Cervantes's "La Galatea": Feminine Spaces, Subjects, and Communities Author(s): Rosalie Hernndez-Pecoraro Source: Pacific Coast Philology,

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Cervanles's La Galatea:

FenminineSpaces, Subjects, and Communities Rosalie Hemaindez-Pecoraro

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Following pastoral convention, Cervantes structures much of the action in his locusamoenusaround the figures of male lovers and their suffering for idealized objects of desire. Yet La Galateaalso contains a considerable number of female characterswho seem to relate on levels that stand apart from and sometimes disrupt the overriding pastoral ideology of male bonding through suffering. Characterssuch as Galatea and Gelasia openly declare their aversion to male objectificationand attempt to be understood beyond its limits. Others, like Teolinda and Rosaura, aggressively pursue their lovers, clearly transgressing the rules of demure behavior usually expected of female pastoral characters.Even more relevant to a feminist reading of Cervantes's text is the way in which all female characters, regardless of their attitudes towards love and men, manage to form an autonomous and inclusive type of pastoral community, distinct from the identificatory model present in the group of male lovers. In this paper I want to emphasize how La Galatea goes beyond its pastoral precursors through the ways in which it includes representations of feminine desire and offers a space in which female characters, notwithstanding their differences,freely and indiscriminately share these desires as a community. It will not be possible to argue that a feminine Nevertheless, I properspective or subject position prevails in LaGalatea. pose that the particularities of feminine desire and community not be ignored (as they are by male characters)in our reading of this Cervantine text. The way in which female characters enact an alternative discursive position can be examined in relation to the psychic constitution of the male self and community. The constitution of the pastoral male subject, his community, and its poetic practice can be understood through the Freudian concepts of anaclisis (male narcissism), group identification, and sublimation.1 From the pastoral male lover's perspective, the beloved serves as a mirror upon which to reflect an idealized image of the self which, although false, gives the anaclitic (narcissistic) lover an illusion of post-Oedipal fullness of self and meaning. For the pastoral community, "Love" and its embodiment in idealized others functions as a "leader" which permits group identification and limits individual narcissism among lovers. Male pastoral characters come together through 15

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sharing their virtually identical attitudes towards "Love" and their beloved others in a process of self-same identification. The male pastoral community's emphasis on poetry as the superior mode of expression can, in turn, be interpretedas a way of sublimating libidinal desires that can never be realized within the pastoral world. Poetry replaces the lover's most basic (and debased) sexual desires, producing in turn "higher" cultural achievements through the poetic process. If we follow this masculine pastoral logic, female characters should either confirm or frustrate, support or disrupt, these (masculine) processes as they are found in texts such as Jorge de Montemayor's Diana and Cervantes's La Galtea. Within the pastoral locus amoenus,women can only serve as constructedobjects,as mirrors,and as abstractedsources of poetic inspiration for the male lover and his community of lovers. But where do the female pastoral charactersstand as subjects? Where does their function as idealized objects end and their subjectivity (if at all) begin? And how does the male community of lovers control the subversive feminine elements that appear in different levels of the text? The answers to these questions will offer,I contend, one way of approaching a feminist interpretationof pastoral texts, and specifically La Galatea. Given the usefulness of psychoanalysis in exploring the dynamics of male subjectivity and identification in pastoral texts, a brief summary of Freud and Lacan's concepts of feminine subjectivity provides a starting point for a discussion of feminine presence in pastoral texts. Freud's version of sexuality is based on the way in which both sexes come to understand the lack of the phallus in their first object of desire, the mother. When the male child realizes that his mother is lacking the penis, he identifies with his father (who is perceived as non-lacking) and thereafter fears being castrated, and thus lacking, like his mother. The child associates the penis with power and fullness. Its absence is identified with the reverse, weakness and lack. Secondary narcissism, or anaclisis, constantly compensates for the fear of castration by offering the male subject idealized versions of himself that assure him of his possession of the phallus, of being perfect, not lacking and complete. In turn, according to Freud,the female child comes to understand herself as lacking, as non-phallic, as a castrated being. She, like her mother, does not possess the penis and eventually loses all hope of having one and accepts her "nature"as a castrated being. Freud thus concludes: "The result is an essential difference between her [woman] and the boy, namely, that she accepts castration as an established fact, an operation already performed,whereas the boy dreads the possibility of its being performed"

