Faraway Settings: Spanish and Chinese Theaters of the 16th and 17th Centuries 9783964568922

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Faraway Settings: Spanish and Chinese Theaters of the 16th and 17th Centuries Juan Pablo Gil-Osle & Frederick A. de Armas (eds.)

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Faraway Settings: Spanish and Chinese Theaters of the 16th and 17th Centuries Juan Pablo Gil-Osle & Frederick A. de Armas (eds.)

Iberoamericana - Vervuert - 2019

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Awarded with the Comparative Perspectives on Chinese Culture Grant from The American Council of Learned Societies-ACLS and Society from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange

Cualquier forma de reproducción, distribución, comunicación pública o transformación de esta obra solo puede ser realizada con la autorización de sus titulares, salvo excepción prevista por la ley. Diríjase a CEDRO (Centro Español de Derechos Reprográficos) si necesita fotocopiar o escanear algún fragmento de esta obra (www.conlicencia.com; 91 702 19 70 / 93 272 04 47). Derechos reservados © Iberoamericana, 2019 Amor de Dios, 1 – E-28014 Madrid Tel.: +34 91 429 35 22 - Fax: +34 91 429 53 97 © Vervuert, 2019 Elisabethenstr. 3-9 – D-60594 Frankfurt am Main Tel.: +49 69 597 46 17 - Fax: +49 69 597 87 43 [email protected] www.iberoamericana-vervuert.es ISBN 978-84-9192-092-2 (Iberoamericana) ISBN 978-3-96456-891-5 (Vervuert) ISBN 978-3-96456-892-2 (e-Book) Depósito Legal: M-28928-2019 Diseño de la cubierta: a.f. diseño y comunicación Imagen de cubierta: Foto del espectáculo El astrólogo fingido de Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Laboratorio Escénico Univale, 2005. Dirección: Ma Zhenghong y Alejandro González Puche. En la foto: Margarita Arboleda y Elizabeth Parra. Fotografía: Archivo Laboratorio Escénico Univalle Impreso en España Este libro está impreso íntegramente en papel ecológico sin cloro

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Table of Contents

Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Juan Pablo Gil-Osle/Frederick A. de Armas Theatrical Origins Jongleuresque Origins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Bruce R. Burningham Spain Learning about Chinese Theater (Miguel de Luarca’s Verdadera relación de la grandeza del Reino de China). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Jorge Abril Sánchez ONEIRIC EXCESSES AND THEATRICALITY Painting Emotions and Dreams (Tang Xianzu’s Peony Pavilion and Lope de Vega’s La quinta de Florencia) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Frederick A. de Armas Global Climate and Emotions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Juan Pablo Gil-Osle Emotion, Object, and Space (Tang Xianzu’s Peony Pavilion and Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s La vida es sueño). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Carmela V. Mattza Su GLOBAL STAGINGS Picaresque Theater (Miguel de Cervantes’ Pedro de Urdemalas, directed by Alejandro González Puche and Ma Zhenghong). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Alejandro González Puche

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Theatrical Characters (Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s El astrólogo fingido, directed by Alejandro González Puche and Ma Zhenghong). . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 马政红 Ma Zhenghong Audience Reception (Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s El astrólogo fingido, directed by Alejandro González Puche and Ma Zhenghong). . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 María José Domínguez From Novel and Theater (Pedro Calderón de la Barca, La vida es sueño, directed by Chen Kaixian). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Matthew Ancell SINOSPHERE Christian sacred plays and Nō Style. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 Javier Rubiera Depicting Japan: Lope de Vega and Los primeros mártires del Japón. . . . . . . . . 225 Claudia Mesa Higuera

Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249 Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

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Preface Juan Pablo Gil-Osle Frederick A. de Armas

Over the years, evolving schools of scholarly production have paradoxically followed the path of the Spanish Empire. By this we mean that since the nineteenth century, criticism of Iberia has slowly widened to reflect its global expansion. While early critics centered mainly on the Peninsula, over time, colonial studies came to be seen as an essential element in the understanding of early modern cultural productions. For example, Diana de Armas Wilson understood Cervantes through the lens of the New World, thus breaking disciplinary boundaries between Peninsular and Latin American studies.1 Today we study figures like Juan Ruiz de Alarcón as part of a transatlantic space.2 Moving beyond these two spaces critics have come to visualize a series of American interactions, thus furthering notions of imperial reach through hemispheric studies. For example, Lisa Voigt has shown how writings of captivity in Europe, North Africa, and the Americas share commonalities. Through narratives of captivity, borders are crossed, and discourses are mediated.3 In this long and productive journey, critics, as the Spanish explorers before them, found themselves confronted with the almost insurmountable space of the Pacific Ocean, or the then-called Mar del Sur. The Spanish dream of reaching the riches of Cathay and the Spice Island was constrained by Magellan’s understanding of the vastness that had to be traversed. This impossible journey has also been undertaken by recent critics. Serge Gruzinsky compared the conquest of Tenochtitlán to the attempts to penetrate See Wilson (2000). See, for example, García Pinar (2015); Estrada (2019). 3  See Voigt (2012). 1  2 

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the Ming empire, while Christina Lee collected a series of essays that analyze western visions of what Miguel Martínez has called a third New World, the innumerable cultures and islands that exist within the Pacific Rim.4 After the conquest of the Philippines, the Spanish imperial conglomerate reached the point of considering how to deal with highly complex societies that amazed the Europeans. While some even thought to conquer China, others sensed the martial and cultural strength of the land and its peoples.5 Indeed, the West was faced with cultures that could capture the minds and hearts of travelers as they visited the almost marvelous lands of Cathay and Cipango. This encounter led to a notable production of books, reports, and maps concerning the great powers of Asia, and the wonders of China.6 Among the great wonders of China, one was the production of books: “tienen impresión y grande multitud de libros porque hay muchas tiendas en cada ciudad do hay muchos para vender y los que nosotros habemos comprados impresos y visto allende de muchos cantares y farsas y otras historias que no quisimos comprar…” (Luarca, 127). This is proof that by 1575 the “cantares y farsas,” which were part of Chinese theater in Fujian, were already known to Spaniards. Although the Habsburg empire in Iberia produced thousands of plays during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Ming dynasty in China (1368-1644), which started much earlier, was equally inclined to the theater: “More than four hundred playwrights produced over fifteen hundred plays, ranging from one-act skits to works of more than fifty scenes” (Hu 60).7 Furthermore, during the latter part of the Ming dynasty (1572-1644) theater in China experienced a second Golden Age thanks to a new form of theater, the southern chuanqi.8 A Spanish audience would have been surprised to see that most of these plays were suffused with music and singing, although in Spain, Calderón would begin experimenting with an operatic format two decades later. Spanish opera began to be performed in America by 1700.9 See Gruzinski (2014), Lee (2016), Martínez (2016). See Ellis (2012, 67), Ollé (2000, 121). 6  See Lach (1963). 7  See Hu (1983). 8  For information about the southern chuanqi, see Idema (2001). 9  See Gasta (2013). 4  5 

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While in Spain the public performances predominated, they seemed to be secondary in China’s Ming dynasty. The performance spaces in China tended to be in private residences and the troupes themselves would belong to these elite families. However, after Tang’s Peony Pavilion there was a “popular turn” where more general audiences were kept in mind. “Stage appeal” seemed more important than “literary value.” The language was simpler, the vulgar jokes increased, and the figure of the courtesan possessed by love became increasingly popular.10 Equally astounding for a Spaniard would have been the length of some of the Chinese plays, with as many as fifty-five scenes and taking several days to perform.11 A Spaniard attending one such play would be particularly astonished by the constant use of the supernatural, since many of the works derived from existing legends. They would encounter, among others, the Eight Immortals and they would be taken to realms beyond the human. On the other hand, they would fully understand the feeling of disillusionment with this world, which would easily translate into desengaño. Chinese plays of the period never surfaced in Spain, nor are there references to Spain in Chinese plays of the Ming dynasty. While China thought of the Iberian empire as a place too far away to be concerned with its literary works, Spain was fascinated by reports on Chinese culture and Chinese theater. Lope de Vega, when seeking to describe a far-off place, often describes China. Cathay thus becomes almost commonplace in Spanish early modern theater. This book then focuses on two theaters that were not apparently in dialogue with each other, in order to scrutinize them in spite of the distance that must be traversed to understand / translate each of them. One of the results of this attempt is the many commonalities they share. It is as if there was a circulation of ideas and tropes, although it did not seem to happen. What may be the case is that both Spain and China shared a more popular and performative kind of play, where the fourth wall was partially breached. These commonalities were lost within the neoclassic bent of the eighteenth century. The modern era has been slowly recovering the interaction between See Hua (2016, 38). See Tan (2016, 1-3). The number of scenes in a chuanqi varies generally from 30 to 50; most chuanqi generally have around 40 scenes, with some extreme cases. 10  11 

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actors and stage and has thus turned to China to once again breach the fourth wall. A comparative study of Ming and Iberian theaters has never been attempted. Thus, this book aims to provide the reader with a series of different approaches. First, through a comparison of specific works by Spanish and Chinese playwrights during the Ming and Habsburg periods, we aim to show that at times certain commonalities are in reality spaces fraught with misunderstanding. A melancholic character in Spain would not be the same as a melancholic figure in Chinese theater. A particular plant or flower had completely different symbolic meanings. However, it is curious to note how certain character types in both theaters resemble each other; and how the interaction between actors and audience would show clear parallels. At the same time, this is a book that also finds the thrill of commonalities as they are recovered through modern staging. In order to reinforce the notion that Spanish and Chinese theaters complement one another, this volume includes a series of essays showing how Golden Age plays are appreciated in modern China, and how plays written in a Chinese mode have been successful in America. In other words, these two theaters are not a far-off place. Written at approximately the same time, they show surprisingly similar ways of thinking. Emotions, dreams, honor, and farce; and the bringing together of different styles and modes from the comic to the tragic, are all items that are part of these plays’ makeup. Both theaters were nurtured by ancient tales. Whereas Spain tended to use classical myths and medieval Christian legends, Chinese theater was nurtured by its many living myths. Thus, protean characters such as Pedro de Urdemalas could well fit into a Chinese work, where the Monkey King is also born from a rock. Examples from Japanese theater also show the closeness of dramatic productions in the east and the west. In order to move an audience to conversion, Jesuits would turn to Nô theater to appeal to people’s emotions. In other words, this book allows us to think in a global manner as we confront the theaters of Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Calderón de la Barca as they have become interlocutors in a transcultural dialogue that shows China’s closeness then and now.

