Motivos amorosos del teatro renacentista: la Égloga de Plácida y Vitoriano de Juan del Encina y la anónima Comedia serafina by Laura Mier Pérez (review)

ALTHOUGH WELL RESEARCHED, Laura Mier Pérez's monograph reads as three separate studies combined into one. If we overlook the introduction and conclusion, in terms of structure, the study breaks down into three parts, beginning with an overview of the cultural contexts of amorous themes, which range from the traditions stemming from antiquity to the contemporary laws and ideas of sixteenth-century Europe, especially within Iberia. The remainder is divided into two separate analyses of plays from the early 1500s: Juan del Encina's Égloga de Plácida y Vitoriano (1513?) and the anonymous Comedia Serafina (1521?). In her introduction, Mier Pérez acknowledges that, while this publication stemmed from her doctoral dissertation, she opted to reduce the number of plays that she had originally studied to only the aforementioned two. She chose Encina's work for his status as being the "'patriarca' del teatro español" who "es una de las voces más firmes de nuestro teatro renacentista" (23). With regard to the other lesser-known work, however, the author admits that her decision was risky because this work is not normally included in the canon of sixteenth-century Spanish drama. Nevertheless, she decided to include it, since it presents "una propuesta amorosa muy alejada de las de Encina, mucho más consonante con La Celestina y, creemos, precedente de la moralidad cuestionada que plantea la Farsa de la Costanza" (26). As a side note, I applaud her choice of shedding light on this relatively unknown play.

Part 1, entitled "Contexto Cultural," comprises over a third of the entire monograph (approximately eighty-five pages). Mier Pérez divides this part into three sections: philosophical context, legal context, and moral context. Before discussing these sections in more detail, I would like to praise her inclusiveness throughout this overview of influences about love during the age of these playwrights. Just by itself, this "Contexto Cultural" is an invaluable guide to scholars who are relatively new to the study of amorous themes during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The philosophical section discusses the impact of the Platonic tradition, Neoplatonism, the Church Fathers, the Aristotelian tradition, love sickness, and so forth. As you can imagine, with so many entries, the author provides concise summaries on each philosophy's impact on the ideas of love. Within the legal context section, she discusses the laws concerning marriage (both public and private), adultery, and prostitution. This made me start to question this section's overall relevance to the plays later discussed. Yes, it is interesting to know how these issues were treated during that time, but these laws are not pertinent to the plays. In the Comedia Serafina, there is adultery, but there is no legal discourse within the play. According to her plot summary, the unfaithful wife does not receive any form of punishment from her husband, the law, or society. In fact, her mother-in-law aids her in her extramarital affair. The final section of the "Contexto Cultural" is a discussion of the humanists who helped shaped ideas concerning love and marriage: Erasmus, Juan Luis Vives, Antonio de Guevara, and Pedro de Luján. Although insightful, this section, again, raises the question of its overall importance to this particular literary study.

When the monograph transitions to the analyses of the two plays, there is a disconnect with part 1 of the study. Mier Pérez largely abandons her philosophical, legal, and moral framework and, thus, scarcely references her "Contexto Cultural." Instead, she turns to other works of fiction that may have influenced the studied plays (e.g., La Celestina and Cárcel de amor). When it comes to Plácida y Vitoriano and the Comedia Serafina, she does discuss various aspects of each and how they relate to love. For Encina's play...