Cervantes's La Galatea

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by woman is, within Freudian analysis, the essential element that determines the different ways in which men and women relate to each other, and the way in which they approach "love."While men love anaclitically, meaning they love themselves in the idealized and specular other, most women will love narcissistically,"plainly seeking themselves love obas jects" (Freud, Works XIV:88).2 Although narcissism could be perceived as a liberatingposition for women (they "love" themselves), Freud maintains that women love themselves not for themselves, but for what they represent for the men that desire them. If men choose objects that confirm their own phallic status, women strive to be the phallus that men desire. Elizabeth Grosz summarizes Freud's position as follows:
Herethe woman, in recognizingher castration, attemptsto makeher wholebody takeon the roleof objectof (theother's)desire.She strives to affirmher position as desirablefor the other,as a phallus for the other.Theaim is structurally quite differentfromthatof the boy. His while herpositionas the positionas the subjectof desireis confirmed, objectof desire is affirmed.This is the differencebetween beingand havingthe phallus, a non-symmetrical hierarchybetween a subject (who 'has'the phallus,has the objectof desire)and an object(who 'is' the phallus,the desiredobject).(127-8)

("The Passing of the Oedipus-Complex"

181). This acceptance of "lack"

Within this definition of female narcissism woman adopts strategies that define her as a desirable object.3Her self-worth is dependent on her success in attaining and holding on to male subjects who imagine her as a confirmation of their own phallic status, not as a unique and specific being. Lacanfurtherelaborates this concept of female narcissism by adding the function of the "masquerade" through which woman pretends to be full, non-lacking,phallic, and in the process denies herself the chance of developing her own specific feminine subjectivity:
Paradoxical this formulation as mightseem,I would say thatin order to be the phallus... woman will rejectan essentialpart of her femiIt ninity,notablyall its attributes throughmasquerade. is forwhat she is not thatshe expects to be desiredas well as loved. ("TheMeaning of the Phallus"84)4 Woman, in return for her mask, expects to acquire access to the phallus (as a signifier of fullness) that she perceives men to possess. Yet "fullness" is a reward that can never be exchanged since man himself, in reality, is also constituted by lack; he, like woman, has lost the fullness experienced in the imaginary and only tries to compensate through fantasy and the "power" of symbolization. If man acquires the "illusion" of fullness from his anaclitic relationship with an idealized other, the nar-

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cissistic woman can only end up disappointed at the lack of satisfaction due to her affirmation as object. Even though these concepts try to explain woman's position in relation to the mechanisms of idealization through which male subjects constitute their own imagined selves, they hardly touch upon the multiple and contradictory ways in which woman manifests herself within the Symbolic; or what Freud called the "eternally inexplicable, mysterious, and strange nature"of woman, "which thus seems hostile" to men ("Contributions to the Psychology of Love" 76). Woman and her "mysterious" nature are categorized by Lacan as "not-all,"meaning that, as a subject, woman is not fully symbolized within the Symbolic order.5If man as subjectcompensates his lack through the symbolizing power of language, woman is never able to fully articulate her desire in language. Thus, there is a part of woman that remains outside of language and of narcissistic identifications, or, as Lacan defines it, outside of the "phallic function" and linked to a jouissanceoutside of the Symbolic realm:
Itnonethelessremains if she is excludedby the natureof things,it that is preciselythatin beingnot all,she has, in relationto what the phallic functiondesignatesof joussane, a supplementary joussance.... Thereis ajouiance... ajoussanceofthebody which is, if the expression be allowed, beyond thephallus.... Thereis aiouisanceproperto her,to this 'her'which does not exist [in and theSymbolic] whichsignifiesnothing.Thereis apoumsaw proper to her and of which she herselfmay know nothing, except that she it experiences - thatmuchshe does know.Sheknowsit of coursewhen it happens.Itdoes not happento all of them.("Godand the ouissance of TheWoman" 144-5)

Woman,even when she assumes a passive position as object,contains in her a potential to experience (if not express) what lies beyond symbolization, beyond the phallus, jouissance.The fact that woman enjoys a satisfaction that is not phallic or processed through language means that she must be repressed by the male subject given his dependence on woman as object and as mirror,not as an independent and autonomous desiring being. Therefore,any elements of woman that do not "support the repetition of his self-representationsas the same" and are a threat to phallic subjectivity become a part of man's unconscious, of that which cannot be represented in language (Lorraine76). Tamsin E. Lorraineexplains:
which Anything that would upset this economy of representation, repeatsthe masculinesubjectas having the same self, is relegatedto

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the unconscious.In this way a stable,socially functioningidentityis formedand maintaineddespite the constantonslaughtof chaoticexperiencethat besieges it. Anything that does not fit, that cannot be orderedby the Symbolicrulesof analogy,resemblance, identity and is [i.e. anacliticnarcissism]is dismissed. Experience orderedaccordof that ing to repetitions identifications supportthe self as self-identical. Womancomes to be associatedwith the unconscious,the fusion experiencesof infancy,and the chaoticflux of experiencethat he self has masteredthroughthis logic of the same. (76)

In her status as unconscious, woman enables the existence of the masculine subject in so far as her inconsistencies, her jouissance,remain hidden, permitting man to establish his own self-identity 'free' of those elements which expose the fallibility of the subject, of his constitutive lack. But, as Freud's interpretation of dreams and slips of the tongue reveals, symbolization cannot fully contain what has been repressed. Woman's "nature"keeps reemerging as a return of the repressed, as a symptom of man's true lacking nature. Thus, woman and her repressed nature serve as both the foundation for andthe threat to male subjectivity.