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The Essays This collection is divided into four sections. The first consists of two articles. In the first, Bruce Burningham proposes a new way of looking at the rise of Spanish theater, and also relates it to Chinese drama. Both of them, he argues, have roots in the jongleuresque traditions. While early modern Spanish theater slowly did away with jongleuresque insertions and the presence of acrobats and other forms of entertainment in their theater, in China, the opposite occurred. Indeed, Spanish Golden Age Theater was later considered by neo-classicists as a failed type of theater. It was not serious enough and did not impose a fourth wall separating the stage from the audience. On the other hand, Chinese theater did not have to deal with neoclassical rules. Highly stylized acrobatic performances became standard in the theaters of Cathay. It was through Bertold Brecht that jongleuresque practices were again inserted in the western theatrical tradition through the revalorization of Chinese theater. Characters could communicate directly with the audience, making their actions transparent. Thus, Spanish Golden Age theater is most compatible with Chinese theater since both partook of the jongleuresque where audience and actors collaborate in the mise-en-scene, as can be seen in a number of essays in this volume dealing with staging. The second essay deals with the first major Spanish work on China, and the first one to make reference to Chinese theater: Miguel de Luarca’s Verdadera relación de la grandeza del Reino de China [True Account of the Greatness of the Kingdom of China] (1575). Luarca, a member of the first diplomatic mission to China, includes commentaries on a number of Chinese theatrical performances staged for the occasion of their visit. Jorge Abril Sánchez stresses the point that even though Luarca provides a first-hand description of these works, members of the diplomatic delegation did not acquire any books or manuscripts containing any of these productions, their music or theatrics, including the uses of acrobats and puppets. At the same time, this essay allows us to better understand the plot of these performances and who the characters might be. Indeed, one of the plays dealt with one of China’s foundational myths. The second section consists of three essays that take up oneiric phenomena and emotional distress as points of departure for comparative approaches to Spanish and Chinese theaters. The first essay, by Frederick A. de Armas,

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begins with the opposite assumption, that the intertextuality of the two theaters has enough substance to sustain comparisons. He compares Tang Xianzu’s Peony Pavilion with Lope de Vega’s La quinta de Florencia [The Florentine Villa], written the same year as Tang’s work (1598). The study also alludes to a later play by Lope, El caballero de Olmedo [The Knight from Olmedo]. After proposing some general similarities and differences between the two theaters, De Armas argues that Tang Xianzu shows what seems to be a more complex and fluid use of theatrical devices than Lope de Vega. In the Chinese work, Du Liniang encounters Liu Mengmei in a dream and falls in love with him. The affair continues in the dream until she wakes up, becomes melancholy and dies of lovesickness, not without first having a portrait of herself painted. Lope de Vega, La quinta de Florencia features a figure that falls asleep and falls in love. César does not paint, but instead looks at a work of art as he finds himself in a state between dreaming and waking. His beloved, a new Venus, emerges from art and dream. Neither Liu Mengmei’s beloved nor César’s goddess exist in this plane of reality. Both César and Liu Mengmei attempt a necromantic resurrection, but of different kinds, in very different ways, and with different results. Discussing art, dreams, gardens, melancholy, necromancy and theatricality, this essay shows how the many similarities between Tang and Lope de Vega often become divergences or points of inflection when cosmology, myth, and the oscillating meaning of terms and symbols are taken into account. Each playwright serves as a mirror to the other, further enriching textures and meanings. The second essay, by Juan Pablo Gil-Osle, begins with the premise that Ming and Iberian Habsburg theater traditions were not in contact at the time. Therefore, it would seem that the differences from these far-away places would be so daunting as to make comparisons fruitless. Nevertheless, representations of emotions and global climatic events serve to link these lands and their theaters in the seventeenth century. Gil-Osle focuses here on the connection between global climate change in the seventeenth century and the overwhelming passions surrounding human relationships, particularly friendships. The third and final essay in this section again takes up Tang Xianzu’s Peony Pavilion. Carmela Mattza utilizes the dream, the flower (the peony), and emotions to analyze these plays. She defines emotions as a disposition to act according to the Way (dao). Indeed, Mattza finds glimmers of this use of emotions in the Span-

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ish Golden Age play La vida es sueño [Life is a Dream]. Both plays endow the female protagonist with agency as they enter forbidden spaces. Mattza compares Xianzu’s garden with Calderon’s tower, showing them as forbidden spaces, but also as places of love, pain and melancholy. In the garden, the blooming azaleas may point to sadness while the peonies that only bloom in summer can refer to future fulfillment. Indeed, it is a flower that in both east and west is connected with occult practices. In the Chinese play, it connects to the three realities of the Shen. While the dream in the Chinese work takes Du Liniang to other realms, in Calderón it is also part of an experiment to prove the truth of oneiric cognitions. The article concludes with the uses of the portrait in both works. It “becomes a metaphor for the freedom that makes the artistic imagination possible.” Section three deals with global stagings and is made up of five essays. In the first piece, Alejandro González Puche discusses how he staged Cervantes’ Pedro de Urdemalas [Peter of Urdemalas] at Beijing’s Central Academy of Drama in 2008. The essay centers on the challenges faced by the production of a comedia in a culture where the basic concepts of Golden Age Theater are unknown. For instance, professional actors in China consider themselves civil servants. As a consequence, the Spanish picaresque genre with its critical view of society had to be clearly explained to the actors so they understood how to enact criticism. Ironically, despite the challenges, the staging was a great success and the Chinese actors and audience showed a better understanding of the protean transformations of Pedro de Urdemalas than today’s Spanish-speaking troupes and audiences. Thus, the essay speaks to the convergence between the two theaters in spite of initial moments of uncertainties. In the second piece, Ma Zhenghog discusses two different methods of staging Calderón’s El astrólogo fingido [The Feigned Astrologer], the Stanislavski system and that of Chinese traditional theater. Whereas the first one is based on interpretation, the Chinese opera uses a kind of theater of representation which relies on external illustration and on stereotypes and artificial forms. According to her experience, the application of the Stanislavski method was a failure, which led her to research other theatrical traditions that did not rely on psychological truths but on performance mechanisms. After considering works by Meyerhold and Brecht on Chinese opera, as well as the speeches of Jiao Juying, she reassessed her mise-en-scene of Calderón’s

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play. The new production was successful as detailed by the following article. Ma’s explorations led to the discovery that the conventions of Chinese opera and Spanish Golden Age Theater have many similarities, including the fact that neither theater was naturalistic or realistic. The third essay continues this discussion. María José Domínguez analyzes a mise-en-scene of the same play, Calderón de la Barca’s El astrólogo fingido at the International Siglo de Oro Festival at the Chamizal National Memorial in El Paso, Texas. The play was directed by Ma Zhenghong. She gauges the public’s reception of the use of Chinese music, Chinese clothing, and Chinese recitation techniques in this baroque play, and concludes that the audience becomes the protagonist of the work, revitalizing a Spanish classic through the use of elements from the Peking Opera. In the fourth essay of this section, Matthew Ancell examines a direct encounter between China and Calderón in a 2015 production of the second act from La vida es sueño, directed by Chen Kaixian, Emeritus Professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Nanjing. The English department at Nanjing organized a festival in 2014 to commemorate a Shakespearean theater festival from 1964 put on by Chen’s father, who was the head of English at the time. Following this precedent, Chen organized a student theater troupe, called El Grupo Teatral Estudiantil Quijote [The Quixote Student Theater Group] in 2015. The group adapted the second act of La vida es sueño and Chen wrote a short first and third act to complement the second by Calderón, in which appear Cervantes, Don Quijote, Sancho Panza, and in the third, Zhaungzhou (ca. 369-286 BCE). El Grupo Teatral Estudiantil Quijote is the first Spanish theater troupe in China —and the only student group in Asia— to only perform Spanish plays. The production draws the characters Don Quijote and Sancho Panza, as well as Cervantes himself, into the comedia in order to commemorate the four-hundredth anniversary of the second part of Don Quijote. Moreover, they are joined by the Chinese philosopher as the play revisits the Cueva de Montesinos episode in the context of Calderón’s play as another dream within a dream. Central to the relationship between these works are the issues of adaptation and transformation. Chen exploits a quintessentially Chinese story in Zhaungzhou’s text, the Zhuangzi, about the oscillation between life and dream. In order to round out this panorama of Spanish and Chinese theaters in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it is important to discuss Spanish

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missionary theater in the Sinosphere. Since China did not have this kind of theater, we turn to Japan in order to understand this phenomenon. The first of two essays in this fourth section is by Javier Rubiera. He analyzes the connection between Jesuit missionary theater and the Nô style of Japanese theater. Since missionary theater was targeting local populations, Jesuits turned to this style to better align their theater to the customs and manners of the Japanese. Thus, the Jesuits are able to present stories of the Christian faith in a manner that attracts audiences and achieves success. As it is well-known, the Christian missionaries experienced persecution in Japan during the times of the civil war at the beginning of the seventeenth century. One of the consequences, as Claudia Mesa Higuera states, was the public martyrdom of Christians. When news of the tragic events reached Spain, the writing and production of the only play dealing with Japan was commissioned: Los primeros mártires del Japón, a play attributed to Lope de Vega. She argues that this work “is structured around a hyperbolic metaphor of visual and verbal display.” Here, the supernatural has great importance since it was intended to provoke an emotional response. This response was also facilitated by the introduction of sympathetic and suffering characters.

Works Cited Ellis, Robert Richmond. 2012. They Need Nothing: Hispanic-Asian Encounters of the Colonial Period. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Estrada, José. 2019. “El Monstruo con su figura: Self-Fashioning in Ruiz de Alarcón’s Theater.” Doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago. García Pinar, Pablo. 2015. “Transatlantic Figures in Early Modern Spain.” Doctoral dissertation, Cornell University. Gasta, Chad M. 2013. Transatlantic Arias: Early Opera in Spain and the New World. Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert. Gruzinski, Serge. 2014. The Eagle and the Dragon: Globalization and European Dreams of Conquest in China and America in the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hu, John. 1983. “Ming Dynasty Drama.” Chinese Theater from its Origins to the Present Day, ed. Collin McKerras, 60-91. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

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Hua, Wei. 2016. “The ‘popular turn’ in the elite theatre of the Ming after Tang Xianzu: Love, dream and deaths in The Tale of the West Loft.” In 1616: Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu’s China, edited by Tian Yuan Tan, Paul Edmondsho, and Shih-pe Wang, 36-48. London: Bloomsbury. Idema, Wilt L. 2001. “Traditional Dramatic Literature.” In Columbia History of Chinese Literature, edited by Victor Mair, 785-847. New York: Columbia University Press. Lach, Donald. 1963. Asia in the Making of Europe. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Lee, Christina H. 2016. Western Visions of the Far East in a Transpacific Age, 15221657. London: Taylor and Francis. Luarca, Miguel de. 2002. Verdadera relación de la grandeza del Reino de China. Edited by Santiago García Castañón. Luarca: Eco de Luarca. Martínez, Miguel. 2016. Front Lines. Soldiers’ Writing in the Early Modern Hispanic World. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Ollé, Manel. 2000. La empresa de China: De la Armada Invencible al Galeón de Manila. Barcelona: Acantilado. Tan, Tian Yuan, Paul Edmondsho, and Shih-pe Wang. 2016. “Introduction.” In 1616: Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu’s China, edited by Tian Yuan Tan, Paul Edmondsho, Shih-pe Wang, 36-48. London: Bloomsbury. Voigt, Lisa. 2012. Writing Captivity in the Early Modern Atlantic. Circulations of Knowledge and Authority in the Iberian and English Imperial Worlds. Chapel Hill: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press. Wilson, Diana de Armas. 2000. Cervantes, the Novel, and the New World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Jongleuresque Origins Bruce R. Burningham

1. Theater History and the Jongleuresque Elsewhere, I have proposed a theory of “jongleuresque performance” to help explain the rise of the Spanish comedia in the absence of a strong tradition of medieval liturgical drama on the Iberian Peninsula, arguing that such a performance tradition represents, quite literally, the popular theater of medieval Europe with or without liturgical drama, even when such theater consists of just one person watching another do somersaults on the village green (Burningham 2007, 7). My use of the term “jongleuresque” refers, therefore, to much more than just the quasi-literary activities associated with the medieval Iberian mester de juglaría. It refers, really, to an entire mode of popular performance that ranges from minstrelsy to circuses, from vaudeville to street theater, from magicians to mountebanks. It is a performance tradition that, as the thirteenth-century Provençal poem Flamenca clearly demonstrates in its description of an aristocratic banquet’s postprandial entertainment, encompasses epic singing, balladry, music, storytelling, acrobatics, prestidigitation, juggling, and dancing: Then the minstrels stood up; each one wanted to be heard. Then you would have heard resound strings of various pitches. Whoever knew a new piece for the viol, a song, a descort, or lay, he pressed forward as much as he could. One played the lay of the Honeysuckle, another the one of Tintagel;

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one sang of the Noble Lovers, and another which Yvain composed. One played the harp; another the viol; another, the flute; another, a fife; one played a rebeck; another, a rote; one sang the words; another played notes; one, the sackbut; another, the fife; one, the bagpipe; another, the reed-pipe; one, the mandora and another attuned the psaltery with the monochord; one performed with marionettes, another juggled knives; some did gymnastics and tumbling tricks; another danced with his cup; one held the hoop; another leapt through it; everyone performed his art perfectly. (Blodgett 1995, 33–35).

Borrowing terminology from Albert Lord and Hollis Huston, I suggest that the essence of all theater can be found among “singers of tales on simple stages” (Lord 2000; Huston 1992, 76). Moreover, and fundamental to this current essay, I argue that the central core of this jongleuresque tradition is the mutual awareness between performer and spectator that exists in performance—a performative “dialogue” that Huston characterizes as follows: “I will watch, says the viewer, as long as you do something that is worth watching. I will do something that is worth watching, says the actor, as long as you watch” (1992, 76).1 Critics and historians of Chinese theater clearly see in many of the earliest examples of East Asian theater a number of elements that I would characterize as “jongleuresque,” even if they do not employ my particular terminology to describe these activities. It is not coincidental, therefore, that their descriptions of these early East Asian performance traditions echo the 1  Huston initially defines the “simple stage” as “the circle that the street performer opens in a crowd,” but he then amplifies his theoretical usage of the term to include any number of performance spaces that share the simple stage’s minimalist characteristics (1992, 1).

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aforementioned scene from Flamenca. Consider, for instance, Chung-Wen Shih’s description of the “court jesters and entertainers” (known as yu, ch’ang, ch’ang-yu, p’ai-yu, ling, and chu-ju) who were an important fixture on the early Chinese stage: “Reminiscent of fools or court jesters in medieval Europe, their roles were not limited to formal performances, but also included making satirical observations, telling jokes and stories, and impersonating historical and contemporary figures” (1976, 3). Consider also William Dolby’s allusion to specific early modern European performers in his discussion of Chinese theater during the Zhou dynasty (1046-256 BCE): [Regional rulers and feudal lords] kept their own personnel for music, dancing and other entertainments, and it was probably from among these entertainers that the specialists in jest-couched counsel arose, the court jesters and wise fools of ancient China. Jester Meng, for instance, is known to have started his career as a musician or entertainer. Like Henry VIII’s Will Somers, Elizabeth’s Richard Tarlton and the other court fools and king’s jesters of mediaeval and later Europe, the Zhou jesters had the twofold duty of entertaining and of advising through the medium of humour. (1976, 2)

Dolby later characterizes this East Asian jongleuresque tradition during the medieval Tang dynasty (618–907 CE) in terms that are clearly reminiscent of the kinds of medieval European street performance often recorded in the margins of illuminated manuscripts (see Davidson, 1991): Circus-like performances of the Tang included, in addition to such common skills as tightrope-walking and pole-climbing, a variety of rarer arts: horse-riding through an alley of sharp knives; rope-dancing by two pretty girls, later joined by two boys, on a tightrope a hundred feet long and nearly as high; a woman balancing a pole on her head with purportedly as many as eighteen people on the pole; and other breath-taking feats of balance and sword-handling. (1976, 11)2

2  On the multiform performative poetics of Chinese theater, see also Battacharya (2004); Shen (1998); and Kalvodová (1957, 15). On the training of traditional Chinese actors, see Ruru (2010, 55-81). On the various performance activities that make up the wider tradition of Chinese acrobatics, see Wang (1982). On the relationship between cognition and acrobatics, see Burningham (2016).

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Eugenio Barba even connects the popular aspects of the early East Asian performance traditions to the Italian commedia dell’arte (2010, xiii), a performance genre that I regard as the apex of the early modern jongleuresque in Western Europe. Still, as with the Western European jongleuresque, the East Asian jongleuresque was not limited to just these kinds of acrobatic skills. Instead, like the kind of vocal performances that gave rise to the Western medieval epic tradition (reconstructed by such contemporary singers of tales as Benjamin Bagby in his celebrated performance of Beowulf [Bagby 2006]), the East Asian jongleuresque also included a strong musical and narrative component: Oral storytelling of the Sung period [960-1279 CE] was not only the immediate predecessor of the Yüan drama, but also the most significant shaping force of the new genre. By Sung times, oral storytelling had become a regular profession. […] With their proved value as mass entertainment, oral narratives served as models for the emerging Yüan drama. (Shih 1976, 14-15).3

2. Jongleuresque Performance during the Ming and Habsburg dynasties The centuries that coincide with the Ming and Habsburg dynasties (roughly 1368 to 1644 for the Ming and 1517 to 1700 for the Spanish Habsburgs) mark an important period in the world history of jongleuresque performance, where both East and West established what have come to be seen as each culture’s “classical” theater.4 In Western Europe, for instance, the jongleuresque tradition was initially subsumed into the emerging commercial theaters of such early modern metropolises as London and Madrid. As Robert Weimann notes in his examination of the popular origins of Elizabethan 3  For a comparison of the importance of jongleuresque oral narratives in the history of traditional Japanese theater, see Tokita (2016). 4  It is the period, as Wilt Idema reminds us, when Europeans first became aware of East Asia’s performance traditions, thanks in large measure to descriptions brought back by explorers from Habsburg Spain (Idema 2016, xix). See also Stenberg (2016).

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theater, the sites of many early English playhouses were public spaces long associated with jongleuresque activities like “bear-baiting, bull fights, wrestling, and fencing, as well as juggling and other displays” (1978, 170). Or, as I argue in Radical Theatricality, the corrales of Habsburg Spain are quite literally built around public jongleuresque performance spaces—patios, courtyards, and the like—that had existed precisely as ad-hoc performance spaces throughout much of the Middle Ages, and that this “corralling” of the Iberian jongleuresque gave shape and energy to the Spanish comedia, helping to inspire the Golden Age literary explosion characterized by such prolific playwrights as Lope de Vega, Calderón de la Barca, and others (Burningham 2007, 132-70). In fact, the evolution of Western European literary drama from its pre-modern to early modern form is really what I consider to be the “jongleurization” of the medieval liturgical tradition. As the locus of the liturgical dramas moved from inside the churches out onto the streets, “the vitality of its language began to resemble that of the witty medieval storytellers, its high-born characters became more and more like those of the epics and romances, and its low-born characters began to interact with the audience in ways more than reminiscent of the buffoons and acrobats who juggled knives in the town square” (Burningham 2007, 218). Meanwhile, in China, the East Asian jongleuresque congealed during the Yuan and Ming dynasties into what today is generically called “Chinese opera”—again, a form that Deben Battacharya rightly characterizes as: “a complex mixture of music, mime, acrobatics, and acting” (Bhattacharya 2004, 00:19:43). And like the prolific output of such Spanish dramatists as Lope and Calderón that marked the rise of the Spanish comedia, the rise of Chinese opera also coincided with an explosion in China’s dramatic literary production: “The Ming dynasty […] marks a most important chapter in the history of Chinese drama and theater. More than four hundred playwrights produced over fifteen hundred plays, ranging from one-act skits to works with more than fifty scenes” (Hu 1983, 60). Still, despite what John Hu calls the Ming theater’s “polished singing, intricate choreography, and splendid costumes” (1983, 60), these Ming performances nonetheless continue to resemble precisely the kind of street theater that Miguel de Cervantes famously describes when remembering a performance by Lope de Rueda and his itinerant troupe during the mid-1500s:

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No había en aquel tiempo tramoyas, ni desafíos de moros y cristianos, a pie ni a caballo; no había figura que saliese o pareciese salir del centro de la tierra por lo hueco del teatro, al cual componían cuatro bancos en cuadro y cuatro o seis tablas encima, con que se levantaba del suelo cuatro palmos; ni menos bajaban del cielo nubes con ángeles o con almas. El adorno del teatro era una manta vieja, tirada con dos cordeles de una parte a otra, que hacía lo que llaman vestuario, detrás de la cual estaban los músicos, cantando sin guitarra algún romance antiguo. (Cervantes 2016, 268)

Compare Cervantes’s well-known description of early modern Iberian performance praxis to that of China during roughly the same period: A performance in the Ming period and, for that matter, for any traditional Chinese drama, could take place anywhere with a flat area for a stage. Scenery was unnecessary; it could be a hindrance, since the location for the dramatic action shifted fast at short intervals. […] The place for performance during the Ming [period] could be and often was a boat, a rice-threshing floor, a hall, a temple, or of course a permanent or temporarily erected theater. Wherever it might be, a red carpet spread on the flat place would be sufficient for “the stage.” (Hu 1983, 85)

Commenting on this early Chinese “simple stage,” Dolby notes the development of a synecdochic relationship (not unlike the English expression “on the boards”) between one of its scenic design elements and the performance space itself: Raised stages were sometimes used in the Ming, but private troupes generally performed on flat ground in a courtyard or hall, with a space marked out and covered with a red felt carpet to serve as a stage, the musicians being located at the back of the carpet. […] “On the red carpet” came eventually actually to mean “on stage,” and the stage could be referred to simply as “the carpet.” Some bigger residences did have slightly raised permanent stages but a red carpet would still be placed on the stage to serve as a central acting space. (1976, 103)

Of particular importance in the preceding quote, Dolby also alludes to the crucial function of the musicians who work at the periphery of the performance space in traditional Chinese opera. Such a component is—not co-

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incidentally, given its jongleuresque origins—very similar to that of Lope de Rueda’s “músicos,” who provide a lyric element to the otherwise “dramatic” spectacle. And such musical elements —present even at the very “beginnings” of Iberian and East Asian theater— make their way into the more “mature” work of the Habsburg and Ming playwrights precisely because these elements provide the kind of multiform entertainment that audiences had come to expect after several hundred years of the jongleuresque tradition (see Burningham 2007, 158-66).

3. The Early Modern Divergence of the Eastern and Western Jongleuresque If the Ming and Habsburg dynasties represent a point of convergence during which these two jongleuresque traditions congealed to form the basis of each culture’s “classical” theater, then the two dynasties also represent the historical moment when these two theater traditions began to diverge in important ways. In East Asia, the jongleuresque not only became a highly stylized form (thus requiring a difficult and intensive training process for any performers who aspire to enter the tradition), but it also became the standard by which Chinese theater would be measured well into the twentieth century and beyond. In the words of Li Ruru: “Unlike its counterpart in the West, indigenous Chinese drama never separated itself from the song and dance that were the origins of virtually every theatre in the world” (2010, 13). Moreover, its current international prestige continues to mean that numerous troupes of “Chinese acrobats” tour the rest of the world —in places like Orlando, Florida and Branson, Missouri— as respected cultural ambassadors. Indeed, such acrobats were featured prominently in the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony; which is to say, in China, the jongleuresque tradition has carved out a space for itself precisely as one of the fundamental emblems of the national culture. In Western Europe, however, and despite the particular importance of the commedia dell’arte, the past four centuries have largely seen a significant retreat from the jongleuresque. As the seventeenth century drew to a close, a radical shift in European sensibilities occurred. Neoclassicism, with its intense focus on Aristotelian “unities” and “rules,” became the self-proclaimed

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proscriptive model for nearly all European drama in the eighteenth century, leaving the all-too-jongleuresque Spanish comedia looking more and more antiquated with each passing year. Enlightenment playwright Leandro Fernández de Moratín, for instance, announced the emergent disdain for this older Spanish form in his emphatically titled 1792 play La comedia nueva, in which the main characters—who sit in a café adjacent to a theater in Madrid and who pointedly perform the very conventions of neoclassical drama—discuss the supposed failings of an “old-fashioned” comedia being performed next door. Neoclassicism itself would later be replaced by romanticism, realism, and naturalism, until the ideal of all “serious” theater in the West became a play that the audience merely observed from afar, as if eavesdropping through an invisible “fourth wall” that enclosed the performance space contained within the three visible walls that constituted the set on a proscenium stage. This relentless march toward realism and naturalism culminated in the West in the late nineteenth century, by which time nearly all the traditional jongleuresque elements of the Western stage had either been purged or marginalized in favor of an absolute mimesis whose praxis and aesthetics would attempt to recreate the illusion of “real life.” Indeed, as Oscar Brockett notes, André Antoine was so committed to the French “naturalist” approach to the fourth wall that, in designing the set for his 1888 production of Fernand Icre’s The Butchers, “he hung real carcasses of beef on the stage” and even “arranged rooms as in real life and only later decided which wall should be removed” (1982, 550). This is not to say, of course, that jongleuresque performance ceased to exist in the West, or that it ceased to attract audiences. One need only think of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, or of the early twentieth-century vaudeville circuit that gave rise to such comedy teams as the Marx Brothers or Abbot and Costello (not to mention the kind of contemporary stand-up and improv traditions from which so many of today’s TV and movie stars are ultimately drawn). But it is to say that during the past four centuries the guardians of Western European “high culture” have shown themselves to be profoundly embarrassed by the jongleuresque origins of European theater. And nowhere are the lingering effects of this embarrassment more widely felt than in the continued lack of appreciation for early modern Spanish theatre among critics and practitioners of European

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classical drama. Such a disdain—despite the German Romantics’ interest in the auto-sacramental—has carried through into the twenty-first-century, where Spanish “Golden Age” theater remains, in the words of British director Laurence Boswell, Europe’s last great “undiscovered” classical tradition (Boswell 2013). Indeed, one of the main reasons that early modern Spanish plays are not performed with the same frequency and regularity as those of other Western European nations is that far too many contemporary British and US theater practitioners remain artistically bewildered by the conventions and aesthetics of the Spanish comedia precisely because this tradition does not fit neatly into a historiographical narrative that describes the European theater’s “maturation” away from the jongleuresque.

4. Bertolt Brecht’s “Rediscovery” of the Jongleuresque in China Meanwhile, having largely purged Western European theater of its embarrassing jongleuresque elements, early twentieth-century avant-garde theater practitioners such as Bertolt Brecht, in an attempt to “revolutionize” Western bourgeois culture, suddenly “discovered” in the East Asian tradition a whole set of jongleuresque practices that they found stunningly “radical”—not the least of which is the dialogic relationship between performer and spectator that I discuss in Radical Theatricality. Writing about a 1935 performance (in Russia) of a Chinese actor named Mei Lanfang, Brecht says the following: The Chinese performer does not act as if, in addition to the three walls around him there were also a fourth wall. He makes it clear that he knows that he is being looked at. Thus, one of the illusions of the European stage is set aside. The audience forfeits the illusion of being unseen spectators at an event which is really taking place. The European stage has worked out an elaborate technique by which the fact that scenes are so arranged as to be easily seen by the audience is concealed. The Chinese approach renders this technique superfluous. As openly as acrobats the actors can choose those positions which show them off to best advantage. (2000, 16; original emphasis)5 5  A short film clip of Mei’s Moscow performance is available today (via websites like YouTube) thanks to Sergei Eisenstein, who filmed the event (See Eisenstein 1935). Haun

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As should be fairly obvious, Brecht’s description of Mei’s performance is haunted by the jongleuresque, and Brecht has always struck me as a particularly jongleuresque practitioner and theoretician. To begin with, his notion of what he called “epic theater” is overtly jongleuresque, tied as it is to Lord’s medieval “singer of tales”: “‘Epic’ (episch) is then more or less synonymous with the adjective ‘narrative,’ whether in verse or in prose” (Grimm 1997, 40). Moreover, Brecht’s notion of epic theater also included “elements from popular entertainment forms such as the cabaret, vaudeville, revues, the circus (especially clown acts in the style of Karl Valentin or Charlie Chaplin), film, radio plays, detective fiction, cowboy films, jazz, sports events, and children’s theater” (Kiebuzinska 1997, 50).6 In fact —and somewhat oddly, I would argue—, Brecht regarded his concept of “epic” as appropriately “scientific” for the modern age, as Arrigo Subiotto notes: “The epic mode is regarded as the most objective; the author excludes himself from the work but is present in the form of a narrator who conveys events through description and comment” (1982, 30). Or, as Martin Esslin says of Brecht’s epic theater: By abandoning the pretense that the audience is eavesdropping on actual events, by openly admitting that the theatre is a theatre and not the world itself, the Brechtian stage approximates the lecture hall, to which audiences come in the expectation that they will be informed, and also the circus arena, where an

Saussy describes this filmed performance as follows: “A Chinese princess, wearing a tunic and trousers of white satin embroidered with flowers and a tall white headdress hung with ribbons and medallions, stands to the left, smiling slightly. On the right, two Russians, wearing heavy wool suits, are gazing at her with intense curiosity and, in the case of the bald one with glasses, what seems to be concern. She, all poise and symmetry, is not speaking; they seem about to speak” (2006, 8). Of course, Saussy also reminds us that “The princess is a man, the accomplished actor and director Mei Lanfang, and the two transfixed Russians are Aleksandr Tairov and Sergei Eisenstein, two prominent Soviet theater and film directors” (2006, 8). For an early twentieth-century perspective on Chinese theater, published just shortly after Mei Lanfang’s visit to Russia and dedicated to him, see also Zung (1937). 6  On the importance of Chaplin as a quintessentially Brechtian “epic actor,” see Schechter (1994, 72). On the importance of music for Brechtian performance, see Saussy (2006, 14).

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audience, without identification or illusion, watches performers exhibit their special skills. (1971, 133)7

Of course, as Esslin also reminds us, Brecht’s theories of epic theater did not simply arise ex nihilo, but instead represented a revolutionary “rebellion” against the bourgeois theater of his day— particularly, melodrama and drawing-room comedy (Esslin 1971, 127-28). Moreover, as Saussy notes, Mei Lanfang’s visit to Moscow occurred in the wake of the 1934 formal adoption of an aesthetic policy of “social realism” by the All-Soviet Congress of Writers (2006, 10). Thus, Brecht’s presence in Moscow in 1935 was part of an ongoing debate about the “proper” role of theater in a revolutionary age, and the centerpiece of Brecht’s theories (and the element most closely related to his enthralled reaction to Mei Lanfang’s 1935 Moscow performance) is his notion of what he called the “Alienation effect” (‘Verfremdungseffekt,’ in German, often rendered as ‘V-Effekt’ or ‘A-effect’). Like Victor Shklovsky’s linguistic and literary notion of “defamiliarization,” Brecht’s “concept and device of alienation are essentially based on the assumption that the world in general and society and its workings in particular are too familiar to be really understood” (Grimm 1997, 41); “The new narrative content signalled by the term ‘epic’ was to be communicated in a dialectical, non-illusionist and non-linear manner, declaring its own artifice as it hoped also to reveal the workings of ideology” (Brooker 1994, 191);8 “Only after the standardization of the fourth-wall illusion [in the nineteenth century] would its breakage 7  Mikhail Bakhtin is another Marxist theorist for whom the supposed breaking of the “fourth wall” is a significant element of popular culture: “In fact, carnival does not know footlights, in the sense that it does not acknowledge any distinction between actors and spectators. Footlights would destroy a carnival, as the absence of footlights would destroy a theatrical performance” (1984, 7). However, as I note in Radical Theatricality, the notion of “footlights” as a metaphor for the separation of actors from spectators is always already contingent, given that “footlights” can pop in and out of existence (even within a collective carnival crowd) as “the performative markers ‘actor’ and ‘spectator’ float from person to person in an ongoing performative conversation” (2007, 10). See also Burningham (2007, 103-06). 8  John Willett, for his part, characterizes the “Alienation effect” as follows: “‘Verfremdung,’ in fact, is not simply the breaking of illusion (though that is one means to the end); and it does not mean ‘alienating’ the spectator in the sense of making him hostile to the play. It is a matter of detachment, of reorientation” (1968, 177).

