Góngora’s Sea of Signs: The Manipulation of History in the Soledades

GONGORA'S SEAOFSIGNS: THEMANIPULATION OFHISTORY INTHESOLEDADES BettySasaki ColbyCollege The Spanish Baroque is a conflicted and confusing moment in Spanish history-one in which Spain finds itself at the crossroads between traditional, societal organization and early modem politics. The decline of imperial power, and the subsequent economic and political crises which overtook Spain, gave rise to opposing views on expansion. As many literary critics and historians have noted, the state responded by imposing more rigid restrictions on writers and their work in an attempt to create one "official" discourse constructed upon the eradication or censorship of contradictions which might prove threatening to the state's authority. 1 Spadaccini and Godzich observe that, as a part of this process, "the individual discourses lose their autonomy and, as a result of being integrated into the state's totalization, their self-sufficiency as well. They are now fragments of a much larger whole, patches of a quilt. Their speakers also lose their autonomy and self-sufficiency, and must recognize that they are speakers of fragmentary discourses which can never be totalized. Only the state can achieve this totalization -at least such is the claim" (59-60).Yet, despite the mechanisms of institutionalized control, counter-arguments emerged, advocating reform and anti-expansionist policies. Moreover, at a time when art and politics were not clearly separated, literary patronees of the court were also engaged in the contentious process of how to respond to the situation of imperial descenso. 2 It is precisely within this controlling climate that Gongora writes the Soledades, initiating the long and vehement debate about the use and function of language. The fact that Gongora sided with the pacifistas-those who criticized prevailing expansionist policies -and that he was contemptuous of the rich, urban class who lived off the labor of the rapidly declining rural economy suggests that he, along with other writers of his day, was a critical voice conCALIOPEVol . I, Nos. 1-2 (1995): pages150-168 ~ GONGORA'S SEAOFSIGNS ... ~ cerned with Spain's decline. When we consider that Gongora's detractors accuse him of heresy, amorality, and atheism, 3 accusations based almost exclusively on questions of style and form, it becomes clear that deviation from literary decorum necessarily implied a deviation from ethical decorum. Indeed, the type of personal attack brought against Gongora in a public forum suggests that his language was seen as subversive to the extent that it defied literary conventioh. 4 At a time when the state was attempting to circumscribe all discourse within fixed, ideological parameters, the question arises. of how one can separate linguistic or syntagmatic subversion from political subversion. While I do not contend that Gongora was a revolutionary (he actively sought court patronage ), I do support a reading of the Soledades as a critique of Empir~ne which responds to the state's inability to create or imagine a solution to Spain's decline. According to John Beverley, Gongora's novel use of language is a response to living "in a country which has become ~historicized,' where nothing seems to hold firm. In such a situation the conventional forms of historical discourse-the chronicle, the imperialist epic, the sycophantic political biographyhave lost their mimetic force, have become more mystification of history than attempts to render its inner logic. Hence the need for new forms of representation" (Aspects87). I would add that along with new forms of representation, Gongora's linguisitic innovations also respond to the need for new forms of understanding Spain's historical reality. Rather than subordinate his readers to a single, monolithic view of the world, Gongora seeks to empower his readers by soliciting their participation in the production of te~tual meaning. The method by which he approaches his readers is designed to.promote action rather than passivity, skepticism rather than acceptance. Gongora's selection of an elite readership composed not only of educated but also politically powerful men confirms Beverley's assertion that Gongora understood the poeta-vates notion as one that also encompassed the idea of the poet as legislator : one involved in both the creation and questioning, rather than the mere affirmation of national conscience (Aspects31).5 Limiting my discussion to the long epico-lyric section in the...