Review

Reviewed Work(s): Rewriting the Italian Novella in Counter-Reformation Spain by Carmen

R. Rabell
Review by: David H. Darst
Source: Hispania, Vol. 88, No. 1 (Mar., 2005), pp. 124-125
Published by: American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20063089
Accessed: 21-02-2018 00:59 UTC

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 124 Hispania 88 March 2005
protagonists who become authors themselves, thereby inverting traditional narratives and
breaking social norms.
Catherine Jaffe points out that Martin Gaite has made a significant contribution to women's
history. Martin Gaite shows that women's behavior is patterned on the literature they read and that
gender is a cultural production. Her subjective approach to writing history illustrates her empathy
with the predicament of women of the past.
Patrick Garlinger examines Martin Gaite's acts of intimacy, such as reading, which is akin to
making friends. Books are personified, and the intimacy experienced by the reader is comforting,
but uncontrollable. The responsibility inherent in intimacy is the author's contribution to the
ethics of literature.
In an epilogue, editor Rol?n Collazo summarizes the themes and critical approaches used in
this book of essays and likens Martin Gaite's writing to a three-sphered kaleidoscope rich with
oxymorons and folded in ambiguity. She compares the work of "la Scheherezade salmantina" to
a symphony, inviting musicians (readers) to interpret it.
The editors have assembled a set of insightful essays by eminent scholars who address dif
ferent facets of Martin Gaite's writings. The unique perspective of each essay is a square in a quilt
that tells the tale of the author's literary life, a visualization of her never-ending story. After
reading this book, readers are eager to pick up an instrument?one of Martin Gaite's novels?and
play the symphony to create their own never-ending story.
Jana Sandarg
Augusta State University

Rabell, Carmen R. Rewriting the Italian Novella in Counter-Reformation Spain. Woodbridge

(UK): T?mesis, 2003. Pp. 171. ISBN 1-85566-092-X.

Judicial cases have formed part of the popular tale since the earliest written examples in India and
Persia. They thrived in Greece and Rome, and populated the literary Iberian Middle Ages in Latin,
Arabic, and Castilian versions. Boccaccio and the Italian Renaissance writers gave the tales based
on judicial cases their modern form by extending the plot, multiplying the participants, de
veloping dialogue, and including extraneous material such as poems, skits, pageants, and games.
These Italian novellas were introduced into Spanish literature by Juan de Timoneda in 1567, four
years after the close of the Council of Trent, which reformulated many social codes, especially
those regarding marriage.
Rabell's study begins at this crucial moment in Spanish letters and attempts to show the
various ways in which the Spanish forms of the genre explore, through the elaboration of judicial
cases, the contradictions between civil and canon law regarding marriage within the private space
of the home in order to suggest further contradictions within the public sphere of the State and the
Church. Rabell's first example is the Romeo and Juliet issue, explored by Bandello ( 1554), a 1603
translation, and Diego de Agreda y Vargas in his Novelas morales (1620). Whereas Bandello
implicates the priest in the case, the Spanish renditions erase the complicity of the Church's
representative and shift the responsibility for the tragedy to the lovers, their parents, and an
apothecary. Another Agreda y Vargas tale, taken from Giraldi Cinthio's "Orbecche" (1565),
explores issues pertaining to civil power and international law as well as the marriage issue,
favoring the civil rights of the parents and State over the newly established canonical rights of the
woman. Yet another Italianate story, "C?mo han de ser los amigos" from El curial del Parnaso
(1624) by Mat?as de los Reyes, with a long tradition that runs from Seneca to Boccaccio and
Timoneda, presents a judicial case in which the right to consent in marriage, defended by the
Council of Trent, is accommodated to civil laws.
Rabell next examines judicial cases in original Spanish stories, specifically Cervantes's "El
celoso extreme?o" (1613), "El imposible vencido" (1637) and "La inocencia castigada" (1647)
by Zayas y Sotomayor, plus "El andr?gino" from Francisco de Lugo y D?vila's Teatro popular
(1622). All these tales tend to validate the new set of rules regarding courtship and marriage