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[in the twentieth century] provoke a shock effect upon theatergoers” (Davis 2015, 86). And what Brecht found —seemingly ready-made— in the classical “Chinese opera” performance exhibited by Mei Lanfang was precisely a non-Western theatrical tradition that could stand in sharp contrast to the tired and worn-out theatrical conventions of bourgeois Europe.9 As Carol Martin notes, “Brecht articulates a relationship between actor and spectator wherein both become critical observers (not without empathy) of the actions the actor performs” (1999, 77). More importantly, as Nathaniel Davis argues, this Brechtian relationship involves “a cutting criticism of the audience’s passive, fantasizing spectatorship” (2015, 87). Of course, Brecht’s theories have been highly influential, particularly during the middle decades of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, when viewed from a distance of some 80 years later, they not only look somewhat less “revolutionary” than they did in the mid-1930s, but they also smack of both Western colonialism and cultural appropriation—a point that has not been overlooked by contemporary critics. Min Tian, for example, argues that in retrospect Brecht largely failed to understand the very performance that became so central to his theories and praxis: “it is precisely [the] absence of the ‘fourth wall’ that conditions the fact that Chinese theatre needs no anti-fourth wall or anti-illusionary ‘Alienation-effect’ whatsoever” (1997, 205). Thus, as a result of his “misinterpretation” of the longstanding dialogic relationship between the Chinese performer and the audience, Brecht also misinterprets (or, perhaps, overinterprets) what he thinks he sees in Mei Lanfang’s performance: “In Chinese performance, as we have seen, the audience is not distanced or alienated from the character by virtue of the performer’s ‘self-observation’ simply because, first, the self-observation cannot be considered as an act of self-alienation and, most significantly, a performer’s intense experience of, and identification with, the character is incompatible with self-observation” (Tian 1997, 215).10 On the contrary, 9  On the relationship between Brechtian theory and Chinese opera, see also Yao-Kun Liu (2011). 10  Commenting on Brecht’s reaction to Mei Lanfang’s performance, Tian also notes that “Brecht could not have gained a substantial knowledge of the Chinese theatre from his viewing of this exemplary performance of Mei and his troupe in Russia— at least not a knowledge that could enable him to interpret Chinese acting in its own perspective and context” (1997,

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the audience “is invited into the poetic atmosphere and imagination created by the actor’s performance, which synthesizes poetry, singing, and dancing” (Tian 1997, 205). Martin, for her part, argues that the Chinese tradition extolled by Brecht was hardly a “static” model to begin with, and that at the time of Mei’s visit to Moscow, “the many related forms that we in the West refer to as Chinese opera were in the process of tremendous change” (Martin 1999, 81). Indeed, Martin argues, Mei’s visit to Moscow in 1935 came about “not only because he was a great classical Chinese actor but also because he was a bridge figure who was interested in connecting traditional Chinese acting to what were for him newer Western ideas” (1999, 80).11 More importantly, she says, “one of the things to learn from this Chinese theatre art is not the need for unrealism or its contrary, but rather the exactness of the degree to which, in every part of it, realism is employed” (1999, 80). Or, as Douglas Robinson says: “It is almost certainly ethnocentric for Brecht to assume that the feeling of strangeness he had watching Mei perform is intended by Mei himself, or to generalize his response to Mei to all ‘Chinese acting,’ its intended effect on all audiences” (2007, 123). These critics are, of course, right to criticize Brecht’s cultural blind spots. But what I find most shocking about Brecht’s reaction to Mei’s 1935 performance is not so much that he misreads it, nor that he has to go all the way to China (metaphorically speaking) to “discover” jongleuresque techniques that were always already part of the Western European theater tradition, but that the Western tradition itself had so successfully purged and marginalized its own jongleuresque elements by the early twentiethcentury that someone like Brecht no longer recognized these jongleuresque 203). Likewise, as Douglas Robinson argues, “Brecht was too much the European outsider to understand or appreciate the true essence of Chinese acting” (2007, 122; original emphasis). Moreover, insists Tian, Brecht brought to Mei’s performance a theoretical apparatus that was already “essentially formulated”: “What was later termed the ‘A-effect’ was already firmly established and clearly articulated as the core of the epic theatre” (1997, 203). 11  As Saussy notes, “Mei Lanfang’s triumphal tour of the Soviet Union was a renewal for him in another sense, as the leading member of a profession that had been denounced in China as the very antithesis of modernism since the beginning of the vernacular literary movement in the 1910s” (2006, 18). See also S. Liu (2103; 2016).

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elements as also Western when he saw them. This, for me, is the true “alienation effect” at play in Brecht’s reaction to Mei’s performance: that the kind of performative dialogue between actor and spectator so basic to a medieval performance of, say, El poema de mío Cid or Beowulf is now so alien to a Western theorist and practitioner that he cannot help but see it as something “foreign,” as something that needs to be borrowed into Western culture from the outside.

Works Cited Bagby, Benjamin, perf. 2006. Beowulf. Charles Morrow Productions. Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1984. Rabelais and His World, translated by Hélène Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press. Barba, Eugenio. 2010. “Foreword: Two Pairs of Eyes.” In Soul of Beijing Opera: Theatrical Creativity and Continuity in the Changing World, edited by Li Ruru, xi-xiv. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Univ. Press. Battacharya, Deben, dir. 2004. Chinese Opera. Lyrichord. DVD. Blodgett, E. D., trans. 1995. The Romance of Flamenca. New York: Garland. Boswell, Laurence. 2013. Introductory Remarks. The Comedia: Translation and Performance. Out of the Wings/Association for Hispanic Classical Theatre Joint Conference, Bath, England, November 25-28. Brecht, Bertolt. 2000. “On Chinese Acting.” Translated by Eric Bentley. In Brecht Sourcebook, edited by Carol Martin and Henry Bial, 15-22. London: Routledge. Brockett, Oscar G. 1982. History of the Theatre. 4th edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Brooker, Peter. 1994. “Key Words in Brecht’s Theory and Practice of Theatre.” In The Cambridge Companion to Brecht, edited by Peter Thomson and Glendyr Sacks, 185-200. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Burningham, Bruce R. 2016. “Cognitive Theatricality: Jongleuresque Imagination on the Early Spanish Stage. In Cognitive Approaches to Early Modern Spanish Literature, edited by Isabel Jaén and Julien Jacques Simon. Oxford: Oxford University Press. — 2007. Radical Theatricality: Jongleuresque Performance on the Early Spanish Stage. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press. Cervantes, Miguel de. 2016. “Prólogo al lector.” In Teatro completo, edited by Florencio Sevilla Arroyo, 267-72. Barcelona: Penguin.

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Davidson, Clifford. 1991. Illustrations of the Stage and Acting in England to 1580. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University. Davis, Nathaniel. 2015. “‘Not a soul in sight!’: Beckett’s Fourth Wall.” Journal of Modern Literature 38 (2): 86-102. Dolby, William. 1976. A History of Chinese Drama. London: Elek. Eisenstein, Sergei, dir. 1935. “Mei Lanfang in Moscow 1935.” YouTube. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nlf5LW_nrQ. Esslin, Martin. 1971. Brecht: The Man and His Work. New York: Anchor Books. Grimm, Reinhold. 1997. “Alienation in Context: On the Theory and Practice of Brechtian Theater.” In A Bertolt Brecht Reference Companion, edited by Siegfried Mews, 35-46. Westport: Greenwood. Hu, John. 1983. “Ming Dynasty Drama.” In Chinese Theater: From Its Origins to the Present Day, edited by Colin Mackerras, 60-91. Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Press. Huston, Hollis. 1992. The Actor’s Instrument: Body, Theory, Stage. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Idema, Wilt L. “Foreword.” In 1616: Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu’s China, edited by Tian Yuan Tan, Paul Edmondson, and Shih-pe Wang, xix-xxii. London: Bloomsbury. Kalvodová [Vladimír Sís/Josef Vanis]. 1957. Chinese Theatre. London: Spring Books. Kiebuzinska, Christine. 1997. “Brecht and the Problem of Influence.” In A Bertolt Brecht Reference Companion, edited by Siegfried Mews, 47-69. Westport: Greenwood. Liu, Siyuan. 2013. “The Case of Princess Baihua: State Diplomatic Functions and Theatrical Creative Process in China in the 1950s and 1960s.”  Asian Theatre Journal 30 (1): 1-29 — 2016. “The Cross Currents of Modern Theatre and China’s National Theatre Movement of 1925–1926.” Asian Theatre Journal 33 (1): 1-35. Liu, Yao-Kun. 2011. “Brecht’s Epic Theater and Peking Opera.” AUMLA: Journal of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association 116: 65-81. Lord, Albert B. 2000. The Singer of Tales. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Martin, Carol. 1999. “Brecht, Feminism, and Chinese Theatre.” The Drama Review: A Journal of Performance Studies 43 (4): 77-85. Moratín, Leandro Fernández de. 1989. La comedia nueva, edited by René Andioc. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe. Robinson, Douglas. 2007. “The Spatiotemporal Dialectic of Estrangement.” The Drama Review: A Journal of Performance Studies 51 (4): 121-32.

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Ruru, Li. 2010. Soul of Beijing Opera: Theatrical Creativity and Continuity in the Changing World. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Saussy, Haun. 2006. “Mei Lanfang in Moscow, 1935: Familiar, Unfamiliar, Defamiliar.” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 18 (1): 8-29. Schechter, Joel. 1994. “Brecht’s Clowns: Man is Man and After.” In The Cambridge Companion to Brecht, edited by Peter Thomson and Glendyr Sacks, 68-78. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shen, Grant. 1998. “Acting in the Private Theatre of the Ming Dynasty.” Asian Theatre Journal 15 (1): 64-86. Shih, Chung-Wen. 1976. The Golden Age of Chinese Drama: Yuan Tsa-chü. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Stenberg, Josh. 2016. “A Preliminary Overview of Dutch East Indies and Indonesian Xiqu History and Present Practice.” Asian Theatre Journal 33 (1): 170-97. Subiotto, Arrigo. 1982. “Epic Theatre: A Theatre for a Scientific Age.” In Brecht in Perspective, edited by Graham Bartram and Anthony Waine, 30-44. London: Longman. Tian, Min. 1997. “‘Alienation-Effect’ for Whom?: Brecht’s (Mis)Interpretation of the Classical Chinese Theatre.” Asian Theatre Journal 14 (2): 200-22. Tokita, Alison. 2016. “Interlude: Katari Narrative Traditions: From Storytelling to Theatre.” In A History of Japanese Theatre, edited by Jonah Salz, 20-23. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vega, Lope de. 1965. El arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo. In Preceptiva dramática española del renacimiento y el barroco, edited by Federico Sánchez Escribano and Alberto Porqueras Mayo. Madrid: Gredos. Wang, Zhengbao. 1982. The Art of Chinese Acrobatics. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. Weimann, Robert. 1978. Shakespeare and the Popular Tradition in the Theater: Studies in the Social Dimension of Dramatic Form and Function. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Willett, John. 1968. The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects. New York: New Directions. Zung, Cecilia S. L. 1937. Secrets of the Chinese Drama: A Complete Explanatory Guide to Actions and Symbols as Seen in the Performance of Chinese Dramas. New York: Benjamin Blom.

