Visions of the New World in the Drama of Lope de Vega (review)

Reviews175 Shannon, Robert M. Visions ofthe New World in the Drama ofLope de Vega (New York, Peter Lang, 1989). Robert Shannon sets himself the task of "reveal[ing] the thought of Lope de Vega concerning the discovery, conquest, and colonization of America" (189). He considers Lope's three extant plays on American themes, El nuevo mundo descubierto por Cristóbal Colón, Arauco domado, and El Brasil restituido . Shannon feels that it is to Lope's credit that he wrote as much as he did about American themes, for, as Shannon maintains, the conflicts, contradictions and controversies surrounding the conquest and colonization of America generally caused Golden Age dramatists to shy away from treating this Spanish enterprise in proportion to its national importance. Professor Shannon's volume is an interesting pastiche which offers something for several different audiences. Lopistas, as well as Latin Americanists concerned with sixteenth and seventeenth century perceptions of the New World, will be interested in Shannon's exposition of how Lope clearly subordinates and manipulates history to serve his dramatic ends. Scholars involved with the questions of sources and dates for Lope's plays will find sensitive and well-argued additions to the debates concerning these three plays, especially regarding the dating of the Arauco domado and the probable sources for El Brasil restituido. The material in the first half of chapter one is well-known historical background that could appeal to a general audience were it not for the quotations in fifteenth through seventeenth century Spanish; this chapter deals with the birth of Imperial Spain, parallels between the Reconquest and the conquest of America, the religious and material motivations of the conquistadores, the system of encomiendas, the Requerimiento, and the Las Casas/Sepúlveda debate concerning the nature of the American "Indians," as well as the more recondite, but still generally interesting jurisprudential philosophy of Fr. Francisco Vitoria's Relecciones, especially that which addresses the subject of the just war. Each of the remaining chapters deals with one of the plays under study. Shannon is convincing when he disagrees with past attempts at dating the Arauco domado (he considers those of Morley and Bruerton, of Menéndez Pelayo, of Medina, and of Juan M. Corominas); Shannon dates this play between 1607-1609. Shannon's contributions to the discussion of Lope's sources for El Brasil restituido are also intriguing and plausible. After reviewing what Menéndez Pelayo, Gino de Solenni and Martínez Torrón have said about Lope's possible sources, Shannon provides a detailed argument to suggest that Lope did not follow a single source, as has been previously believed, but rather 176BCom, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Summer 1992) the accounts of two writers, Francisco de Avendaño y Vilela and Joâo de Madeiros Correia. Shannon finds that the central theme of all three plays considered is the same, "the necessity of evangelization and conversion." By examining Lope's departures from his historical sources, Shannon establishes how the plays portray a consistent conviction about the spiritual role that Spain must play in America; the motivation of gold and personal glory, which are clearly present in his sources, are greatly attenuated by Lope in these works, subordinated to the religious facet of conquest and colonization. Shannon concludes that Lope's opinions on several of the thorny issues surrounding the New World debate (such as whether or not the indigenous population had ever knowingly pledged allegiance to the Spanish Crown, which would have made any resistance to Spain treasonous) were "conflictive and unresolved." As a result of this fact, perhaps, Shannon runs into difficulties when he attempts to sort out what in the plays results from Lope's personal thoughts and ideas about the involvement of Spain in the New World, and what is there because of the dramatist's audience or commission. At times Shannon speaks of Lope's beliefs as these are revealed through the content of the plays and the manipulation of historical sources, and at other times Shannon suggests that the action in the dramas and Lope's use of sources are the result of the dramatist's knowledge of what his audience or patrons wanted to see and hear...