Unfettering Confession: Ritualized Performance in Spanish Narrative and Drama (review)

Abstract

PACE, DONALD GENE. Unfettering Confession: Ritualized Performance in Narrative and Drama. Lanham, MD: UP of America, 2009. 88 pp.In Unfettering Confession: Ritualized Performance in Narrative and Drama, Donald Gene Pace proposes to reexamine confession as a literary genre independent of autobiography, of which it has usually been considered a subgenre. He further argues that confession has been traditionally understood almost exclusively as a linguistic practice, against which he proposes to focus on confessions as contextually determined bodily performances. In his approach he brings to bear several theoretical schools, most prominently those of speech act theory and a theory of hegemony based on Gramsci and Foucault.While confessional literature transcends its traditional generic boundaries, author does contend that its primary model is religious and, specifically, Catholic: Whether religious or secular, confession assumes a structure that imitates Roman Catholic religious sacrament of penance (11). This fact serves as a further justification for book's exclusively corpus, because, given their Catholic heritage, Spanish writers are predisposed to utilize confessional frames and refer to penitential scenes (15). author does not attempt to substantiate this assertion in any way, so one can only assume it remains at level of speculation. Nevertheless, reliance on Catholic model does not seem to limit relevance of Pace's thesis concerning power relations revealed by focusing on confessions as an independent genre.The real work of book occurs in readings Pace performs on a series of texts ranging from early modern period to early twentieth century. In each of these cases he tries to shows how confessional structure establishes a hegemonic between confessant and confessor, in which control is ultimately strongest when confessant's consent cements a hegemonic relationship (16). In light of this claim, he goes on to interpret a number of canonical texts as confessional literature, including Cervantes 's Don Quijote, Unamuno's San Manuel Bueno, martir, Ramon Sender's Requiem por un campesino espanol, and Lope de Vega's Fuente Ovejuna, others. For reasons of space, I will focus these comments on his treatment of two early modern texts.Chapter 3, Confession and Liberty, is dedicated to a reading of intercalated novel The Captive's Tale from Don Quijote. At outset, Pace claims that Don Quijote is, among so many things, a confessional novel with a confessional frame as well as many embedded confessional scenes (27). Interpreting tale itself within framework of a religious act of confession, Pace argues that cautivo, in telling Zoraida's story, is essentially serving as a proxy confessant for her, while interlocutors, specifically Dorotea and Luscinda, assume the role of joint confessor (28). With this setup Pace can then proceed to claim that narrative of el cautivo is much more than an individual confession; it is a national confession that proclaims superiority of nation while advancing a subtle appeal for greater catholicity in terms of accepting minority groups (29). Furthermore, combined speech acts produce a collective confession that suggests universal attraction of Christianity and its superiority over Islam (30). …