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(Miguel de Luarca’s Verdadera relación de la grandeza del Reino de China) Jorge Abril Sánchez

There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare. It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on. (Sun Tzu 2016, 7)

In his iconic 1988 essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak explored the historical and ideological factors that prevented oppressed and subjugated minorities from voicing their claims to equality and justice from the periphery. In a political system in which the capitalist and imperialist center of power discriminated against those living on the margins, the subordinate was often incapable of breaking the social barriers that consolidated the pyramidal hierarchy of society and imposed the authority of the elite over their fellow citizens. During the Age of Discovery and Exploration in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, this relation of dominance and subjugation constituted the core and the pillars over which an empire was built by European nations that embarked on overseas enterprises to expand their territory and to increase the wealth of the metropolis. Not only did Miguel López de Legazpi’s 1565 expedition across the Pacific Ocean to the Philippines represent the beginning of the expansion of the Iberian kingdom of Castile over an almost prohibited geographical area due to the signing of the Treaty of Tordesillas with Portugal in 1494, but it also facilitated the encounter of the Spaniards with the unknown inhabitants of the East Indies. From important trade posts and newly-built urban centers in

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South and Southeast Asia, such as Manila and Cebú, several explorers strove to enter the inhospitable dominions of the Chinese. Miguel de Luarca, a soldier that accompanied Augustinian fray Martín de Rada and Jerónimo Marín in their diplomatic mission to the region of Oquiam in 1575, left testimony of his experience in China in a narrative he composed upon his return to the archipelago under the title of Verdadera relación de la grandeza del Reino de China [True Account of the Greatness of the Kingdom of China]. In what may be considered the first chronicle written in Spanish about this millennial realm, the author described in detail the modus vivendi of local Chinese communities the ambassadors entered. In this detailed portrayal, the author paid special attention to the fortified walls and the human and natural resources of these towns, thus assessing a hypothetical military campaign in the province and the possible resolution of Spain’s conquest and invasion of this unfamiliar enclave. However, in this examination, the sight of the viewer was often blocked and the voice of the narrator was usually interrupted by the autochthonous population. Indeed, several times the Spanish visitors were not allowed to enter some public spaces to observe people’s customs and traditions in first person; on other occasions, they were imprisoned or deprived of freedom of movement because the Chinese suspected that their guests could be planning to conspire against them. The Spaniards’ interaction with their mistrustful hosts demonstrated the ambivalent attitude of the native inhabitants, who permitted the entrance of representatives of an alien nation into an inaccessible land not a long time ago at the same time that they restricted the visitors’ access to manuscripts in libraries and stores. Furthermore, China’s zeal and mistrust motivated the orchestration and the representation of a set of sophisticated theatrical performances to show evidence of their impressive history of military supremacy over their regional neighbors. Not only did these outstanding short spectacles serve to counterattack the biased naming and interpretation of the intruder, but they also projected a magnificent image of their history in the eyes of the beholder. In this essay, I will analyze the performative discourse of these brief comedias that not only stood out as contemporary ekphrastic depictions of their national theater in the second half of the sixteenth century, but were also presented as artifacts developed by an imperial entity in Asia to counteract the intrusion and invasion of a competing European power. This presentation,

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albeit majestic and striking, should not be accepted at face value as they were literally appropriated by Luarca, who reported about their mise-en-scène in his text. Indeed, the subaltern could only find space to verbally challenge and respond to its enemy in the narrative of the empire. In postcolonial terms, these playwrights accepted the tension of a colonizing conflict with an invading nation and emerged in the composition of the colonizer “emphasizing their differences from the assumptions of the imperial centre” (Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin 1994, 2). Thanks to these shows, the dramaturges immersed themselves in the foreign culture, which spoke about them in the language of the colonizer. Notwithstanding their indirect speech, the strength and visual power of their artistic creations destabilized the oppressive narration of the witness as, in order to be accurate, he felt obliged to submit himself to the difficult task of transferring and communicating the message his opponents were transmitting to him on stage. In this sense, Luarca’s pictorial description of these theatrical performances constituted a beautiful metonymic painting of the martial clash between the daring colonizing force and an unusual colonized being that defied the traditional rules of Orientalism.

1. The Far East and Spain’s Encounter with the Chinese Little was known about the Far East and the great Kingdom of China in Western Europe before the sixteenth century. Not many explorers had embarked on adventurous enterprises beyond the limits of their inhabited and habitable territory, or oikouménē, to explore those distant and mythical lands of which they had heard fanciful stories from some untrustworthy sailors. These narratives had created a legendary and fantastical image of these realms that filled the minds of travelers with dreams of discovering paradisiac nations of incalculable resources and wealth, and of conquering, converting and “civilizing” the exotic beings and grotesque monsters that often populated their terra firme.1 Annotated information of geographical 1  For more information about the feeling of fear and the horror created by epidemic diseases, natural disasters, famine, and supernatural visions of witches, monstrosities and ghosts, please consult Yi-Fu Tuan (2013).

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itineraries, passionate identifications of biblical locations and stereotypical descriptions of natural conditions were mixed in these accounts that offered an inaccurate vision of these mysterious empires that stirred up these discoverers to act. In this sense, in these stories, history was made (and unmade) and written (and rewritten) “with various silences and elisions, always with shapes imposed and disfigurements tolerated, so that “our” East, “our” Orient becomes “ours” to possess and direct” (Said 1994, xviii). These fabricated inventions were debunked with the arrival of the Mongols to Poland and Hungary in the 1240s, on the eastern border of Europe with Asia. The ferocity of these bloodthirsty warriors, the rumors about their consumption of raw meat and the allegations of hideous crimes deflated the positive idealistic portrait of the foreigners and their vicious leader, the Great Khan, frequently identified with the presbyter John. But, their short stay in foreign territory and their fast retreat to their homeland increased the Europeans’ curiosity and interest in this charismatic chief. Pope Innocent IV strove to sign an alliance with the “barbarian” in order to gain his support against a hypothetical Muslim invasion. As a result of this desire, a number of embassies were organized and sponsored over the next three hundred years.2 The Pax Mongolica or Pax Tatarica, derived from the series of Mongol 2  One of the most celebrated ones was Italian John of Pian de Carpine’s diplomatic visit to the Mongol court in 1246 and the delivery of the Pope’s letter Cum non solum, whereby the religious leader would appeal to his new allies to desist from attacking Christians and express his desire for peace. His trip concluded with the writing of the Historia Mongolorum, a complete report on the life of their alien hosts. This mission was followed by William of Rubruck’s missionary trip in 1253. The Flemish Franciscan was encouraged to foster a friendship with the Asian monarch and explore neighboring areas. William was the author of an account of his journey upon his return, divided into forty chapters, in which he informed about the Mongols and other nations, such as China. Based on his comments, he was a good observer and an excellent writer, comparable to Marco Polo. The brothers of the famous Venetian merchant arrived at the capital of the Chinese empire in Cambaluc, recently conquered by the Mongols, in the 1260s and met Kublai Khan. In 1269, they returned to Venice to meet Marco and prepare an extraordinary twenty-four-year-long voyage to Asia. Their legacy was a book, entitled The Travels of Marco Polo (1299), that described the wealth and the immense size of the great empire of China, its main city Beijing and neighboring towns and countries. Critics generally agree about the hyperbolic tone of the descriptions and the imaginative nature of the narration. The Khan is depicted as an exemplary sovereign and the personifica-

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conquests along the Eurasian territory, facilitated the easy communication and the commercial exchange among distant nations during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. However, the political fragmentation of the Khan’s empire into four khanates—namely, Yuan dynasty, Golden Horde, Chagati Khanate and Ilkhanate—and the outbreak of the Black Death in Asia put an end to this period of peace and the free transit of travelers along the trade routes, which would be also jeopardized by the fall of Constantinople in the hands of the Turks in 1453. There was not much contact with the Far East until the fifteenth century, when the Portuguese found a new way to enter the Indian Ocean by sailing along the coast of the African continent. This alternative was sought by sailors funded and commissioned by the Infante Don Henrique of Portugal, better known as Prince Henry the Navigator, who was a central figure in the early days of European maritime discoveries and expansion. Under his patronage, he would encourage his father, King João I, to recruit the most prestigious cosmographers of the period and collect all the available studies about past expeditions in the Atlantic Ocean and in Africa. His dream to extend the dominion of his nation over the Orient would be continued by future monarchs, such as King Afonso V, King Manuel I and King João III. Nevertheless, of all of them King João II made the biggest impact. Not only did he discover a passage through the Cape of Good Hope—in the person of Bartolomé Dias—, started a settlement in the São Tomé and Príncipe Islands and sent expeditions to India and Ethiopia, but in 1494 he signed the Treaty of Tordesillas with Spain and Pope Alexander VI, by which the newly-found territories were divided between the Portuguese empire and tion of justice and equality, which has made scholars doubt about the veracity of the account. Nevertheless, the manuscript became an extremely successful publication, commonly consulted by later conquistadores, such as Christopher Columbus. Other explorers contemporary to Marco Polo were John of Montecorvino —named Archbishop of Cambaluc by the Pope and commissioned by His Holiness to convert the Khan into Christianity in 1289—, Odoric of Pordenone— a Franciscan friar that still localized the kingdom of the Prester John in Asia and whose visit and mission to China between 1316 and 1330 allowed him to collect enough information to publish an account that served as an important source for more popular authors, such as Sir John Mandeville, the fictitious author of his Travels, circulated between 1357 and 1371—, etc.

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the Crown of Castile along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. This agreement would grant a huge advantage to Portugal over European competitors, thus allowing them to reach the Chinese coast already in 1514. From then on, the Iberian kingdom would become the effective and restricted filter through which other nations would receive information about the Great Kingdom of China.3 This secrecy was successful due to the Chinese interruption of any maritime trade or contact with foreign people since the 1430s, when the Ming dynasty retreated in the haijin or a policy of isolationism. In an edict passed in 1433, and ratified years later, the emperor prohibited his subjects to cross the border of his empire to communicate with other nations and ordered them to prevent the entrance of Portuguese sailors into their mainland in case they reached their harbors or coastal towns, such as Guangzhou and Ningpo. This prohibition was reinforced after a diplomatic conflict between the Cantonese authorities and Fernão Peres de Andrade’s brother in 1517, when the latter, named Simão, disregarded the local traditions of mourning for the recent death of the emperor. This violation caused the prohibition of any trade with Westerners until the year 1552, when the Chinese resumed their friendly relationship with Portugal. Five years later, the first permanent Portuguese settlement was established in Macau, a number of Chinese books were sent to Lisbon and new chronicles of exploration were printed again in Portuguese.4 Meanwhile, Spain had begun to express its interest in participating in the trade of spices and the commerce with the East Indies. During his fourth voyage, Christopher Columbus (1502-1504) unsuccessfully tried to open 3  Indeed, the Portuguese Crown would preserve the narratives composed by its national explorers with much care and zeal. King Manuel I issued a royal edict by which those who dared to promulgate the news and information obtained during these voyages would be sentenced to death. Most of these travel accounts were published exclusively in Portuguese and printed and safeguarded in Lisbon. Among these reports it is worth mentioning Tomé Pires’s Suma Oriental (1512-1515), Duarte Barbosa’s Livro das coisas da Índia (circa 1516), and Cristovão Vieira and Vasco Calvo’s Cartas dos cativos de Cantão (circa 1524), among many others. 4  Among them, it is necessary to mention Fernão Lopes de Castanheda’s História da Índia (1551-1561), João de Barros’s Décadas da Ásia (1552, 1553, 1563 and 1615, posthumously) and Dominican friar Gaspar da Cruz’s Tratado das coisas da China (1569).

