Drawing on recent
feminist theories, Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano demonstrates that
hierarchical relations of gender, race, and social status
mutually inform one another as structuring principles of Lope
de Vega’s conjugal honor plays. Identifying moments
of resistance and subversion in the texts, the author argues
against excessively monolithic interpre¬tations of such
discourses of containment.
Woman, represented as medium of male homosocial relations
and rewarded or punished against the standards of masculine
authority and the feminine ideal, is never completely brought
under control. Such is the case of the cross-dressed woman,
who both upholds and undermines binary gender distinctions.
For the male subject, a crisis of masculinity is provoked
by the pressures of forging satisfying bonds with other men
and performing a gender ideal that calls simultaneously for
predation on and protection of sexual property. Yarbro-Bejarano
highlights his conflicted relationship with the symbolic father,
as well as the texts’ obsessive representation of his
loss of control, caused by the very codes that purport to
secure it.
Other possibilities of rupture are traced in a provocative
exploration of the participation of early modern spectators
in contesting the meanings of important signs of social life
(woman, black, Spanish, Jew, or husband).
The pleasure of such negotiations together with that of witnessing
the predicaments of both male and female subjects trapped
by contradictory constructs of gender and sexuality helps
explain the popularity of this subgenre.
"This substantial and elegantly produced book offers
the elucidation of no fewer than forty-six plays by Lope
de Vega in which the honor theme is of cenral importance,
in the light of insights derived from the by-now familiar
and well-worn paths of recent feminist critical theory,
together with other approaches deriving from cultural-studies
and psycho-analytic (i.e. Lacanian) theoretical models."
—T. R. A. Mason, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies
"It performs its task thoroughly and skilfully, adding
a new dimension to both comedia studies and feminist
criticism. Its treatment is scholarly and comprehensive....
Its choice of plays is well justified and the fact that
they include a number which have been little studied makes
the work particularly useful." —Melveena McKendrick,
Journal of European Studies
"...Yarbro-Bejarano's contribution to the dismantling
of the monolithic overall conception of Lope as a defender
of the dominant ideology is most welcome.... this is a well-researched
book that is interesting for its application of a feminist
reading to seventeenth-century Spanish drama." —Teresa J.
Kirschner, Modern Language Review
"... an excellent, multifaceted discussion of otherness
in early modern Spanish culture.... The clarity of her writing
style makes this thought-provoking book a delight to read."
—Sixteenth-Century Journal
"Feminism and the Honor Plays of Lope
de Vega accomplishees more than its title promises.
This study goes beyond Donald Larson's The Honor Plays
of Lope de Vega (1977), not only by focusing on the
images and treatment of women in thses works, but also by
defining how they construct gender roles fof noblemen and
women, as well as for members of other social classes and
racial groups. —Valerie Hegstrem. Bulletin of
the Comediantes
"Professor Yarbro-Bejarano's study brings the perspectives
of recent literary theories emerging from psychoanalysis
and continental feminism to the corpus of Lope's Honor plays."
—Carolyn Lukens-Olson. Hispanófila
For the complete text of the above excerpts, see
Bulletin of Hispanic Studies74.4
(1997): 521.
Journal of European Studies 25 (Dec. 1995): 447-48.
Modern Language Review 91.3 (1996): 765-66.
Sixteenth-Century Journal 26.3 (1995): 722-23.
Bulletin of the Comediantes 49.1 (Summer 1997): 117-19.
Hispanófila No. 12 (Sept 1997): 79-81.
For more reviews, see
Ibero-romania No. 48 (1998): 131-33. (Axel Schönberger)
Gender
and History 9.1 (1997): 147-48. (Judith Drinkwater)
Comparative Drama 30.2 (Summer 1996): 290-92. (Margaret
Rich Greer)
Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 20.2 (May
1996): 356-57 (Anita K. Stoll)
Romanische Forschungen 107.3/4 (1995): 527-33.
(Joachim Küpper)
Year's Work in Modern Language Studies 56 (1994):
364.
Estudios 51.188 (1995): 189. (Luis Vázquez)
Book News
Choice Sept. 1994: 120. (J. A. Parr)
Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano, Stanford University, is the author
of studies and essays on Spanish Golden Age literature, Chicano
literature, and feminism.
1-55753-044-0
1994. PSRL 4. xiv, 324 pp. Now in Paper $29.95
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