantes. Appendix 1 ("El poder nivelador del amor en La española inglesa") examines the role love plays in the exemplary novel. Beyond the redeeming value of love, the analysis of this novella also concerns the converso community. Isabela's status as a Catholic Spanish woman in England not only analogously references the status of the converso community in Spain, but also the case of María Nunes, a Portuguese Jewish resident of Amsterdam kidnapped by English forces, "la cual, sin duda, sirvió de inspiración a Cervantes" (375). While it is certainly possible that a reader interested in converso culture would make these connections, it also seems equally likely that readers, especially those residing in Spanish communities that...