The Comedia of Virginity: Mary and the Politics of Seventeenth-Century Spanish Theater

Introduction

1 Introduction Few figures inhabited early modern Spanish consciousness with less ambiguity than the Virgin Mary. No matter what sphere of seventeenth -century Iberian society one turns to—the court, the Church, the stage, the academy, or far-flung imperial outposts in the New World—she is always present, presented, and represented as the pure, univalent image, the exemplar of the unambiguous exemplar. She appears, at first glance, to be so uniformly idealized, and so comfortable on her man-made pedestal, as the passive, obedient, chaste, pious woman that only with grave difficulty can it be sensed how, when, and where she was made into an image of a profound negative feminine capability. One remains helpless before the vastness of Mary’s ubiquitous, seemingly denotative presence in the Spanish imagination.1 And yet, the Mary that often emanates from Spanish depictions of the Virgin in paintings, in religious tracts, in political debates, and, especially , in dramatic figurations of her on the Spanish comedia stage had multiple definitions and associations assigned to her. Sorting through the various Marys reveals a complex, strong feminine figure tucked away by her many Hapsburg avatars. Hapsburg Mary often contained her own shadow. Wrapped inside her many feminine folds can be found coded and not-so-coded references 2 The Comedia of Virginity in which she often reveals herself as anything but an unambiguous archetype . She begins to emerge, when imaginatively and rightly understood in her various Hapsburg contexts, as an exemplar of paradox, an imaginary (in the original sense of that word) container for both secular and sacred femininity. She enfolds strength and weakness, passivity and activity . She even teases with a uniquely Spanish Hapsburg style of sexuality. On the Spanish stage the complex and empowered model that Mary epitomized became the exception and not the rule. Nuanced, willful, and engaged female characters were uncommon in Hapsburg Spanish theater. Women did not manipulate the dramatic action, nor did they inspire their fellow actors or audience. Female characters were objects of men’s love and desire, a human currency to increase or diminish male honor. From time to time, the strict formulaic conventions of the comedia were placed aside to allow a strong female to emerge in the form of a woman that opposed a marriage arranged on her behalf or avoided the advances of an undesired suitor. In extreme cases she was the exceptional woman that in the absence of worthy men avenged her own honor. Yet, most of these females on stage eventually acquiesced to societal expectations and married the men they had originally shunned. By the end of the third act of the comedia, the multifaceted woman had vanished and been replaced with a more traditional and controllable representation of femininity: a woman subjugated to the authority of her father or her husband, again.2 The staging of the purest and most perfect of all women, the Virgin Mary, allowed playwrights to integrate a complex and gendered exemplar in Spain’s Catholic and monarchical theater. Close, critical readings of three seldom-studied comedias, written in the 1600s, show how creatively male and female playwrights drew from and promoted the cult of the Virgin Mary in post-Tridentine Spain. In the selected plays, compelling Marian characterizations and appearances depart from the passive, submissive, and inanimate representations of the Virgin. Instead, the mother of God is evoked as a proactive, articulate, and, at times, belligerent female role model that simultaneously inspires, guides, and protects the faithful. She is the mother, the warrior, the mediator, the defender, and the counselor. What follows traces how the Virgin’s ubiquitous iconographic presence in Spanish society appears, drawing not only from the visual arts Introduction 3 and letters, but also from folk legends, songs, popular street rituals, and religious feasts. Marian-themed comedias allowed authorial subjects and their patrons to articulate their personal stance on King Philip III’s and King Philip IV’s aggressive measures in defense of both the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Mary. Theater enabled these playwrights to produce innovative and entertaining interpretations of the Virgin. Exploiting the popular folk traditions of the Marian cult and its attendant iconography and symbolism, these authors drew energies from the devotion to Mary and channeled them in the direction of the court in order to legitimize Hapsburg monarchical authority. Dramatists also used the cult of the Virgin Mary to comment upon the political...