Objects of Culture in the Literature of Imperial Spain ed. by Mary E. Barnard, Frederick A. de Armas (review)

Abstract

barnard, mary e., and frederick a. de armas, eds. Objects of Culture in the Literature of Imperial Spain. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2013. xxi ^ 326 pp.The consumption and display of luxurious objects to establish personal and sociopolitical cultural hierarchies in the early modern period surpassed all historical precedents. In flagrant disregard for the topos of vanitas, well-chosen material possessions-then as now-served as markers of vaguely ''spiritual'' riches, such as intellectual curiosity, erudition, and taste. The elegantly written introduction to this collection of essays, which the editors propose as a kind of Wunderkammer, establishes further relevance of material objects to the written word in a reflection on the book as itself a handled, symbolically charged, and cherished object. Each essay presents either a well-documented history of an element of material culture, or an example of suggestive reasoning that invites the reader to consider selected nonmaterial phenomena as objects on account of their particular function in a literary text.Leading the first section of the book, ''Objects of Luxury and Power,'' Mary E. Barnard explores how Garcilaso de la Vega inscribes himself in his third eclogue, dedicated to the vicereine of Naples, Maria Osorio Pimentel. The etymology of the word textus associates the practice of weaving tapestry with the writing of poetry. This association allows Garcilaso to accumulate numerous layers of cultural and literary allusions and plays in an act of poetic offering that, according to Barnard, mimics the economy of gift giving. Barnard is followed by Marsha S. Collins analyzing tensions centered around the spatially and visually dominant structures whose artifices compete for primacy with the natural setting of the sixteenth century Iberian pastoral romances: the palace of the wise Felicia in Jorge de Montemayor's Diana, and Dardanio's cave in Lope de Vega's Arcadia.While ekphrasis overtly appears to stop time and the narrative flow, Collins argues that the scenes unfolding around these spatial structures are pivotal for characterization and plot development in the analyzed pastoral texts. For his part, Frederick A. de Armas looks at the interpolated story of El curioso impertinente in Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quijote from the perspective of material culture and theatricality. De Armas picks up an unnoticed reference to Danaein Lotario's discourse as a key to interpreting an intricate web of references to visual imagery and gambling that identify the figure of Fortune dealing cards to the unfortunate players in this theatrically staged three-part tale. Maria Cristina Quintero's take on material culture analyzes several moments in Pedro Calderon de la Barca's play La gran Cenobia in which carefully manipulated stage props are used to comment upon the arbitrariness and mutability of power, a poignant message to be delivered to its original audience in the midst of social and political turmoil during the early reign of Phillip IV. Finally, falling portraits on the Golden Age stage that prevent a crime could strike one as a contrived dramatic device. However, Christopher B. Weimer suspends the reader's disbelief as he contextualizes this dramatic technique within an early modern tradition of miracles that described saints' images coming to life and even interceding on a devotee's behalf. Weimer studies the theatrical motif of the falling portraits-turned-agents in plays by Damian Salucio del Poyo, Luis Velez de Guevara, and Tirso de Molina.The second section, ''The Matter of Words,'' considers material objects in relation to elusive concepts such as time, vision, memory, and sound. Heather Allen studies time, examining the role of the book of hours in the chronicles documenting the rescue of the Franciscan priest Jeronimo de Aguilar who, following the shipwreck of his expedition, lived among the Mayas for eight years. In a reading of three histories describing Aguilar's rescue, Allen observes how the book of hours functions as ''an ambivalent signifier,'' a symbol of the Castilian's intellectual, religious and physical difference from Amerindians, as well as of Aguilar's liminality between the two cultures after the extended period of immersion in Mayan society. …