Morisco Justice in Calderón’s Amar después de la muerte

Abstract

For Thomas Case and Erik Coenen, Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s notion of justice has theological origins in Saint Thomas Aquinas’s natural law and national self-determination. Issues of Morisco justice become a means of dramatic development. In Amar después de la muerte, Calderón dramatizes the Morisco revolt in Granada (1567–1571). Moorish descendants sought refuge and a return to Islam, after Philip II’s edicts banned their cultural heritage. Calderón’s play moves through four different attempts to deal with the Morisco community. The first is the enslavement of survivors of the rebellion. The second attempt is intermarriage, evidenced when Malec’s daughter Clara, betrothed to El Tuzaní de Alpujarras, accepts marriage as a means of revenge against Juan de Mendoza, whom she plans to kill for disrespecting her father. With the third issue, the revolt, the play becomes a revenge drama as El Tuzaní seeks out the murderer of his wife. The fourth issue is true conversion to Catholicism. Redemptive justice and true faith are perhaps what attracted Calderón to this historical event. His play stands as a tribute to a disenfranchised population.

Keywords:

• Calderón de la Barca
• Amar después de la muerte
• Morisco justice
• El Tuzaní de Alpujarras
• revenge drama

Notes

1 All quotations for Amar después de la muerte are from Erik Coenen’s edition.

2 Diego Hurtado de Mendoza states: “obligáronlos a vestir castellano con mucha costa, que las mujeres trajesen los rostros descubiertos, que las casas acostumbradas a estar cerradas, estuviesen abiertas” (108).

3 I use Morisco/a in this play to refer to the Granadan community since Calderón uses this designation in his play. For the controversy surrounding this term, Harvey calls for its elimination, since it was not what this marginalized ethnic group called themselves: “Moriscos were what they were forced to become, unwillingly; Muslims is what they were underneath” (5).

4 Calderón follows Pérez de Hita’s account at several points, with some important differences. Pérez de Hita considers that a nobleman must have killed El Tuzaní’s bride Maleca since the murderer Garcés was so moved by her beauty that he did not allow her to be disrobed: “solamente le dexé la camisa que también era harto rica, y ésta la dexé por no dexarla descubierta en carnes” (Pérez de Hita 331). Calderón’s El Tuzaní says: “que es quien es, y es cosa clara / que un noble no ensangrentara / en una mujer la mano” (2567–9).

5 R. Ignatius Burn, S. J., argues that “[a] Christian Moor would be no safer in time of his rioting than was his Moslem brother” (381).

6 See the Coenen edition for historical information on Juan de Mendoza (83n116).

7 In the edition by the Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico of this play, a “foto del montaje” of its performance depicts Isabel in her “velo de negro cendal” (82).

8 This outside Muslim help has been debated, as Coenen points out (120n1058–9). Harvey states that Turks were sent to advise Abenhumeya (217).

9 Harvey argues that Spain’s economy suffered after the Edicts of Expulsion (364).

10 Harvey describes a Morisco wedding with zambras, which he defines as celebratory dances, considered a concession by Spanish authorities. Doors were to be kept open and women unveiled (52).

11 Coenen sees an anomaly in the text since the newlyweds were to meet in “el postigo del muro” (1635). He sees the garden as allegorical (148n1820).

12 Pérez de Hita concludes that Maleca died and was buried as a Christian: “en ábito de Christiano” (325).

13 Stone discusses the notion of Taquiyya, “an Islamic doctrine developed during the Crusades that allows a believer to give the outward appearance of Christianity in order to ‘despistar las autoridades,’ thus guaranteeing the survival of the person and the faith” (86).

14 See Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance. Both Justice and Temperance are considered cardinal or moral virtues with classical roots.

15 Pérez de Hita identifies Maleca’s assassin as Francisco Garcés, who also expresses remorse in his account: “pues yo maté una sola y me dolió el alma, especialmente después de muerta, que me dixeron otras Moras que quedaron vivas que aquella Mora que yo avía muerto era hermana del Capitán Maleh” (331). Maleca is the sister of Malec, not his daughter.

16 Coenen cites accounts by Luis Mármol Carvajal (11). Coenen also cites Ginés Pérez de Hita, who provides information on the destruction of Galera on February 10, 1570, including rape and murder of Moriscas (12).

17 Coenen argues that El Tuzaní’s notion of justice is really “ojo por ojo, diente por diente” in his revenge against his wife’s killer (31).

18 Pérez de Hita has stronger words for Lope de Figueroa than Calderón does: “voto a tal, que si alguno matara a mi dama, no me contentaría con matarle a él solo, sino a todo su linage” (338).

19 According to Geoffrey Parker, Lope de Figueroa held the record for crossing along the Spanish Road from Lombardy to Flanders in 32 days in the middle of winter (280).

20 Coenen says that Isabel Tuzaní is Calderón’s creation (32). Pérez de Hita does not mention any sister of El Tuzaní.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sharon D. Voros

Sharon D. Voros, Professor Emerita of Spanish and French at the United States Naval Academy, is the author of Petrarch and Garcilaso: A Linguistic Approach to Style (under the name Ghertman). Her articles include studies on women writers, Leonor de la Cueva y Silva, Madame Guyon, Madame de Villedieu, Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, and Pedro Calderón. A Ph.D. from Columbia University in New York City, she is a former treasurer for the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater.