Trissinian Tragedy, Cervantes, and La Numancia: Anonymous Traditions and Canonized Authors

"My friends, it is Nobody that is slaying me by guile and not by force."

—The Odyssey, Book 9¹

In the fourth book of La Galatea the desamorado Lenio, seated at the foot of an equally dejected elm tree, enters into a long explanation as to why he considers himself an enemy of love. At the close of this speech, following several biblical and classical references, he exclaims, "[amor] puso en las manos de la nombrada y hermosa Sofonisba el vaso del mortífero veneno que le acabó la vida."² There was in fact a famous and beautiful Sofonisba present at the court of Philip II,³ but here Cervantes alludes to the Numidian princess whose decision to commit suicide rather than surrender her liberty to Scipio Africanus in Cirta in 203 B.C. foreshadowed the pyrrhic victory of the Numantinos over Scipio the Younger on the Iberian Peninsula in 133 B.C. Though recorded by Livy, Cervantes most likely knew of the desdichada princess by way of Giangiorgio Trissino's paradigmatic Italian Renaissance tragedy, Sofonisba (Rome, 1524). This article investigates Cervantes's familiarity with the work of Giangiorgio Trissino through an examination of the Sofonisba as a model for La Numancia (Madrid, c.1580-1585). Classical tendencies in La Numancia have long been signaled, but never conclusively demonstrated. It is this author's opinion that Trissinian tragedy resolves much of the critical contention surrounding La Numancia and thus makes way for a coherent reading of the play.

Given Trissino's relative absence from recent studies of early modern literature, compared to his prominence in sixteenth-century Europe, this article will also briefly consider the difference between tradition and canon and the implications these terms hold for the study of intellectual and literary history in early modern Europe.

Anónimo, tradición, and canon in Early Modern Spain

The decrees of the Council of Trent demonstrate that the concept of anonymous authorship had presented itself in Spain by the middle of the sixteenth century.⁴ However, Sebastián de Covarrubias's dictionary of 1611 registers neither a definition for the term anónimo nor tradición.⁵ Not until the Diccionario de Autoridades (1726) do these terms make their first official appearance in the Spanish lexicon.⁶ Meanwhile, canon is defined by Covarrubias as predating the decrees of the church.⁷ (The frame of this investigation then runs the risk, at least in its terminology, of presenting an anachronistic approach to comparative drama in late sixteenth-century Spain.)

Nevertheless, the concept of an "anonymous tradition"—used here to refer to authors whose influence in the course of literary history has previously been left unidentified, rendering it anonymous—might offer critical discourse a new way of speaking about comparative studies of early modern literature. Just as the Council of Trent would articulate the concept of "sin nombre de autor" to indicate authorial anonymity, this paper seeks to explore early modern literature by considering a tradition which, while unknown today, was influential in its own time.

This anonymous tradition, Trissino's tradition, is a form of Greek tragedy, as opposed to Senecan tragedy, derived from the work of tragedians such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Trissinian tragedy predates Robortello's translation of and commentary on Aristotle's Poetics, and thus is founded in practice rather than precepts.⁸ Trissinian tragedy is a form of Attic tragedy which underwent modifications to satisfy Italian Renaissance taste (such as the further development of romantic plots). The sustained popularity of the Sofonisba—the paradigm of Trissinian tragedy—including its resurgence after the middle of the sixteenth-century,⁹ resulted in a later dialogue between the play and Aristotelian readings of tragedy; this dialogue began with Trissino himself and was especially prominent in the time of Torquato Tasso. Trissinian tragedy was dominant in its own time and, in this author's opinion, should be considered in relation to the work of canonical sixteenth-century dramatists.

La Numancia

La Numancia belongs to an early body of dramatic work composed by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra...