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

In Unfettering Confession: Ritualized Performance in Spanish 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, the author does contend that its primary model is religious and, specifically, Catholic: "Whether religious or secular, confession assumes a structure that imitates the Roman Catholic religious sacrament of penance" (11). This fact serves as a further justification for the book's exclusively Spanish corpus, because, given their Catholic heritage, "Spanish writers are predisposed to utilize confessional frames and refer to penitential scenes" (15). The author does not attempt to substantiate this assertion in any way, so one can only assume it remains at the level of speculation. Nevertheless, the reliance on the Catholic model does not seem to limit the relevance of Pace's thesis concerning the power relations revealed by focusing on confessions as an independent genre.

The real work of the book occurs in the readings Pace performs on a series of texts ranging from the early modern period to the early twentieth century. In each of these cases he tries to shows how the confessional structure establishes a hegemonic relationship between confessant and confessor, in which control is ultimately "strongest when the 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, mártir, Ramón Sender's Réquiem por un campesino español, and Lope de Vega's Fuente Ovejuna, among others. For reasons of space, I will focus these comments on his treatment of the two early modern texts.

Chapter 3, "Confession and Liberty," is dedicated to a reading of the intercalated novel "The Captive's Tale" from Don Quijote. At the 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 the tale itself within the framework of a religious act of confession, Pace argues that the cautivo, in telling Zoraida's story, is essentially serving as a proxy confessant for her, while the interlocutors, specifically Dorotea and Luscinda, assume "the role of joint confessor" (28). With this setup Pace can then proceed to claim that the "narrative of el cautivo is much more than an individual confession; it is a national confession that proclaims the superiority of the Spanish nation while advancing a subtle appeal for greater catholicity in terms of accepting minority groups" (29). Furthermore, the "combined speech acts produce a collective confession that suggests the universal attraction of Christianity and its superiority over Islam" (30).

To my mind, Pace's interpretive framework in this case has overwhelmed Cervantes's text. While he acknowledges a "subtle appeal" for greater toleration, there is no mention in his reading of the irony with which Cervantes so often treats professions of religious fervor and cultural supremacy. A weakness throughout the book but particularly acutely noticeable in this chapter, and one which may account for such an oversight, is the relative dearth of engagement with the enormous critical tradition around these canonical texts. The only scholar cited in the chapter on El Quijote, for instance, is Harry Sieber who, while doubtless one of the great authorities, is nonetheless far from the only voice with something to say on the matter. Claims...