The Art of Subversion in Inquisitorial Spain Rojas and Delicado by Manuel De Costa Fontes

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RESEÑAS D D D D D 107 for a future volume in a series which continues to set the highest standards for innovative critique in our field. Reviewer's note: Since this review was written, David R. Castillo and Massimo Lollini's Reason and its Others: Italian republic, Spain and the New Globe has been published in the Hispanic Issues Series (Nashville: Vanderbilt UP 2006), engaging more specifically the reappraisal of the Baroque in human relationship to postcolonial theory and critiques of modernity. The new volume will be a useful companion to Hispanic Baroques. Crystal Chemris Portland Country Academy Costa Fontes, Manuel da. The Art of Subversion in Inquisitorial Espana: Rojas and Delicado. Purdue Studies in Romance Literatures thirty. W Lafayette, IN: Purdue Up, 2005. PB. xiv + 346 pp. ISBN: 15575 -3348-two. Scholars with an interest in Fernando de Rojas' La Celestina (1499) and Francisco Delicado's La Lozana andaluza (1528), which share in mutual a converso authorship, are certainly at no loss for critical perspectives on these works. However, one significant, but less studied aspect of these two works, is the subversion of Christian dogma. As critical attention has often focused on the sexually subversive aspects of these works, readers may be surprised to know only to what extent Rojas and Delicado parodied certain beliefs central to their new organized religion, a feat accomplished during the early and vigilant years of the Inquisition. Manuel da Costa Fontes' The Art of Subversion in Inquisitorial Spain examines precisely this event. This highly interesting work of scholarship will appeal to specialists in Medieval and Renaissance Spanish literature and in Sephardic Jewish civilisation and culture, and also to students interested in expanding their knowledge of Medieval and Golden Historic period Spain or of Christian-Jewish relations. Fontes' work is well-organized and is written in an immensely readable way. Quotations are extensive and are translated to exist accessible to the general reader; longer quotations of primary source fabric have translations appearing in the appendix. This is also a well-annotated work with an extensive bibliography. The author'southward own interests in Medieval and early Modern ballads, equally well equally Sephardic and crypto-Judaic sources, are evident in the many intertextual parallels which he draws. Starting with a cursory preface explaining the situation of conversos and the climate of the Inquisition, Fontes explains his central thesis that Rojas and Delicado used folly and sexual adventures as a 108 REVIEWS D D D D D disguise for attacking dogma central to Catholicism, as these ii converso authors felt a key demand to express themselves in a climate of fear and repression. Fontes argues that whatever agreement of these two works must take into account the converso origins of their authors (xi). The eight chapters that follow pb the reader from a general understanding of the situation of conversos and their literary milieu to the specific attacks on Christianity embedded in La Celestina and La Lozana andaluza. The work concludes with a summary of his main points regarding Rojas and Delicado, and the means in which they ridiculed Christian behavior under the otherwise watchful eye of the Inquisition. Fontes argues that Rojas and Delicado were able to practise this as conversos, because of their more than educated and sophisticated ways of self-expression. Their reading audience would also include many fellow conversos who would be attuned to subtle attacks on Christianity without incurring the wrath of Inquisitors. Chapter i traces the historical origins of conversos and details the cultural climate in which they operated. Fontes gives the reader a articulate understanding of the educated and influential world in which medieval Sephardic Jews, and their converso descendants, lived. Fontes avails himself of highly respected sources as well, such as Kamen and Domínguez Ortiz, especially in describing anti-Semitic statutes and the workings of the Inquisition. The reader learns how even in this climate of fearfulness, a number of individual Jewish and New Christian figures intentionally blasphemed the Christian faith (26). The second affiliate continues the historical context established in the kickoff affiliate, and adds frequent examples of other works written past conversos attacking Christianity, to show that Rojas and Delicado were not alone. Fontes also provides a brief introduction...

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Source: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/672555

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