Sex and Love in Golden Age Spain (review)

100BCom, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Summer 1998) Saint-Saëns, Alain, ed. Sex and Love in Golden Age Spain. New Orleans: UP ofthe South, 1996. 190 pp. This valuable anthology takes the Cultural Studies approach to early modern Spain to a logical conclusion by bringing together in one volume articles written by historians and literary scholars. Although the essays analyze many dimensions of early modern sexuality two trends are dominant: the exploration of female sexual agency in literary texts and the use of historical documents to investigate the expression and repression of unorthodox sexuality. In their studies of Inquisitorial documents, Alain Saint Saëns, Stephen Haliczer, and Rafael Carrasco form part of the new wave of historians who utilize these problematic documents in a non-positivist manner. Saint-Saëns investigates records concerning, not transgressive behavior, but expressions of unorthodox beliefs concerning sexual morality. His analysis (and his highly colloquial translations) highlight the unexpectedly bawdy nature of the sexual references in Inquisition documents. Rafael Carrasco also makes use ofthe explicit descriptions of illicit activity extracted by the inquisitors in his taxonomy of early modern homosexual prostitution. As both of these authors acknowledge, these two articles furnish preliminary data that require further investigation and analysis. In a particularly strong essay, Stephen Haliczer utilizes confession manuals and sermons as well as Inquisition records in order to document the post Tridentine church's sustained effort to repress interest in sexual pleasure. Haliczer documents the formation of a sexual subjectivity grounded in the policing of one's own transgressions —of the flesh and of the mind. Bernard Vincent provides further insight into the variety of strategies that repressive societies employ to control the bodies of differing classes of subjects with his examination of the patterns ofmatrimony and reproduction among slaves. In their analyses ofthe power ofwomen writers and feminist criticism to challenge early modern patriarchal notions ofwomen and sexuality, Teresa Soufas, Mary L. Thomas, and Patsy Boyer demonstrate the importance of dialogic and revisionary aesthetics in the works ofLeonor de la Cueva, Ana Caro, and María de Zayas. Soufas also studies the non-erotic dimension of early modern marriage as a vehicle through which females are used as objects of exchange in order to resolve political hostilities or personal rivalries ; her argument, while convincing, could have been further strengthened by consultation ofEve Sedgwick's study ofhomosociality, Between Men. The synergy produced by combining historical and literary study is best demonstrated in the essays ofRenato Barahona and Daniel Heiple. Baraho- Reviews101 na investigates estupro lawsuits, where female plaintiffs seek legal assistance in obtaining justice against men who seduced them with promises of marriage; these civil documents help to illuminate a central theme of Golden Age literature. Heiple revisits the disputes over the morality of "wife murder" plays through an examination of legal and theological disputes of the period concerning the circumstances in which a husband may take revenge upon an adulterous spouse. Heiple demonstrates that ambiguities found in such plays as El castigo sin venganza and El médico de su honra correspond to the uncertainties raised by the probabalistic philosophies of the era. Because this volume includes scholars from two different disciplines, there are differences in style and method of argumentation which can be disconcerting, as is the correct but not idiomatic English ofthe two translated articles. The division of the book into two sections based on thematic issues rather than genre is an editorial decision which highlights the complementary aspects oftwo branches of cultural study. For some readers a more conventional form of partition might seem preferable; however, these considerations do not detract from the high quality of this informative and insightful volume. Barbara Simerka University ofTexas, San Antonio Calderón de la Barca, Pedro. Andromeday Perseo. Ed. Rafael Maestre. Almagro : Museo Nacional del Teatro, 1994. 267 pp. & El Faetonte. Ed. R. Maestre. Madrid: Consejería de Educación y Cultura de la Comunidad de Madrid, 1996. 162 pp. Refiriéndose al estilo idealista del teatro calderoniano distinguía Valbuena Prat "una gran serie de dramas tomados de motivos históricolegendarios, completamente interpretados como asuntos fantásticos y de asuntos de la mitología." A grosso modo, dentro de este grupo de obras...