II
Before I move on to a detailed reading of La Galatea and its eruptions of feminine specificity in the form of a female community, it is important to point out how the narrative technique that Cervantes borrows from the Byzantine tradition opens the door for the creation of an independent and flourishing female community in La Galatea. Known for its use of multiple story lines which intersect and come together with the main frame of action, the Byzantine structurewas imitated by pastoralists from Jorge de Montemayor on. Heliodorus's HistoriaEtipica, which would later on be one of the main sources of inspiration for the Persiles,plays an important role in the way in which Spanish pastoralism, and especially Cervantes's Galatea, reformulates the pastoral tradition. While in most pastoral texts intercalated tales are told in an orderly manner, Cervantes chooses to take this narrative strategy to its limits, continually interrupting the tales' progression, spreading out their development throughout the text. Or, as Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce has explained, "A semejanza de Montemayor, el antiguo artificio de las historias intercaladasle sirve a Cervantes para creartodo un sistema solar poetico, aunque con mayor variedad y rigor," highlighting the "pulso de la periodicidad tan apresurado" and the "injertos tan disimiles" which Cervantes indulges in (233).

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Many of La Galatedsnumerous female charactersrelate tales of love, as do their male counterparts.While in the Dianathese stories were told in an orderly and succinct manner, Cervantes chooses to interrupt their continuity, spreading out their development throughout the text. For example, Silerio's account of his loyalty to his friend Timbrio and love for Nisida first appears in Book II and is not resolved until Book V.Likewise, many of the women's tales are dispersed throughout and told in increasingly complicated accounts that expand into both the past and present. In addition, as Pilar F Cafiadas-Greenwood has argued, there are substantial and distinct differences between the ways in which male and female stories develop and are subsequently told under the rhetorical strategy of the "discreteo" or "conversacion amorosa" (51). For example, Cafiadas-Greenwood sees a marked difference between the systematic way in which male stories are told in contrast to feminine tales, "historias que se complican ..., se alargan o acortan ..., aparecen y desaparecen. .., distrayendo y entreteniendo a la vez" (55). Most importantly, Cafiadas-Greenwood points out the distinct strategies through which male and female identities are created in the discursive act of telling one's life story in La Galatea.If male characters tell similar stories and strive to establish common discursive strategies and likenesses between them, female characters adopt varied discursive positions that frequently are opposed to the personality traits of other female characters: sino de sus no Lasmujeres s6lo relatan historias manera diferente, en diferente el de se de queel objeto su "discreteo" codifica manera su de sea belleza, en la manera y perfecta expresar admiraci6n su

estarpreocupados Mientras los hombres discursopastoril. parecen que con el tema de la perfecci6n- sea en el culto al ideal extremode la

emoci6n-, las pastoras(que son objetode la definici6nideal de los afectosy pasiones)se expresan mediode estrategias sentimientos, por ret6ricas personalesque estan lejosde coincidircon el paradigma y de perfecci6n.(55)

For example, Galatea is extremely discreet and esquiva, while other women focus on pursuing their love interests.Cafadas-Greenwood thus concludes that even if both sexes extensively use discourse to structure their identities, female charactersemploy multiple and varied strategies to achieve this goal:
Laconclusi6npareceser la siguiente:la variedade intensidadde los sentimientos afectivos expresados ordenadamentepor los poetas pastores, tiene un correspondiente en los modelos sicol6gicos femeninos. Asi como hay un compendio de virtudes en la DISCRECI6N, el centro de la esencia femenina consta de una

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multiplicidadde propiedades. La complejidadde personalidades femeninasa su vez se reflejaen la ingeniosidad de sus discursos. Mientrasque los personajes masculinos son casi uniformemente receptivos,preocupadospor el efecto de su expresi6nen perfectoy las son justoequilibrio, figurasfemeninas masmultifaceticas, aplican y el "discreteo" para expresar,a su maneradiferente, la variedad y de genuinacomprensi6n los sentimientos.(58)

