Bodies of Discovery: : Vesalian Anatomy and Luis Barahona de Soto’s Las Lágrimas de Angélica

B O D I E S O F D I S C O V E R Y : V E S A L I A N A N A T O M Y A N D L U I S B A R A H O N A D E S O T O ' S LAS LAGRIMAS DE ANGELICA Charles Ganelin P u r d u e University Sixteenth-century Spain was a propitious site to carry out discovery. But I do not refer to so many outward voyages and both the destruction and "civilizing" that took place in distant lands; rather, my focus is inward to other fantastic voyages of uncovering—literally— new terrain of the human body. The revitalized practice of anatomy and anatomical dissection in Spain, beginning almost mid-sixteenth century, placed the country for a brief time in the forefront of the new knowledge that has been called the "Vesalian revolution." Andreas Vesalius (15141564 ), a physician and anatomist who trained at the Sorbonne in Paris, taught in Padua, became personal physician to Philip II, and published in 1543 his De humani corporisfabrica} This renewal of learning, a foundation with profound implications for how knowledge is transmitted, affected as well the literary representation of the body. In every age science discovers new wonders about the human organism, a constant reinvigorarion that fuels ever-expanding horizons about the textual capacity of the body, whether inscribed as a sign within a text, inscribed on itself or even cut in to. Growing out of a post-structuralist concern with inside/ outside dichotomies, seeking to resolve the tensions implicit in the act of dissection (cutting in to) and what it entails, and addressing the notion of "otherness" imbued in what we cannot or dare not see,2 recent studies have taken on the culture of dissection in the early modern period to talk about the awareness of the body's physical organization and how that knowledge both informs the nature of learning and imbues literary texts with a sense of awe akin to that experienced by anatomists of the period.3 The dissectors are no longer just those who examine the internal body but those who investigate how bodily integrity is reflected in the writings of those intrigued with the human organism as a whole.4 The practice of literary criticism is, to some extent, a dissection; witness such titles as Robert Burton's famous Anatomy ofMelancholy, and, in a study that remains a touchstone for literary critics, Northrup Frye's An Anatomy of Criticism. There is nothing new to this. What is innovative, however, is how the practice of dissection might inform the practice of criticism. Tirso de Molina's 1625 La celosa de si misma grasps the imporCALfOPE Vol. 6, Nos. 1-2 (2000): pages 295-308 296 «S Charles Ganelin tance of the female protagonist Magdalena's hand; the "dissection" the male suitor Melchor attempts in order to uncover the links between the exposed appendage and a revealed eye within an otherwise "invisible" body; and the necessity of understanding the textual nature of hands and seeing them as part of the contiguous body.5 But theater is not the only site where such readings may take place, as Agustin Redondo, Malcolm Read and Paul Julian Smith have demonstrated quite amply. Inquiries into the cultural implication of dissection, such as those undertaken by Jonathan Sawday, and critical inventories of body parts scattered throughout the pages of literary traditions—see the essay collection edited by David Hillman and Carla Mazzio—invite us back to a world, hardly in limbo, ably explored by Francisco Rico and Leonard Barkan, to name but two.6 Few literary texts in Spain present the reader with as detailed a description of internal human anatomy as Luis Barahona de Soto's 1586 Las lagrimas de Angelica.7 Barahona de Soto was trained as a physician at both the Universidad de Granada and the Universidad de Osuna, and practiced until 1573 (Lagrimas 16). He exhibits in his long poetic work an intimate knowledge of Vesalius's anatomy text.8 The epic poem, another installment of the Angelica/Medoro story, has been influenced by, among numerous poems of Classical...