Sex and Gender in Cervantes: Essays in Honor of Adrienne Laskier Martín ed. by Fernández Esther and Mercedes Alcalá Galán (review)

The book opens with a warm introduction honoring the impressive and diverse exploits of Adrienne L. Martín, underscoring her innovative studies on eroticism and sexualities, "a field deemed scabrous by older critical generations" (3). In Sex and Gender in Cervantes, Esther Fernández and Mercedes Alcalá Galán, with the contributors to this volume, celebrate Martín's study of marginal sexualities and of animal studies upon the occasion of her retirement from teaching.

In Section I, "Creative Deceptions in Seduction" Frederick A. De Armas heats things up, deliciously asserting that La Galatea is both genre- and gender-bending. The novel critiques effeminate men even as it celebrates the title character's triumphant rejection of her shepherd suitors, preferring instead a tryst with Florisa: "Why is their hair loose and disheveled? What truly happened at the spring?" (24). The next two essays in the collection satisfy, though they lean slightly more towards the vanilla. David A. Boruchoff parallels Cervantes's reinvention of genre in the Quijote (1605) and the use of literary convention to problematize stereotypes in the portrayal of women. Adrián Pérez Boluda notes that, while sex would be an impediment to a knight errant, conversely, Cervantes was steeped in the sexual mores of his time. The reader, then, acts as voyeur to the humorous, unsatisfied sexual appetites of don Quijote. Susan Byrne's essay ratchets the tension back up with her scintillating reading of don Quijote's questioning of the fifth galley slave. She examines his crime (incest—the prostitutes turn out to be his own sisters) and his fate (he is sentenced to the galleys rather than to religious orders, public shaming, or death) in the context of early juridical treatises.

The second section, "Peeping Through Metaphors," takes us from animal sexual appetites to human sexualized appetites (for food). J. Ignacio Díez traces representations of the cat, meowing in heat or displaying its fluffy, phallic tail. The largelyundomesticated feline embodies Altisidora's out of control passions, signals misread by don Quijote as the work of belligerent spirits. Fortunately, Rocinante gets luckier. For Ana Laguna, although his early misadventure with the Galician mares parallels Marcela's rejection of Grisóstomo, in the second volume, partnered by the donkey, the horse enjoys "one of the most satisfying erotic experiences of the novel" (114). Sherry Velasco then provocatively straddles the gap between human (the Cave of Montesinos, Gaiferos and Melisendra) and animal (Maese Pedro's monkey, the braying episode). She painstakingly couples the influence brought to bear by Cervantes's travels to Italy and captivity in Algiers, pairing sexual imagery (figs, peaches, fish) and music from both traditions. Carolyn A. Nadeau's essay penetrates the intersection of race, gender, and class in El celoso extremeño, peaking in her association of the well-known stew, pepitoria, with the poetic portrait of Loaysa, whose "body parts become chopped up pieces of poultry […] ready to be devoured" by the ladies (163).

From there, Section III, "Cervantine Bodies and Gendered Identities," explores female warriors, ugliness, and maternity. For Jesús David Jerez-Gómez, Morisca Ana Félix, one of the Quijote's least-studied characters, crosses temporal and geographic boundaries. His encyclopedic account uncovers her Classical, Carolingian, Arabic, Sephardic, Slavic, Nordic, and Anglo-Saxon counterparts. José R. Cartagena-Calderón tantalizingly unshackles ugliness from female masculinity. Ugliness is not immutable over time. Moreover, both Sancho and don Quijote show a discernible preference for hirsute women. The ugliness of the enchanted Dulcinea originates not in the hombruna appearance of Aldonza Lorenzo, but rather from the unappealing peasant girl who inspired Sancho's falsified account of Dulcinea's enchantment. Alcalá Galán's essay considers the dead, absent, voiceless, and anonymous mothers of Cervantes's oeuvre. While maidens figure prominently for their narrative possibilities, "marriage is the end...