Los tratos de Argel and the Muslim Story of Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife

Abstract

Los criticos tienden a leer Los tratos de Argelo como propaganda nacionalista y catolica o como una compleja combinacion de elementos ortodoxos y subversivos. Este articulo se situa en la segunda de estas corrientes. En se analiza la intriga amorosa entre Aurelio y Zahara, concluyendo que se inspira en motivo biblico de Jose y la mujer de Putifar. No es, sin embargo, libro de Genesis su fuente principal, sino versiones musulmanas de la leyenda de Jose que circulaban entre los moriscos. Estos elementos islamicos van disfrazados de motivos y temas cristianos, reflejando asi la practica de taqiyya, o disimulacion, entre los moriscos de Espana. inclusion de detalles de este tipo subvierte tono ortodoxo aparente en la superficie de la obra e implica la posibilidad de que Cervantes tuviera contacto con moriscos exiliados durante su cautiverio en Argel. ********** Los TRATOS DE ARGEL is one of Cervantes's earliest works and is the first in a series of pseudo-autobiographical accounts of his experience as a captive in Algiers. (1) He will later rework the material as Los banos de Argel and, eventually, the famous Captive's Tale in the first part of Don Quijote, but Tratos is unique in its proximity the actual events upon which it is based. Recent scholarship has paid increasing attention Cervantes's Algerian captivity and his resulting complex relationship with Islam. (2) There is also a burgeoning interest in Biblical influences on Cervantes's literary production. (3) These two tendencies converge in this study. I argue that the Aurelio-Zahara love intrigue in Tratos is based on the Biblical motif of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, but that, rather than strictly adhering the Old Testament storyline, Cervantes also incorporates elements of Muslim versions of the story that he likely learned from Morisco acquaintances during his Algerian captivity. The result is a form of literary disguise, reminiscent of a Morisco form of dissimulation known as taqiyya, which undermines the nationalistic, pro-Christian message apparent on the work's surface. Scholars have tended read the play in two oppositional, if not mutually exclusive ways. one camp ate those who see the play as a form of anti-Muslim propaganda that draws upon religious and Orientalist discourses and is meant encourage donations the Mercedarian and Trinitarian orders dedicated ransoming captives. Joaquin Casalduero seems be one of the early proponents of this reading: La vida de Argel es un hecho politico que debe mover a caridad (256). Adrienne Martin argues that to a great degree [Tratos] is a warning Spanish Christians be more charitable and pay ransoms in order save its young (9). She adds that both it and Banos serve and are served by the inevitable Orientalism of their time by associating sexual deviance with religious difference (13). Enrique Fernandez affirms that Tratos pertenece al discurso redentorista del cautiverio, con que comparte su finalidad testimonial-propagandistica (14). Certainly there is abundant evidence for this interpretation in the work. As Kenneth A. Stackhouse points out, In the text of [Tratos], Cervantes repeats almost verbatim the plea that he made on behalf of European slaves in Algiers in his letter Mateo Vasquez [the secretary Phillip II] (13). the other camp are scholars who, without necessarily denying Cervantes's charitable intentions, tend view his perspective on religious and ethnic difference as more complex. Jean Canavaggio, for example, believes that in the Algerian plays Cervantes gives us an infinitely subtler picture of the Muslim world than the caricature-like distortion which we are more often exposed in the polemical writings of his contemporaries (81-82). Moises R. Castillo, noting the contradiction between orthodox and subversive passages in Tratos, asserts that it has do with el plan cervantino de sacar a la superficie y desmantelar, con ayuda de la ironia, los ideales fatuos: honor, pureza de sangre, exagerada ortodoxia religiosa, que vienen impuestos por la ideologia dominante (221-22). …