Masculinidades en obras: el drama de la hombría en la España imperial (review)

Abstract

Cartagena calderon, josE R. Masculinidades en obras: el drama de hombria en Espana imperial. Newark, DE: Juan de Cuesta, 2008. 382 pp.Jose R. Cartagena Calderon's MascuHnidades en obras: el drama de hombria en Espana imperial is simply a beautiful book. Such lavish praise at the start of a book review may strike readers as excessive, yet they would be wrong. What makes this book beautiful is the conjunction of traits that rarely come together in scholarly works. Cartagena's Spanish academic prose is exactingly devoid of rhetorical malformations, pedantic obfuscations, or imprecisions. MascuHnidades reads like one wishes all articles and books would. It is clear, engaging, reassuring, yet challenging in the complexity of its argumentation. This is a rare case in scholarly monographs written in Spanish. MascuHnidades is also a straightforward book. Cartagena's thesis regarding the crisis of masculinity that he and others have identified in countless cultural products in Imperial Spain cuts right to the point. [A]l hablar sobre 'crisis de masculinidad' en el siglo XVII no queremos dar a entender que en otra epoca hubo 'estabilidad' (10 n. 1), he states; however, we should dare to read canonical and noncanonical Spanish literary texts against the profusion of pamphlets, books, and legal proclamations in this period in which the decadence of Spain is directly attributed to the relentless feminization of the Spanish male ruling elite. Doing so, of course yields exciting new perspectives on the texts themselves as well as on the scholarship of the period, and the period itself. In addition, Masculinadades is profusely documented, skillfully constructed, and methodically laid out. Intersecting fields such as masculinity studies, queer studies, early modern Spanish theater, and cultural studies, Masculinidades stands as a remarkably mature example of scholarship and a model for all those Hispanists working in these fields.In the introduction to Masculinidades, Cartagena traces a thoughtful and highly complete overview of the principal arguments starting with the contributions made by Simone de Beauvoir and, later, second wave feminists, through Judith Butler's performative theory of gender on to current scholarship in masculinity studies. These theorists enable Cartagena to explore texts in which the masculinity of its protagonists appears to be questioned. [L]ejos de ser una constante universal que desafia tiempo y espacio, Cartagena reminds us, la masculinidad podria entenderse como una construccion social inestable y por ende ansiosa e insegura (Breitenberg) o fragil y vulnerable (Kaufman) que varia tanto historica como culturalmente (19). The masculinity crisis in sixteenth- and seventeenth- century Spanish culture that Cartagena and others help us understand is by no means a unique point in the history of Iberian masculinities; however, it is an undoubtedly fruitful space for critical inquiry. What emerges from studies such as this one is a salutary and long overdue antidote against traditional scholarship on Golden Age studies which has been for so long mired in debates surrounding honor and honra and philologically obsessed with polishing and preserving the texts. …