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a new maritime route to travel to Asia by sailing westward, but he encountered an unknown American continent. Juan Sebastián Elcano, on his part, was the first Spaniard to arrive at the Moluccas in 1521 and to return to his country one year later to claim these far lands for his Spanish monarch. In the following four decades, both Charles I and his son concentrated their efforts on exploring these archipelagos. Thus, Philip II told Luis de Velasco, viceroy in New Spain, to calculate the distance between Mexico and the Molucca Islands, in company with Andrés de Urdaneta, who had suggested that the sovereign conquer the Philippines. In 1565, Miguel López de Legazpi finally made it to Cebú to establish a Spanish settlement, from which they would start collecting information about the great Kingdom of China thanks to their contact with Chinese merchants and immigrants relocated from the continent. In 1571, the Basque navigator moved to Panay and from there he sent Martín de Goyti to Luzón. He was planning to create a route to China and with this idea in mind he drew a simple map with a few general annotations and geographical references. The Spaniards would finally have access to the Chinese mainland when the new governor in the Philippines, Guido de Lavezaris, consolidated the commerce with their neighbors and assisted them in the hunt of the pirate Li Ma-hon in 1574. The Spanish fleet chased the renegade until Pangasinán, in the Philippines, and destroyed his boats. This fierce attack was widely celebrated by the Chinese authorities, who allowed a few sailors to return to their homeland in Fujian with a small Spanish diplomatic embassy of two Augustinian friars, named Martín de Rada and Jeronimo Marín, and two soldiers, known as Pedro Sarmiento and Miguel de Luarca. Both Martín and Miguel would compose an account of their voyage and their opinion about their foreign hosts, which should be considered the first two narratives about the Great Kingdom of China in Spanish.

2. Miguel de Luarca’s Account of the Great Kingdom of China Little is known about the historical figure of Miguel. He was a sailor and an adventurer, born in the picturesque village of Luarca, in the West of the Northern province of Asturias. There are different possible dates for his birth,

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which could have happened between 1540 and 1545, or as early as 1536. Scholars have not agreed on his real last name, either. At that time, it was common for individuals to add their birthplace to their Christian names. However, Santiago García Castañón has found in the archives another account on the Philippine Islands written in Spanish by an author named Miguel López de Luarca in 1573. This discovery has made the researcher believe that this person is our hero. In any case, in 1562, Miguel joined the crew led by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés in his expedition to explore Florida and establish what is now the oldest European settlement there in Saint Augustine in 1565. One year later, he traveled to New Spain and enrolled in Acapulco in the army that was sent to the Philippines to assist Legazpi. The voyage was not easy. The Asturian intervened to stop the mutiny of some rebels on board against the captain and secured their journey to Cebú, which they reached in 1566. Over the next three years, he would fight in the Spanish armed forces against the Portuguese and the native population of the archipelago. In 1569, he moved to Panay with Legazpi, who granted him an encomienda in Otón around 1571. He must have participated in the hunt of the pirate Li Ma-hon because in 1575 he was chosen to accompany two friars and another soldier in the first Spanish embassy to China. He carried letters from the Governor in the Philippines, Guido de Lavazaris, thus becoming Spain’s first ambassador to the millennial kingdom. After four months, he returned to his newly-obtained territory in the islands and most likely married, or co-habitated with a native Filipina, with whom he fathered a daughter named Lucía, who inherited his fortune. In 1580, the new Governor in the Philippines, Gonzalo Ronquillo de Peñalosa, appointed him ruler of the region of Arévalo over a lustro. Miguel would remain in the archipelago until the time of his death, sometime around 1591. His autobiographical Verdadera relación de la grandeza del Reino de China truly speaks volumes of the nature of our author as a Renaissance man of arms and letters. If his heroic bravery and military discipline allowed him to earn a glorious reputation among his fellow combatants, his writing style and linguistic sophistication demonstrated that he had completed a certain degree of education, either at an educational institution or by reading travel literature and the epic poems, chronicles, ballads or pamphlets composed by soldiers in garrisons, presidios and the front lines. Indeed, in the first three

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chapters of his account, Miguel narrated as a war reporter the pirate Li Mahon’s raid of Manila, the defense of the city by the Spaniards, the assistance of captain Juan de Salcedo in the naumachia, the chase of the criminal along the river Pangasinán, the Spanish siege of the renegade in the estuary, the epistolary exchange between the Iberians and the defector, and the resolution of the long beleaguerment with the participation of the Chinese commander Ou Mon-con. This precision would be maintained after the arrival of the mission on the Chinese continent and after reaching the coast, where the Asturian and his companions embarked on a boat and sailed in the direction of Tangoa, where they were welcomed by the local authorities. At this time, Luarca stood out as a detailed painter of sceneries, generally portraying the strength of the military defenses of these local communities they were visiting. Thus, in Tontuso, he emphasized the considerable number of “cuatro mil vecinos” (2002, 37) [four thousand neighbors] in the village and the stout robustness of its barriers “con su [sic] puertas chapadas con yerro” (2002, 37) [with its doors covered with iron]. In Tangoa, together with Pedro Sarmiento, he took advantage of their walk to commend the quality of the materials used to build the region’s defending wall, “muy ancha y toda de cantería y de grandísimas piedras, con sus troneras y almenas, aunque sin cal y sin caballeros con sus garitas” (2002, 43) [very wide and all made of stone and very large stones, with their embrasures and battlements, but without lime and without knights in their sentry boxes]. In Chincheo, he applauded the urbanistic planning of the municipality, which “Tiene los arrabales muy grandes y al fin de ellos una puente con sus puentes levadizas” (2002, 46) [has very large suburbs and at the end of them a bridge that would elevate over a pit]. Miguel would also assess the ability of his hosts to provide their army with supplies. In this sense, the author commented on the abundance of fresh produce and the size of their open markets: causónos admiración una calle por donde entramos que era cerca de media legua, toda llena de pescados de todas suertes, fresco y salado, carnicería de puerco y vaca, mucha verdura y fruta y muchas tiendas de mercaderías; por toda ella y por otras calles que la atraviesan y podré decir con verdad que con ser una villa no he visto semejante calle ni plaza con tantas cosas para vender y tiendas de

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todas suertes, y la gente era tanta que con ir hombres haciendo calle delante nos ahogaban. (2002, 42) [we admired a street in which we entered and that was around half a league long; it was full of fish of all sorts, fresh and salted, of pork and beef, and of lots of vegetables and fruit and many stores with merchandise; we saw this abundance in this street and in others that crossed it; I could truly affirm that in spite of being a small village I had not seen a street or a square with so many things to sell and so many stores of all kinds before; and there were so many people that several men that were walking in front of us blocked our way and did not let us breathe]

Such a wealth and ampleness of resources would be crucial to supply the troops with means and nourishment to go to war. In the eyes of a Spanish soldier, normally hungry and short of payment, weaponry and equipment, this affluence would surely be discouraging. Thus, the reader is a witness of the envy and admiration for this “tierra llana y poblada” (2002, 45) [flat and populated land], rich in nutrients, bathed by waters that were “excelentes” (2002, 45) [excellent], and cultivated to produce acres of “trigo, cebada, borona, frísoles, albergas, algodón, pero a lo que más se dan es al arroz” (2002, 44) [wheat, barley, corn bread, kidney beans, lentils, cotton, but what they harvested the most was rice]. In opposition to this demonstration of stoutness and opulence, Miguel identified the weaknesses of his opponents in order to collect information that could be utilized in a future invasion. In this sense, he acted as a spy in enemy territory, examining the flaws of their foes and evaluating their chances to overcome their power. With this idea in mind, he underscored the good state of their roads, mostly flat and without many ramps or obstacles, what could facilitate the fast transportation of heavy weapons and the quick movement of the troops. Indeed, “Todo el camino por donde anduvimos está enlosado de muy buenas piedras y lo mismo dicen está toda la China, y aunque vamos por muy grandes sierras siempre llevamos el camino llano” (2002, 46) [All the terrain we walked is paved with very good stones and they say the same about the whole realm of China, because, although we crossed very large mountain ranges, we always found a flat road]. This favorable condition of the topography was frequently the reason of seasonal natural disasters and floods that inundated their territory on the coast. Due

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to the short elevation of their land, their towns were deluged by heavy rains that made the level of the sea water rise and “anegar muchas veces de invierno con el avenida del río” (2002, 57) [the river overflows many times in winter]. Now that the cold months of the year could be the most appropriate time to launch an attack, it was necessary to know what human forces they would have to subdue. Thus, Luarca analyzed the Chinese’s lack of powerful firearms to shoot from a distance. On this matter, he noticed that they did not recognize “nuestros arcabuces, que ellos no usan de ellos” (2002, 38) [our arquebuses, as they did not use them]. Furthermore, the majority of the population did not normally bear arms as citizens “de cualquier condición que sean andan sin armas ni las tienen en sus casas” (2002, 46) [of any rank did not carry arms nor did they store them in their homes]. Nevertheless, in their reception with the governor in Ucheo, he observed the presence of some armed guards among the attendants to the formal social occasion because “estaban puestos soldados con sus arcabuces y picas” (2002, 50) [several soldiers were placed in their positions with arquebuses and pikes]. The occasional possession of handguns did not seem to preoccupy the old serviceman as, in his opinion, the locals were not experienced fighters. In fact, in order to clear their path on their way to the next destination, their servants were strong and skillful enough to disperse the crowds of curious pedestrians. As for him, the native population “es gente tan para poco y vil que dos esclavos nuestros acaecía llevar a palos dos mil y tres mil hombres chinos por una calle y todos huyendo de ellos” (2002, 55-56) [was so small and innocent that two of our slaves were able to hold and push two and three thousand Chinese men down a street making them run away from us]. For that reason, in his mind, it would be easy to defeat their hosts in battle in a hypothetical confrontation. Although Miguel de Luarca’s account pursued other interests and was not thought to be an anthropological and sociological study of China and its people, the narrator made certain breaks in his narrative to praise the beauty and the grandeur of the Chinese culture and society. Indeed, he mentioned the autochthonous custom to eat with chopsticks “sin tocar cosa con la mano” (2002, 39) [without touching anything with their hands]. Later, in Ucheo, he approved the devotion of the diners to their house deities to which they offered “una tacilla de plata puesta en un plato de plata, que ellos

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beben en tacillas pequeñas, y llena de vino” (2002, 60) [a small silver cup placed on a silver plate, as they drink in small cups, and filled with wine] before their meals. This luxury and value of their cutlery was a common feature in the households of their hosts, who were always dressed in clothes of high quality. Thus, “La gente principal anda toda vestida de seda y andan cuando se visten de fiesta con tres o cuatro sayos de seda unos sobre otros, y jamás se hacen la cortesía unos a otros si no están vestidos con ropas nuevas” (2002, 95) [the people of prominence are always wearing garments made of silk and, when they are celebrating a festivity, they dress up with three or four silk shawls on top of each other, and they never greet each other if they are not dressed in new clothes]. These signs of admiration would intensify at the end of his narrative in which Miguel described the theatrical performances staged in honor of the foreign guests in order to entertain them. However, in spite of fulfilling his role as a faithful writer, his authority and hegemony would be questioned and contrasted between the lines of his text by the subject of his writing. Although the narrator complied with his responsibility as a costumbrista painter, his narration is intruded and appropriated by the logos and the ideology of the playwrights who designed these spectacles. In this sense, the objectified subaltern managed to insert its voice in the description of the chronicler of the imperial power. The staging of these impressive scenes portraying the religious beliefs and the military supremacy of the Chinese over their neighboring realms effectively suspended the reaffirmation of the superiority of the European power over the Asian kingdom. Thus, although the discourse was still dominated by Luarca as an author, the soldier felt obliged to recognize the primacy and the dominance of his opponent as exposed in the shows he was reporting and using vicariously to educate Spain’s center of power in the military history of the Great Kingdom of China.