Beyond this difference in the development of male and female individualidentities, I would argue that there is also an important discrepancy in how groupidentityis established in the text through the telling of the intercalatedtales. Whereas by the end of La Galatea male characthe ters have all been joined under the rubricof "enamorados,"female characters never attempt to achieve the same degree of discursive or psychological homogeneity. It is therefore my opinion that Cervantes's intensified and somewhat chaotic use of the Byzantine narrative structure of intercalated tales in his pastoral text is pivotal to the representation of women, since it allows a textual space where female community can legitimately exist. Regardless of their different attitudes towards love and social propriety,female characters in La Galatea listen to each other, fully accepting the ways in which they have each chosen to exist within the pastoral space. Their community is thus inclusive of varied perspectives, much unlike the sameness of perspective found among the male lovers. Galatea, a mujerdiscretaand esquivaestablishes her desire to remain untouched by love in her first appearance in the text. Confronted with Elicio's pleas, Galatea assures him that her acknowledgment of his suffering would lower her value as an individual: "Enmenos me tendria yo si en mas le tuviese" (206; bk. 1). As Alban Forcione has pointed out, Galatea "muestra la firmeza de una mujer que percibe claramente que hay posibilidades de degradacion en toda obediencia a las reglas y la ret6rica del cortejo que adoptan sus interlocutores masculinos" (1016). her Nevertheless, Galatea's discrecion, desire to not be objectified, is used by her lovers as a way of structuring their own self-worth as loyal and virtuous lovers: "la afirmacion de independencia de Galatea es interpretadaforzadamente por sus admiradores dentro de una mitologia de amatoria tradicional y su ret6rica correspondiente" (Forcione 1017). Thus, Galatea's attempt to be recognized as an independent and desiring subject utterly fails as she remains the fully idealized object of Elicio and Erastro'schaste desire. Her failure to be acknowledged as a subject is sealed when in Book V it is announced that Galatea's father, Aurelio, is going to marry her to a foreigner and she ultimately is forced to seek Elicio's help in order to block her father's wishes. By Book VI, Galatea

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unwillingly relinquishes her initial defiance of Elicio's objectifying gaze and, with her request for help, presents all the male lovers in the text with a perfect occasion to prove and improve their individual and collective narcissistic self-identities as sacrificial and loyal lovers. Given the inherent danger of objectificationin her relations with men, Galatea establishes the importance of communion with other women. As the central female characterof the text, she sets a tone early on in the text by seeking out and preferring the company of other shepherdesses. In her first encounter with Elicio and Erastroit is clear that even though she does not despise their company she would rather spend time with her friend Florisa:
Yote prometo, Elicio, no porhuirde tu compafiani de la de Erastro que he vueltodel caminoque tu imaginas llevaba,porquemi intenci6n que es pasarhoy la siesta en el arroyode las Palmas,en compaiiiade mi amigaFlorisa,que alla me aguarda,porquedesde ayer concertamos bk. las dos de apacentar alii nuestrosganados.(205-6; 1) hoy

Although her story is mocked by her admirers, Galatea moves on and finds Florisa, "de la cual fue con alegre rostrorecebida como aquella que era su amiga verdadera y con quien Galatea sus pensamientos comunicaba"(208;bk. 1). Fromthis encounter on, the two will constantly
meet up with other women, unconditionally accepting new members into their inner circle with whom they will share their stories, even if

that Galatea and they do not conform to the same standard of discrecidn Florisa chose for their own relations with their male counterparts.

position as object of desire, as a phallus for her lover. Yet, hopeful of becoming a subject beyond her status as mirror for Artidoro's self-im-

One example, among many, of the tolerant nature of the female comis munity in La Galatea the way in which Galatea and Florisa accept and Teolinda's desperate search for her lover. Teolinda, initially a support mujeresquiva,falls in love with a shepherd, Artidoro, and assumes her age, Teolindaembarksin an aggressive pursuit of her lover.At first,afraid
of how "los ociosos ojos y lenguas parleras" might damage her reputation, her many conversations with Artidoro are maintained with "recato, secreto y honestidad" (240; bk. 2). Nonetheless, aware of Artidoro's impending departure, Teolinda endangers the reputation she had valued of losing her lover overrides that of private and public embarrassment: Yasi,despuesquemisojosdieronlicencia los suyosamorosamente que me mirasen,no estuvieronquedas las lenguas ni dejaronde mostrar con palabraslo que hasta entonces por sefias los ojos habianbien

