La imagen de los negros en el teatro del Siglo de Oro (review)

REVIEWS Fra Molinero, Baltasar. La imagen de los negros en el teatro del Siglo de Oro. México, DF: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1995. Paper. 222 pp. This study constitutes an important contribution to the growing corpus of critical studies ofthe representation and writings ofthe groups marginalized by early modern Spain's efforts to construct a unified nation. Fra Molinero builds upon the ground-breaking studies of Spratlin, Winter, and Weber de Kurlat, which first documented the presence of black characters in Spanish literature. Taking advantage of the wide range of approaches available to contemporary scholars, he judiciously utilizes the insights of theorists of European colonization such as Homi Bhabba, Edward Said, and Louis Montrose; Toni Morrison and Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s analysis of blackwhite relations; as well as Derrida's notions of trace and différance in order to analyze the "mecanismos de representación para este grupo marginado que, sin ser únicos, dejaron huella y se repitieron constantemente" (191). Fra Molinero seeks to demonstrate that these representations participated in "el afianzamiento ideológico de una teoría racial en la que el valor humano del negro se reconoce sólo en función de su utilidad para el blanco" (192). In the introduction to this scrupulously researched study, Fra Molinero examines the Iberian peninsula's prominent role in the creation of "modern " slavery, a purely commercial enterprise, in contrast to "classical" slavery , in which enslavement was offered to prisoners ofwar as an alternative to death. He provides an overview of early modern Spanish treatises on the topic, which are noteworthy for their scarcity and for the absence ofany extended consideration of slavery as an institution. The introduction also documents the Inquisition's role in the censorship of the few tracts which did question the enterprise, and describes the mythologies of Africa in circulation at the time: Ethiopia as the home of noble though heretical Christians, Guinea as the home of degraded humans who, in Aristotelian terms, were born to be slaves, and thejungle as a site ofmonstrous beasts. The second chapter provides a history of representations of blacks in 367 368BCom, Vol. 48, No. 2 (Winter 1996) Spanish drama. In the vast majority of plays and entremeses, black characters function as gracioso figures who share certain common features. They are represented as childlike figures who laugh easily, love music and dancing , and speak a degraded form of pidgin Castilian—the antecedents of Sambo and minstrel shows. The main body ofthis book is devoted to a study of five texts in which a black character is the protagonist—a "negro grave." Fra Molinero states that he chose these particular plays because they dramatize contemporary slavery. However, the first drama considered, Lope's El prodigio de Etiopía, is set in a legendary past. This play, as well as El santo negro Rosambuco de Palermo, and El negro del mejor amo, represent the paradox of a slave who is also a saint: a figure who has black skin and a white (virtuous ) soul. According to Fra Molinero, these characters do not constitute a subversion of orthodox apologies for slavery, because their deaths and apotheoses —a necessary element in hagiographies— eliminate the problematic black body. In addition, the saints are represented and describe themselves as exceptional humans who prove the rule concerning the flawed majority , and all three saints submit willingly to slavery, either to an earthly master orto God. Thus, these saintly slaves embody the fantasies ofhumility and submission generated by the white culture. Fra Molinero astutely points out that the enslavement metaphors of Petrarchan love sonnets and mystic poetry which these characters use have a special resonance, grounded in their material experiences. Juan Latino and El valiente negro en Flandes dramatize black characters who prove themselves to be exceptional by virtue of wisdom or military prowess, a challenge to the stereotype ofblacks as simpletons and cowards. In their apotheoses, royal figures function as dei-ex-machina in order to grant the heroes a place in the social order: Juan Latino obtains a position as catedrático (although the historical Juan never received the title and served as a glorified tutor) while Juan de Mérida receives a new name...