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 Reviews 125
established by the Council of Trent, while at the same time pointing out the limitations re
the status and treatment of women and proposing means to correct the contradictions be
civil law, which support parental authority, and canon law, which favor the mutual consent
betrothed. Although this is the obvious posture of Cervantes in his tale, where, as Rabell a
"Cervantes appeals to the Catholic doctrine of free will in order to criticize the limited legal s
of women, while representing an extreme case in which a husband weakens his position
head of the household by fostering the infantilization of his wife" (115-16), Rabell inexpl
corrupts this assertion by insisting repeatedly that Carrizales is a veiled allegorical figure
than an onerous parody) of the Church, which oppressively censors and restricts the free
its members. This unsubstantiated view goes directly against Rabell's own conclusions abo
denouement (also used by Zayas in several of her tales) where "Leonora's refusal to marry
sa, together with her choice of a convent, are attempts to free herself from her legal bondage
under the tutelage of a new husband, or obeying the last will of Carrizales" (132-33). Za
all know, complains vociferously about the inequity of a society that perpetuates the le
salage of women, regardless of their ability to reason and articulate discourses, and incor
Catholic dictates concerning marriage "to envision a new woman who dies in a world of
tions and is resurrected as a full juridical person, emancipated from the tutelage of her f
(156-57). Lugo y D?vila, on the other hand, playfully manipulates the May-December m
cross-dressing, and forensic debates to present a comic version of "El celoso extreme?o"
140, n.29) in which the young couple emerges victorious and lives happily ever after. T
also, "like Cervantes y Zayas, employs the rhetoric of the ficticious case to underline the
diction between canon and civil laws regarding marriage, while suggesting that the expan
the juridical capacity of all women and young male adults is a necessary step towards secur
exercise of consent in marriage" (152).
The discussion of these tales is preceded by an interesting chapter on "The Theory o
Novella," which surveys the theoretical background, in particular the traditional rules of f
discourse and the comments of the Italian Francesco Bonciani (1574). Rabell also exa
closely Lugo y D?vila's attempt to establish a poetics for the Spanish form of the novella
brief "Introducci?n a las novelas" which precedes the tales in Teatro popular. Rabell's comm
throughout the book are exceptionally well annotated from a bibliography of 165 entries c
literature, women's issues, and case law.
David H. Darst
Florida State University

Savater, Fernando. Mira por donde. Madrid: Taurus, 2003. Pp. 424. ISBN: 84-30604-987.

Las memorias del m?s le?do de los fil?sofos y ensayistas espa?oles de hoy forman un texto
gen?ricamente mixto. La primera mitad del libro?la infancia?es caracter?sticamente autobio
gr?fica, mientras que el resto constituye una colecci?n de recuerdos y an?cdotas que sirven de
coartada para la expresi?n de un ideario o, como dir?an los marxistas cl?sicos, de una "ideolog?a."
Los tres ?ltimos cap?tulos (de los 41 en total), que tienen mucho de manifiesto c?vico-pol?tico,
poseen tambi?n un gran peso emocional.
En varias ocasiones el pensador vasco parece intuir que unas memorias ya no pueden consti
tuir?en estos tiempos de posmodernidad cansada?una forma convincente de presentar "la"
verdad inequ?voca sobre uno mismo. De ah? la protecci?n ret?rica de la auto-consciencia frecuen
temente manifestada en el texto: "por favor, que nadie espere cosas elevadas de m?, soy al?rgico
a las alturas encomi?sticas" (15). Hombre de profundas convicciones, y de variados gustos libres
cos, el escritor nos recuerda inteligentemente desde el principio..."?C?mo va a descubrir cu?l es
la clave o el sentido del mundo alguien tan bobo para creerse que lo ha descubierto, que puede
descubrirlo!" (16).
Los cap?tulos sobre la infancia poseen una capacidad de seducci?n narrativa relativamente
frecuente en las autobiograf?as modernas. Como en otros escritores espa?oles que han publicado

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