so highly and decides to publicly confess her love to Artidoro. The risk

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sola con claramente hallandome conArtidoro, sefiales manifestado... me el deunencendido y comedimiento, descubri6 verdadero amor y entonces hacer la de honesto amor metenia; aunque quisiera yo que y, comoya os he dicho,queel se retirada melindrosa, temia, porque y ni no por y partiese, quisedesdeflarle despedirle;tambien parecealne en de quelossinsabores se dany sienten el principio losamores que soncausa queabandonen dejen comenzada la de los y empresa que ensussucesos sonmuyexperimentados. no tal Yporesto ledirespuesta deab ddrsela, en concertados que1e en cualyo quedando resoluci6n, se fuesea su aldea,y que,de allia pocosdias,conalguna honrosa me bk. mediania enviase pedirporesposaa mispadres. a (240-1; 2; mine) emphasis Teolinda manipulates the situation, confessing her love and arranging for her matrimony.Above all she does not seem to want to engage in the usual pastoral pattern of demure love and its poetic expression. In other words, she disregards her pastoral lover's desire for an abstracted and idealized lady; she ceases to be the object her the pastoral lover would expect. Instead, she wants a fully realized marriage and, I would argue, full recognition from and contact with a husband; not an idealistic relationship with the typical distant poet lover found in traditional pastoral texts. In Cervantes's pastoral space, feminine reputation is an issue that cannot be elided and that conditions each of the female characters'behavior. Therefore,the significance of Teolinda's meetings with Artidoro and her public affirmation of her desire should not be taken lightly. Her assertiveness goes beyond the limits of proper behavior in La Galatea, and Cervantes plays with this transgression when Leonarda,Teolinda's identical sister, first meets up with Artidoro. In a case of mistaken identity, Leonarda chastises Teolinda for Artidoro's audaciousness: "apenas podia formar palabrapara responderle, pero al fin respondi de la suerte que su atrevimiento merecia, y cual a mi me pareci6 que estabades vos, hermana, obligada a responder a quien con tanta libertad os hablara" (243; bk. 2). Teolinda's willing compliance, revealed by Artidoro's actions and words, are interpreted by Leonarda as a violation of proper feminine behavior. Her active desire not only transgresses Cervantes's more "realistic"representation of pastoral society, but also the ideals of abstracted Beauty and discretion expounded by pastoral ideology. Teolinda oversteps her boundaries as the object of Artidoro's desire and pays for it with his disappearance from her life. In contrast to Galatea, Teolinda chooses to deal with her status as object of desire in a radically different manner. While Galatea resists her lovers' advances, Teolinda aggressively assumes her role as object (and

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hopeful subject)of her lover's desire. It thereforecan be argued that while Galatea seeks to be recognized as a subject by not complying with her lovers' advances, Teolindaseeks to be recognized as a subject by wholly accepting Artidoro's 'love' (by being, as best she can, a phallus for her lover) andseeking equality in marriage.Although there are weddings in pastoral texts (for example, the marriages performed in the last scene of the Diana or Daranio and Silveria's wedding in La Galatea), marriage as a fully realized social institution is not a part of pastoral society. Marriage unions do not easily fit into an ideology of love which is structured around the absence of the beloved other.Thus, I would argue that in Teolinda'simpetuous arrangementof her own engagement to Artidoro she seeks an alternative to the standard distanced pastoral relations between men and women, and perhaps a way to affirm herself as subject beyond her lover's objectification. Unfortunately, this is a goal that Teolinda never achieves given that her lover immediately disappears from her life as soon as she openly declares her love. In spite of the differencebetween Galatea'sand Teolinda'sapproaches to affirming their identities, Galatea and Florisa never once retreatfrom supporting Teolinda. From their first encounter, Teolinda is welcomed and never judged negatively for her actions. Even though Galatea and Florisa have never experienced love or wish to become involved with any of their own suitors, they fully identify with their new friend's disappointment and desperation now that Teolindafinds herself abandoned by her lover: las la Contantas pastora palabras acompafiabaenamorada l4grimas de coraz6n aceroquiende ellasno se quedecfa,quebientuviera eran GalateaFlorisa, naturalmente decondici6n doliera. piadosa, y que con ni las detener suyas, menos nopudieron dejaron, lasmasblandas de dandole consejo razones pudieron consolarla, por que y eficaces ... bk. dias algunos en sucompafifa (249; 2) quese estuviese Faced with Teolinda'ssad state of affairs("lacual iba tan tristey pensativa que era maravilla" [250;bk. 2]), Galatea and Florisa try to console and entertain her (250;bk. 2). They even help her in her search for Artidoro by hiding her from villagers of Teolinda's aldeawho could tell her family where she can be found (379-80;bk. 3). Throughout Teolinda's evolving tale, Galatea and Florisa remain completely loyal, not only supporting her but also urging her to come back and let them know how her search for Artidoro has been resolved. Eventually,she does return only to inform them how, in another case of mistaken identity and deceit, Leonarda(Teolinda'ssister) has fooled Artidoro into marrying her, causing Teolinda to lose all hope.7 Even when faced with the incredibly con-

