The Plays of Juan Ruiz de Alarcon by Jules Whicker

Abstract

874 Reviews depiction of don Amor's tent to be a dream, a thesis whose plausibility is endorsed by Haywood in her essay 'Palabra e imagen: algunos aspectos de la alegoria medieval', in Las metamorfosis de la alegoria: discurso y sociedad en la Peninsula Iberica desde la Edad Media hasta laEdad Contemporanea, ed. by Rebeca Sanmartin and Rosa Vidal (Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2005), pp. I05-25. Martin Duffel demonstrates clearly that the Libro de buen amor is in fact well versified ifwe consider its rhythm to be accentual. Lawrance and de Looze persuade us of the importance of the notion of mouvance to an understanding of the history of this text, especially its changing and versatile nature. The Libro breaks the public's expectations, as de Looze shows, and the lack of amanuscript text for the erotic culmination of the Donia Endrina episode is 'a reminder both of earlier readers' reactions and of our own inability to fully understand manuscript texts' (p. I47), this absence in turn becoming part of the text's meaning. Vasvari's comparison of the Libro to a prostitute (both promiscuously open to manipulation) is extremely useful and offers awide range of new interpretations in different passages. The same is true of Drayson's use of chaos theory, which provides us with an enriching point of view, even though it does not tackle the relationship between the disorder of Ruiz's text and the saturated space of Gothic painting, lacking inwholeness and depth of perspective (the unitary vision of the spectator is something not achieved until the Renaissance). I should also point to the ambiguity of Drayson's quotation at the beginning of her article (is she quoting Barthes or Hayles in the end?-see p. I5 I). To sum up, the most important achievements of this book are, inmy opinion, a shift of scope from studying a product to studying the processes of its creation and reception; and, secondly, the freeing of the critic from the need to force an organic unity upon the book. The volume has the additional merit of including very useful subject and stanza indexes and a long bibliography with an impressive range of titles. For all the reasons given above, I regard it as an essential tool for all who wish to experience a fresh reading of an outstanding medieval author. UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID REBECA SANMARTiN BASTIDA The Plays of J7uanRuiz de Alarc6n. By JULES WHICKER. (Colecci6n T'amesis, Serie A: Monografias, 200)Woodbridge: Tamesis. 2003. viii + 212 pp. ?40. ISBN I 85566-093-8. This timely contribution to Alarc6n studies is focused on the issue of deception, its necessity, and in certain circumstances the ways inwhich it is not just justifiable but desirable. The notion and possibility of legitimate deceptions are closely linked by Alarcon to the moral and social legitimacy of the comedia per se. In this way, this study is significant not just in relation to Alarc6n's plays, but also for Baroque culture and aesthetics generally, offering the best single account of antitheatrical ist anxiety, its social and moral antecedents, as well as a fascinating consideration of the issue of legitimate deception in the social and political philosophy of early seventeenth-century Spain. Alarcon's work responds to the controversies surround ing the allegedly morally deleterious effects of theatre attendance on young noblemen and women by drawing a connection between honest deceptions, prominent through out his plays, and his own artifice as a creator of dramatic illusions. By manipulating contextual and structural features in his plays, he manages to subvert techniques and devices, like props and music, associated with arousing passion and the baser appetites of the vulgo. The titillation of spectacular visual effects, stage machinery, and cos tume, all of which feature prominently in his work, is redeployed as an opportunity to MLR, IOI.3, 2006 875 raise the audience's awareness of their passivity, and how they are being manipulated, deceived, and drawn in by theatrical illusion. By calling into question their status as signs, they become visual conceits of the unreliability of appearances. Linguistic and rhetorical flamboyance is similarly employed to underline the potential deceptiveness of poetic language. By distinguishing between extravagant lies...