Disruptive marginality: The representation of wildness in Lope de Vega’s Baroque dramatic art

Abstract

The theatrical production of Baroque Iberia exhibits an obsession with wildness that remains to be fully explored. By the time Segismundo takes the stage dressed in animal pelts in Calderón’s La vida es sueño, the wild figure had already enjoyed a long history on the Spanish stage, first appearing in Lope de Vega’s El nacimiento de Ursón y Valentín in 1588. Enduring popularity until Bances Candamo’s 1693 comedia, La piedra filosofal, this steady preoccupation with the concept of wildness offers unique insights on the evolving landscape of Baroque ideologies over time, which are rarely considered diachronically. Dramatic representations of wildness signify the transgression of a prescribed norm—be it social, political, racial, or otherwise—which leads to its necessary elimination to resolve the conflict of a given play. In this article, I will plot the trajectory of dramatic conventions in their diminishing ability to resolve the recurring problem of wildness, thus offering a literary history of the comedia’s social efficacy as it struggled to sustain the weight of its own ideological commitments. Furthermore, I will examine the implications of my approach on longstanding debates on the ideological function of Baroque Iberian drama by analyzing the theoretical problem inherent in the existence of the marginal terrain wildness inhabits. My approach considers who stands to benefit from social order and those who, like the wild figure, find themselves excluded. At a time of renewed energy for exclusionary ideologies, aspirations of encompassing the marginalized are as important today as they were in 1588.

KEYWORDS:

• Culture of the Baroque
• ideology
• marginality
• Spanish Comedia

Notes

Notes

1 In criticism, this figure is usually labeled the wild man, wildman, wodewose, or Wilderman. When referring to the general manifestation of the type, I will use the term “wild figure.” I give preference to this term for two reasons. First, its gender neutrality does not occlude the significant number of examples of wild women in the comedia. Also, “figure” more accurately describes what it does. Its representation is always symbolic in nature, always a stand-in for a complex set of meanings. The wild figure is more than a man or a woman, although usually it is gendered in specific iterations; since the purpose here is to define what the wild figure means and how that meaning is produced, this nomenclature is more precise than the tendency in criticism toward wild man.

2 For an analysis of Segismundo’s representation as a wild character, see Alan Deyermond’s article, “Segismundo, the Wild Man.”

3 For an extensive analysis of the development of the conceptualization of monsters in the context of early modern Europe, see Río-Parra’s monograph, Una era de monstruos: Representaciones de lo deforme en el Siglo de Oro español. In the work, she synthesizes a formidable corpus of primary materials from a wide array of sources, including medical treatises, religious tracts, and published relaciones, among other literary representations of prodigious abnormality.

4 Joan Oleza identifies the mistaken-identity trope as a common vehicle for conflict in the comedia and outlines the elements that tend to comprise the conflict and resolution of plays that follow this plot trajectory. For his analysis of representative works in the early career of Lope de Vega, see “La propuesta teatral del primer Lope de Vega,” Teatro y prácticas escénicas. II. La comedia, pp. 266–69.

5 For a list of comedias in which the wild figure appears, see Oleh Mazur, The Wild Man in the Spanish Renaissance and Golden Age Theater.

6 The dates of composition provided here are those provided by Morley and Bruerton in their classic study, Cronología de las comedias de Lope de Vega. They base their chronology on trends found in Lope de Vega’s preference for certain verse forms during different stages of his career. For example, the authors surmise that El animal de Hungría was written sometime between 1608 and 1612 due to the verse forms—in this case romances, décimas, and tercetos—that are predominant in the text, which characterized Lope’s production during that period (Morley and Bruerton 280–81).

7 Antonucci points out the similarity of this scene with El nacimiento de Valentín y Ursón. In this case, Teodosia acts as the she-bear of the earlier play (79). Bernheimer notes the ambiguous connection between the bear and the wild man in folklore. In some of the medieval Twelfth Night and Carnival festivals, an actor dressed as a wild man would be “hunted” and brought into town to be punished for his misdeeds against the village. Sometimes, the wild figure would be replaced in the farce by a bear. For more information, see Bernheimer’s Wild Men in the Middle Ages, specifically chapter three: “His Theatrical Embodiment,” pp. 49–84.

8 I cite the original published edition of the play in the Parte diecinueve … de las comedias de Lope de Vega Carpio (1624) due to the discrepancies between this edition and more recent editions by Cotarelo (1930) and Hartzenbusch (1950, orig. 1855). The latter texts do not provide line numbers and, therefore, do not assist for the purposes of citation.