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  • The Literature of Jealousy in the Age of Cervantes
  • Rosa Helena Chinchilla
Steven Wagschal . The Literature of Jealousy in the Age of Cervantes. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2007. x + 220 pp. index. bibl. $39.95. ISBN: 978–0–8262–1696–0.

A coherent theme of jealousy ties the seven chapters that encompass the works of Lope de Vega, Cervantes, and Góngora. Different genres — theater, short story, romance novel, short poems, and a mythological fable — are all treated with expertise by Steven Wagschal. Foremost in Wagschal's analysis is to show how jealousy is at the core of political and cultural problems involving power. Wagschal is most convincing in tracing how the rhetoric "links issues of race, class, gender, morality, epistemology and aesthetics" (189).

In chapter 1 Wagschal traces the epistemological origins of jealousy in honor plays. A close analysis of male protagonists filled with vengeful jealousy in Lope de Vega's plays Amor secreto hasta los celos, Arminda celosa, Los comendadores de Córdoba, and Peribañez y el Comendador de Ocaña. Spanish Golden Age honor is strongly linked to the highest social classes. Those protagonists who aspire to honor usually gain social stature. He concludes that these plays reinforce the legitimization of power.

In chapter 2 female jealousy and power are seen in a comparative analysis with chapter 1, again of Lope de Vega's plays: Arminda celosa, El perro del hortelano, and El castigo sin venganza. Only women of the upper classes are treated in these plays, and consequently, as Wagschal makes clear in his conclusions, his study pertains only to one social class. Woman for Lope de Vega is conceived as "the irrational within the text" (62). Lope de Vega's plays present a conservative reading of women as unsuitable rulers. Wagschal concludes his analysis of the theatrical genre with a discussion of the imagery of jealousy in two plays: a comedy, La discreta enamorada, and a tragedy, El castigo sin venganza.

Chapter 4 shifts to a discussion of Cervantes' equally varied use of the theme of jealousy, and focuses on the novella "The Jealous Extremaduran" from the Exemplary Novels. Wagschal examines the overarching figure of Carrizales as representative of male jealousy. Wagschal interprets the Carrizales as a crypto-Jew. The anti-Semitism, arguably endemic in early seventeenth-century Spain, is disconcerting to readers familiar with Cervantes' possible converso heritage, as argued by some scholars. Wagschal concludes that Carrizales represents a cultural stereotype that contradicts the logic of the honor code.

Chapter 5 focuses on Cervantes' Persiles, the posthumous Byzantine novel, after a brief overview of many possible episodes in Don Quixote. The broader [End Page 1339] subject of jealousy as a marker of possession and protection transforms the vice into virtue by the conclusion and the main character Persiles' "idealized human love becomes more true to life in this allegorical Christian novel" (135). It is a pity that Wagschal chose not to comment on Don Quixote's important female characters, such as the Duchess or Claudia Jerónima, in light of the themes of jealousy and the irrationality of strong-willed female characters.

Chapter 6 shifts focus to an analysis of Góngora's "Qué de envidiosos montes levantados," a poem that traces the complexity of Vulcan's jealousy toward Venus. Wagschal reflects on the treatment of this adulterous theme in paintings by Veronese and Tintoretto, as well as important prints on this well-known mythological theme in comparison to Góngora's treatment that Wagschal proves to be most original. Wagschal concludes "Góngora's more complex treatment, based on incongruous iconographic juxtaposition, corresponds to the Vulcan-subject's conflicted desire" (156). Chapter 7 concludes the analysis of Góngora with various short poems as backdrop to the analysis of the "Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea," his best-known mythological fable. Wagschal follows Robert Jammes's important study on Góngora. He concludes that Góngora describes almost exclusively the male emotional experience of jealousy.

At times Wagschal's study reflects on the honor code as portrayed in moments of jealous emotion. Several chapters provide more nuanced readings of well-known texts. Wagschal is most successful when tackling little-studied...

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