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voluted outcome of Teolinda's story, Galatea and Florisa do not offer any criticismor mock her situation and instead try to console their friend: "y aunque [las lenguas de] Galateay Florisa quisieron mostrarse expertas y elocuentes en consolarla, fue de poco efecto su trabajo"(619;bk. 6). As far as the text tells us, Teolindastays with Galatea and Florisa to live out her sorrow. But unlike the male community which expects all its members to be constant and suffering lovers and to hold Love as their common idol, Galatea and Florisa never once ask Teolinda to change her ways. They accept Teolinda's desire and even advocate her search for her lover. In a marked difference from the male community, the three women accept each other's position vis-a-vis male desire, sharing their experiences without the requirementsof homogeneity or self-same identification. Another example of the ways in which Galatea and Florisa are accepting and contribute to the formation of multiple subject positions within their female community is the case of Rosaura.A woman in love with a man who had made love promises but is now engaged to be married with another, Rosaura follows her lover Grisaldo to Galatea's village and forces him to rectify his error and vow to marry her instead. Initially,although Rosaura loved Grisaldo she refused to confess it, acting as a perfectly demure object for her lover. When she finds out about his possible engagement with another, Rosaura pretends to be in love with Artandro, an Aragonese man. She is, as Freud would explain, acting as a narcissistic woman, flattered to be the object of multiple men's desire, hoping to access phallic power through them. Grisaldo, confused and angered by Rosaura's behavior, becomes engaged to Leopersia at his father's insistence. Once Grisaldo is engaged, Rosaura's own father decides to give her hand to Artandro. Rosaura, afraid of losing Grisaldo and unwilling to comply with her father's decision decides to openly pursue Grisaldo and call upon his word and honor. When Galatea, Florisa, and Teolinda first come into contact with Rosaura, she has fled her father's house and they witness her determined pleas for Grisaldo's loyalty and his promise of marriage: "Considera, Grisaldo, que en nobleza no te debo nada, y que en riqueza no te soy desigual, y que te aventajo en la bondad del animo y en la firmeza de la fe. Cumpleme, sefior, la que me diste, si te precias de caballero y no te desprecias de cristiano" (386; bk. 4). When faced with Grisaldo's recriminations (she had many times refused his hand, tried to make him jealous by flirting with Artandro, and had told him to marry Leopersia when he informed her of his father's plans), Rosaura is devastated and tries to commit suicide in his presence. Grisaldo, shocked by the spectacle, accepts her pro-

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posal and promises her marriage. Witnesses to this emotional and explicitly manipulative episode, Galatea, Florisa, and Teolinda come out of their hiding to help Rosaura and Grisaldo. Grisaldo leaves to arrange the marriage with their fathers, and Rosaura is left with Galatea, Florisa, and Teolinda to wait for his news. Although Rosaura's story is a typical tale of the way in which love, deceit, and false pride can sometimes go hand in hand, Galatea's understanding and acceptance of Rosaura is remarkable given their differences. First of all, as a city dweller, Rosaura has assumed a pastoral costume in order to follow Grisaldo and stands apart from Galatea's native pastoral world. Also, she has dealt with love as a game to be played through trickery and false indifference, abilities that Galatea does not seem to possess. Finally, she pursues her lover and aggressively manipulates their encounter in order to achieve her goal, to be an ideal phallus for her lover, and regain Grisaldo's favor. If Galatea opts to defend her right to independence and singularity by ignoring her lovers' desires, Rosaura attempts to achieve the same recognition by constructing herself as the preferred object of multiple lovers. When this strategy backfires, Rosaura seeks to regain her stature with Grisaldo by openly offering her love and demanding the same in return. Regardless of the distinct, even contradictory, ways in which Galatea and Rosaura deal with their positions as objects of desire, Galatea accepts Rosaura and her relationship with Grisaldo enthusiastically, and offers to bring Rosaura into her home until Grisaldo's return, disregarding the not so discreet behavior of both lovers: No mas,no mas,sefiores, que,adondeandanlas obrastanverdaderas, Lo no hande tenerlugarlos demasiadoscomedimientos. que restaes rogaral Cieloque traigaa dichosofin estos pricpios, y que en largay saludable goceisvuestrosamores.Yen lo que dices,Grisaldo, que paz Rosauravenga a nuestraaldea, es tanta la mercedque en ello nos haces,que nosotrasmismaste lo suplicamos.(392;bk.4) Galatea's acceptance of the situation is so sincere that Rosaura responds, "no sentire mucho la ausencia de Grisaldo estando en vuestra compaifa" (392; bk. 4). If Rosaura had found in Grisaldo's renewed proposal of marriage the satisfaction of her desire as a lover, object, and hopeful subject, she finds in Galatea an unconditional acceptance that disregards all differences in their approach towards specificity and subjectivity. Regardless of Rosaura's individual trajectory as the problematic object of Grisaldo's desire, she finds in Galatea and her companions a place of belonging and solace. This statement cannot be made of pastoral male communities which depend on the identical behavior of their members as suffering lovers and poets in order to prosper.

