The Perfect King/El rey más perfecto (review)

Reviews115 society and thus did not alienate his audience" (134-35). Nevertheless, Rissel insists correctly that it is Moreto's exceptionally passionate and lifelike presentations of the female protagonist which most appealed to the French dramatists, indicated by their changing the titles of Moreto's plays to highlight the female role rather than the male's dramatic ruse to win her. Where Rissel stumbles is in the persistent use ofthe terms ofcourtly love and Neoplatonism to describe the romantic entanglements constructed by Moreto. Neither vogue has anything at all to do with the mutual sexual attraction of two similarly disposed young people who have no intention to grow socially or intellectually, which is the typical New Comedy structure described so well by Northrop Frye forty years ago in The Anatomy of Criticism and A Natural Perspective, and which Moreto accommodates to the social strictures ofaristocratic comportment. Despite some minor errata in editing and an uneven bibliographic style, Rissel's book has valuable observations on both Moreto and his French adapters that extend the comparative analysis ofthe two initiated in the last century by A. de Puibusque and E. Martinenche, but that recent scholars inexplicably neglected. David H Darst Florida State University Enriquez Gómez, Antonio. The Perfect King/El rey másperfecto. Introduction , edition, and translation by Michael McGaha. Tempe, Arizona: Bilingual Press, 1991. Paper, lxiv + 163 pp. In a 1957 article Charles Aubrun suggested that the prolific but long-neglected converso author Antonio Enriquez Gómez (1601-1663) merited scholarly attention. A few years later, LS. Révah, a scholar of Iberian marranism , published a preliminary biography of Enriquez which detailed the persecution of the author's family, his self-exile to France, and his clandestine return to Spain. Révah established that Enriquez spent the last decade of his life in Seville hiding from the Inquisition under a variety of aliases, one of which was Fernando de Zarate, to whom some 28 comedias were attributed . Révah's work was continued by his pupil, Charles Amiel, who in 1977 edited the Siglo pitagòrico y vida de don Gregorio Guadaña. In the 70s and 80s, Enriquez Gómez attracted attention primarily with regard to the question of how marrano or how Catholic the writer was. However, re- 776BCom, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Summer 1997) cently there has been a diminution of interest in Enriquez Gómez, largely, I believe, because the polemic over his crypto-Judaism has been settled. The scholar responsible for settling the question is Michael McGaha, certainly the foremost authority on Antonio Enriquez Gómez. McGaha's numerous studies offer detailed analysis ofimportant documents relating to the writer's life and works. To McGaha, also, is due the credit for revealing his sources in refreshing contrast to the secretiveness of the French investigators . In the informative introduction to The Perfect King, McGaha synthesizes what is known ofEnriquez's life and works to 1991. Interested scholars will wish to consult McGaha's subsequent work, particularly "Who was Francisco de Villegas" (The Golden Age Comedia, eds. C. Ganelin and H. Mancing, Purdue U P, 1994, 165-77), which presents evidence suggesting that Villegas was yet another of the Enriquez aliases, thus expanding the corpus by 1 1 more plays. McGaha dispels the notion of the author's life-long crypto-Judaism, arguing that Enriquez resolved his questions through Jansenism: "His [Enriquez 's] La culpa del primero peregrino (1644). ... is nothing less than a Jansenist catechism in verse" (xxxi). Regarding the large number of Catholic plays under the Zarate alias, which some critics have considered of dubious sincerity, McGaha notes that "Enriquez saw no contradiction between devout Christianity and pride in his Jewish heritage" (xlvi). It is one of the Zarate plays that McGaha has chosen to edit and translate . The comedia combines religion and good governance, two ofEnriquez Gomez's favorite topics. According to McGaha, The Perfect King was probably commissioned to celebrate the feast of St. Ferdinand on May 30, 1656, in Seville. Enriquez dramatizes his concept of the ideal king in the life ofthe saint-king who returned Seville to Christian control in 1248. McGaha relates the portrayal ofKing Ferdinand to the dramatist's...