The Woman Saint in Spanish Golden Age Drama (review)

Bulletin of the Comediantes • 2008 Vol. 60 No. 2 161 Reviews____________________________________________________________________ Gascón, Christopher D. The Woman Saint in Spanish Golden Age Drama. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 2006. 203 pp. The Woman Saint in Spanish Golden Age Drama is an ambitious and relevant piece of scholarship that synthesizes two areas of interest in comedia studies: the representation of women on the early modern Spanish stage and hagiographic theater. Diverging from previous critical tendencies, which typically mythologized the legendary qualities of the saint, Gascón examines the female religious figure through her specific characterization within the play and analyzes how this depiction interrogates contemporary society. For the purpose of his analysis, the author proposes three categories to describe the female saint: as a desiring subject, as the object of desire, and as the mediator of desire. Acknowledging the mutability of such a classification, he also points out how the character may correspond simultaneously to more than one of the categories or how she may start in one and end in another. Gascón’s introduction briefly discusses recent scholarship on hagiographical studies and gender issues in the comedia. Chapter 1 outlines the theoretical frame used to analyze the plays. In the Baroque comedia de santa, he explains, the woman saint’s relationship with desire—either her own or that of others—is at the center of the conflict that drives the plot. She represents the point “where worldly and religious desires collide” (23). The female ascetic’s situation is more complex and precarious than her secular counterpart because she must face not only the unique set of challenges tied to her holy vows but also those that all women confront as a result of their gender. It is necessary, therefore, to examine the character in terms of her function within religious and social contexts. Gascón then asserts that “[b]aroque religious drama brings passion and intensity to its exploration of the potential of worldly desires to cause personal or societal schism and of the power of religious desire to redeem humanity and establish peace” (31), an undeniable conclusion based on the careful contemplation of the dramatic texts—and the genre as a whole. Using as a point of departure Victor Turner’s conception of the similarities between ritual and theater, Gascón points out the ritualistic features of the comedia de santa, highlighting in particular the “liminal processes and self-reflexivity” caused by religious crisis (26). He notes how Turner’s four stages of social drama: breach, crisis, redress, and restoration, also structure the comedias de santa. Gascón recalls Peter Brooks’s theory of textual energetics to explain how the comedia de santa helped to resolve personal 162 Bulletin of the Comediantes • 2008 Vol. 60 No. 2 ____________________________________________________________________ Reviews religious conflict (32-33). Finally, René Girard’s conception of religion describes the social function of religion in society that is represented on the stage (36-37). The remaining chapters develop his arguments and are divided by the different roles assigned to the saintly woman in the plays. Chapter 2, “The Woman Saint as Desiring Object,” examines sor Marcela de San Félix’s Muerte del apetito and Félix Lope de Vega Carpio’s Vida y muerte de Santa Teresa de Jesús. Gascón’s analysis skillfully demonstrates how the playwrights present the protagonists in a state of conflict. To varying degrees, the women are troubled not only by their inner struggle with passion but also with external, societal forces that attempt to influence them. This struggle with desire is resolved as they embrace Christian virtue as the foundation of their identity. The third chapter, “Woman Saint as Forbidden Fruit and Christ Figure,” explores the woman saint’s relationship with society in her attempt at self-definition. Here he looks at Ángela de Azevedo’s La Margarita del Tajo que dio nombre a Santarén and Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s El mágico prodigioso. In both cases the women characters are objectified, and metaphorical parallels between the “forbidden fruit” and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ become evident. Once again, she is the point of contention, this time of others’ worldly desires, and her sacrifice is the...