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Similarly, Gelasia's extreme esquivez,Nisida's rational approach to love, Blanca'shumble acceptance of her fate in love, and Leonarda's cruelty and deceit are all accepted as part of the multiplicity of feminine behavior by the text's female community,and never criticized or mocked by Galatea or her fellow female companions. Thus, I would argue that one of the ways in which La Galatea questions traditional pastoral paradigms is the space it allows for a female community that exists in stark contrast to its masculine counterpart. The male pastoral community is structured on the assumption that all community members are virtuous lovers and poets. This identification is further strengthened through the common idolization of Love and Beauty,with the figure of woman as an idealized object as its representative or its common ideal. Thus, within the pastoral masculine community alternative forms of identity or identification are not allowed. The desamorado, lustful savage, or the unthe chaste lover/poet do not belong and either have to be transformed or eliminated for the community to survive. Homogeneity is the rule of the group and all deviations are rejectedand despised. Tothe contrary, Galatedsfemale characterscoexist and form a tightly La knit community that seems not to need a mutual identification among its membersbased on the concept of the same. As argued, Galatea,Florisa, Teolinda, Rosaura and all the women with which they come in contact have little in common. Galatea and Florisa share their aversion to the traps of idyllic love and strive to affirm their individuality by rejecting the shepherds'advances. In contrast,characterslike Rosauraand Teolinda assert their desire to be recognized within a love relationship and aggressively seek out their lovers. Nonetheless, they all come together in what appears to be a leaderless community, which does not possess a fixed prototype for self-identification. Neither Love, Beauty, nor Honor is abstracted in order to serve as a common ideal.8 Instead, what seems to unite these female charactersis their common desire to gain recognition as subjects and their willingness to tell and listen to each others' tales. If much of the activity in the masculine community is centered around the poetic reconceptualization of their stotend to be much more prosaic, interested not ries, women in La Galatea in the removed and lyrical representation of their suffering, but in the immediate sharing of their actions and their motivations through storytelling. Both groups construct subjectivity through language. Nevertheless, I would argue that the notable absence of lyrical interludes in the development of the female characters'stories highlights their lack of preoccupation with a highly aesthetic reformulationof their experiences. Female charactersallow others to tell their particularstories, not expect-

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ing or requiringall their tales to share common themes and conventions or to be part of one homogeneous community practice. Invoking Tamsin Lorraine's concept of fusion, I would propose that female community in La Galatea stands as an example of the possibility of a community where subject relations are based on allowing the other the status of subject, or letting that other set its own boundaries of meaning. Cervantes's female community achieves "fusion" through the suspension of self-same identifications and the "oscillation of perspectives that finally ends in merging both [subjects] without losing either" (Lorraine97). Never expecting to be identical and always accepting of each other's particularsubject positions (or chosen boundaries of meaning), La Galateasfemale community is an important contrast to the prevailing pastoral ideology of male anaclitic love and group identification. By proposing a feminine community as a viable alternative to male group identification, La Galatea permits an expression of feminine jouissancethat is not repressed by pastoral ideology and that is other to its symbolic representations. With this, Cervantes's text establishes the possibility of an unrepressed feminine specificity that is other to traditional pastoral conventions of self and community.Whereas in LaGalatea individual manifestations of feminine desire are ignored and/or repressed by the male charactersand the narrative voice, the female community, as an independent and dissimilar entity, thrives unrepressed by its masculine counterpart. Although in several occasions male characters invade this female communal space and insist on having the women join them, Galatea and her female companions always manage to regroup to share their varied stories and feelings. I propose that if there is in fact a place where a potentially self-sufficient feminine existence is it present in LaGalatea, is in the unrestrainedexistence of feminine friendship and its communal relations. The heterogeneous and nonconformist feminine community can be thereforeinterpreted characterof LaGalatea's as an opening within the pastoral symbolic structureto the realm of feminine fouissance. Regardless of the ways in which the male lover's objectify their beloved others, they are unable to understand or participate in the fluidity of female group relations. The potential for such a transgressive element within pastoralideology is considerableand Cervantes will further explore them in Don Quixote,where pastoralism is completely destabilized and refashioned by the unrestrained presence of feminine characterswho are fully desiring subjects.

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Notes
1. For Freud's discussion on male subjectivity and narcissism see "On Narcissism: An Introduction." (Trans.and Ed. by James Strachey. StandardEdition, vol. XIV. New York: Norton, 1961). For Freud's ideas on community and group identity see "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego." SE, vol. XVIII. For Freud's development of the concept of sublimation see "Civilization and its Discontents." SE, vol. XXI. 2. The difference between anaclisis (male narcissism) and narcissism in women is established by Freud in the second chapter of "Narcissism: An Introduction," 82-91. 3. Elizabeth Grosz describes Freud and Lacan's concept of feminine narcissism as follows: "[Thewoman] retains her position as the object of the other's desire only through artifice, appearance, or dissimulation. Illusion, travesty, make-up, the veil, become the techniques she relies upon to both cover over and make visible her 'essential assets.' They are her means of seducing or enticing the other, of becoming a love-object for him. While concealing her 'deficiency' by these means, she also secures a mode of access to the phallic" (132). The basic irony of this attempt by women is double: not only are their efforts to be seen as 'special', as a subject, among all the objects not realized but also access to the phallic is never attained given the real lack at the core of the lover. 4. Tamsin E. Lorraineexplains woman's position as follows: "She can only parody a power that is really not hers to wield. The self that she lost with the loss of fusion [in the mirror stage] can be maintained only passively by her finding subjects to whom she can be an other. Instead of actively repeating the self she formed in fusion in a layering of identifications according to the rules of the Symbolic order, she will take on the position of the sex that lacks... she will find her identity by mirroring others' wholeness back to them, letting them define her by being the lack, the hole, that their 'wholeness' fills" (68). 5. For a detailed discussion of this concept see Lacan's "God and the Jouissanceof The Woman. A Love Letter,"137-161. 6. J. Laplanche and J. B. Pontalis explain the existence of symptoms as follows: "Repressed material not only escapes destruction, it also has a permanent tendency to reemerge into consciousness. It does so by more or less devious routes, and through the intermediary of secondary formations -'derivations of the unconscious'-which are unrecognizable to a greater or lesser degree." (The Languageof Psychoanalysis,Trans. by Donald Nicholson-Smith, New York:Norton, 1973:398) 7. Leonarda had fallen in love with Galercio, Artidoro's identical brother, but since Galercio does not love her she decides to substitute one brother with the other and fool Artidoro into marrying her by pretending to be Teolinda (618; bk. 6). 8. In the Diana I cannot find the same type of diverse yet united feminine community. Although for much of the text, for example, Selvagia, Felismena and Belisa share the space with Felicia's nymphs, the two groups never are conceived as one unit. The three shepherdesses are lovers while the nymphs exist under Felicia's tutelage as followers of the chaste goddess Diana. Even though the two groups treat each other with great admiration and much sympathy, it is made clear that Felicia's world is separate and that the nymphs will never fully understand or share the other women characters' experiences.

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Works Cited
PilarF "Lasmujeres la semanticade LaGalatea." en Cervantes Caiiadas-Greenwood, and the Pastoral. Cleveland: Penn State U., 1986.51-61. Ed. Cervantes,Miguel de. LaGalatea. by FranciscoL6pez Estradaand MariaTeresa Madrid:Catedra,1995. L6pez Garcia-Berdoy. Forcione, Alban. "Cervantes:Una pastoral autentica." Nueva Revistade Filologa Hispdnica XXXVI,no. 2 (1988):1011-1043. Works SigmundFreud. StandardediFreud,Sigmund. TheComplete of Psychological tion. Ed. and trans.JamesStrachey.24 vols. London: Hogarth, 1953-74. . "Contributions the Psychologyof Love:ASpecialType of ObjectChoice to Made by Men (1910)."Sexualityand the Psychology Loze.Ed. by Philip Rieff. of New York:Macmillan, 1963. chologyofLove.Ed. by Philip Rieff.New York:Macmillan, 1963.
. "The Passing of the Oedipus-Complex (1924)." Sexuality and the Psy-

Grosz, Elizabeth. Jacques Lacan.A feminist introduction. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990. of Lacan,Jacques. "God and the Jouissance The Woman.A Love Letter."Feminine Trans.by JacquelineRose.Ed. by JulietMitchelland JacquelineRose. Sexuality. New York: Norton, 1985. . "TheMeaning of the Phallus."Feminine Sexuality.Trans.by Jacqueline Rose. Ed. by Juliet Mitchell and JacquelineRose. New York:Norton, 1985. Lorraine, Tamsin E. Gender,Identity,and the Productionof Meaning. Boulder: Westview, 1990.