3. Chinese Political and Religious Plays in Luarca’s Account It is believed that Chinese theater evolved from a long storytelling tradition rooted in ancient court entertainers, shadow plays, comic dialogues, and various forms of farce. In the opinion of André Lévy, “These works

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seem to have begun in earnest in the twelfth century, especially in the burgeoning populous cities, which had amusement quarters where permanent theater halls were established” (2000, 114). In general, there were two types of composition within the same genre. The first variant, known as tsa chü, originated and was brought to full fruition in the North during the Yüan dynasty. The second one, named ch’uan ch’i, was maintained in the South. They differed from each other not only in the chronology of their golden periods, but also in their construction. The Northern drama was usually divided into four parts or acts—preceded by a short prologue—, included songs after a rhyming scheme, and assigned the singing lines to a single principal actor. A typical Southern drama, however, could contain from forty to fifty changes of scene, was formed by shorter acts, had eliminated the prologue, lacked any kind of pattern with regard to rhyming among its songs, and distributed the songs among all the cast in the show (Shou-yi 1961, 519-20). These theatrical performances covered common topics, such as erotic love, the elopement of two lovers and their emotional journey. For Sabina Knight, all of these elements were mixed organically by the time of the Yüan dynasty (1279-1368), when “dramatizations of human folly and vice regularly combined verse, classical prose, and colloquial dialogue with music, mime, and dance” (2012, 77). The goal of the dramaturge was not to be realistic, but to convey emotions through symbolic conventions. These inventions were very melodramatic and made good use of standardized symbols, formulas and stock characters that made fun of corrupted officials, older men, incompetent physicians and naïve dogmatists. This ridicule is evident in early plays, such as Zhiyuan Ma’s Autumn in the Han Palace. During the Ming dynasty, these creations were improved and expanded to become “longer dramatic romances and elaborate musical theater. More freewheeling than the northern variety plays, these dramas consist[ed] of 10 to 240 scenes (often 30 to 50) with large casts of singing characters. These operas are typically didactic melodramas about filial piety, separated lovers, mistaken identities, and belated reunions” (Knight 2012, 79). They would open with a summary of the plot and featured scenes of love, battle and comedy. According to Herbert Giles, the production of spectacles was well sustained at this time as this erstwhile exotic entertainment “had caught on, and henceforth forms the ideal pastime of the cultured, reflective scholar,

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and of the laughter-loving masses of the Chinese people” (1937, 325). The masterpiece of this period is Xianzu Tang’s fifty-five scene opera, entitled Peony Pavilion. In Luarca’s account, the first piece of entertainment orchestrated by the Chinese to welcome their guests is mentioned on the first day of the expedition into the mainland, in which the travelers reached Tontuso and were hosted by several captains sent by the Governor of Chincheo. At night, during a banquet, the newcomers were offered a splendid meal and comfort to rest, while they were amused by “música de chirimías y cornetas y trompetas” (2002, 39) [the music of oboes, horns and trumpets]. The choice of the musical instruments is very significant as the first of this trio normally accompanied, together with a drum, religious processions and commemorative dances and dramas in Spain and its colonies. This short spectacle and recital would precede the mise-en-scène of several elaborated librettos on improvised theaters during the voyage of the Spanish explorers. The selection of the components is not coincidental as, in China, this kind of flute, which was known by different names—namely, suona, laba or haidi—, had a distinctively loud and high-pitched sound that urged the Chinese to often play it in traditional ensembles, usually performed outdoors. Indeed, it was an essential element of ritual music in Daoist performances of both auspicious and inauspicious rites, including those for both the living and the dead, and in wedding and funeral parades. It was also used for festival and military purposes, like the other two wind instruments chosen for this rehearsal—that is, the horns and the trumpets—, which should have alerted the Spaniards to the true intentions of their welcoming party. Not only were they ceremoniously greeted by highly-ranked officials in their opponent’s army, but they were soon reminded of their traditional obligation to pay homage and show respect to their local authorities, thus disputing the predominance of the invading nation. This opposition and fight over supremacy was dramatized during the formal reception by the Governor of Chincheo. Upon the arrival of the Spaniards at this important town, Luarca and his companions were unexpectedly locked up in a room decorated with a shrine filled with statues of their pagan idols, thus exposing the forasteros to the religious beliefs and gods of the Chinese. This uncommon forced conversion of the Westerners, who

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normally imposed their religion on the native tribes they encountered in their discoveries, subverted the hegemony of the colonizer and allowed the targeted colonized to renegotiate the interaction with its conversant now on equal terms. This imprisonment undoubtfully undermined the effectiveness and the strength of Spain’s imperialistic enterprise and forced both sides to converse and resolve their escalating conflict. The local inhabitants requested their visitors to kneel down in front of their leaders while they addressed them in person. The Europeans, on their part, refused to humiliate themselves and position themselves at a lower level than their Asian counterpart as they only considered themselves inferior to their Spanish monarchs. This disagreement was finally settled with the guests’ commitment to formally salute their governor “a nuestra costumbre quitándole las gorras y haciéndole las reverencias, de lo cual gustó mucho” (2002, 53) [in our fashion by removing our hats and bowing to him, which he enjoyed a great deal]. The reconciliation was celebrated with the staging, in a circle created in the middle of their dining tables, of “una comedia que duraron todos los entremeses toda la comedia” (2002, 53) [a play that lasted the serving of all the appetizers]. Luarca does not give the reader much detail about the characteristics of the show. It seems that its structure was simple and the tone of the story was celebratory and festive. Indeed, there were songs by “cantores” (2002, 53) [singers] and music by “músicos de vihuela de arco” (2002, 53) [musicians playing the vihuela with a bow] during its performance. The naming of the popular Spanish guitar-shaped instrument from the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries, usually with five or six doubled strings, must have been an error made by the narrator, who most likely was not familiarized with the Chinese musical instrument known as pipa. The vihuela had made its way to New Spain by the 1560s as several records and ordinances in Mexico City indicate. However, there is no evidence that it had reached the Far East. For that reason, Miguel must have confused the Chinese musical instrument with its Iberian equivalent. The pipa was a four-stringed variant, often compared to a lute, that had a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from twelve to twenty-six. It was one of the most popular instruments in China and scholars could track down its usage back to the Qin and Tang dynasties based on several references in ancient texts. At the time of Luarca’s embassy, it might be played as a solo instrument or as

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part of the imperial orchestra at court, but it was definitely required in high demand by performers in Buddhist celebrations, theatrical performances and instrumental recitals like this aforementioned.5 Leaving the nature of the instrument aside, the discussion about the formalities and the protocol in front of the local authorities would be later revisited upon their arrival at the town of Ucheo. Miguel and his party had already been in the province for twenty-five days and they were getting ready to continue their trip to the capital. In order to say goodbye to his visitors, the viceroy organized a large “banquete como los pasados; hubo en él una farsa y parece que quisieron en ella animar los capitanes que nos habían de traer a las islas” (2002, 67) [banquet like those in the past; there was a farce in the middle of it most likely to cheer up the captains who had to bring us to the islands]. The theatrical performance presented the heroic, albeit comical, adventure of a young man, who, having gotten married to a wife that he could not stand, decided to enroll in the armed forces and go to war. On the battlefield, the soldier showed evidence of his bravery and courage, which made his captain promote him to lead his troops to combat. His intrepid deeds were compensated with the title of captain by his sovereign, who elevated him over the rank of his erstwhile military leaders, who now were forced to salute him with their knees on the ground. This fictional episode about the rise to power of an individual and the subversion of hierarchy should not be read innocently. The selection of this piece of theater and the inclusion of this passage in the storyline must surely be interpreted as an intended comment by the Chinese. It looks like the hosts had not forgotten the violation of their guests and a few days after the last embassy they decided to resume the debate about the correct manner to address their of5  Liu Jung-en has studied the theatrical performances in China in earlier periods and states that “From the end of the Sung dynasty (960-1279) to the end of the Yüan dynasty (1280-1369) a large number of ‘music dramas’ were written and produced in North China. Out of some 700 known ones about 150 are extant. They are called tsa chü (‘mixed entertainments’), because in one work the entertainers sang, spoke, played music, danced, mimed and acted. The audience was being entertained on several levels at the same time. The misnamed Peking Opera is their natural descendant. Poetry sung to music occupied a predominant part. These plays are popularly known in China as Yüan ch’ü (‘Yüan songs’), Yüan Northern Drama. They form an interesting genre of their own and deserve attention” (1972, 7).

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Image 1. A statue of a Heavenly King, a Buddhist god, holding a pipa.6

ficials formally in an assembly. In this sense, the subaltern broke its silence to cause the colonizer to remember that dominance was obtained on the battleground based on the merits of the combatant and that it did not depend on the geographical origin of the protagonist. The idea of honoring and celebrating the military actions of a soldier is fundamental to understand the historical past of the Chinese staged in a

6  Picture taken by Jorge Abril Sánchez inside the temple of the Big Buddha in Hong Kong on June 20th, 2018. Fair use for scholarly purposes. The statue represents the King of the East and the God of music. His symbolic weapon is the pipa (stringed instrument). He is harmonious and compassionate and protects all beings. He uses his music to convert others to Buddhism. He is associated with the color white.

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second theatrical representation at Ucheo. On this occasion, another party was prepared and “Hubo en esta comida cantos y vihuelas de arco y rabeles” (2002, 60) [there were songs accompanied by the music of vihuelas [maybe pipas] and rabels during this meal]. The foreign ambassadors were invited to sit at the table with the General Captain of the province. The feast was magnificent and “fue más suntuoso este banquete porque hubo mucha música y una farsa muy larga, y al cabo un volteador que hizo muy lindas vueltas así en el suelo como en un palo que lo tenían dos chinos en los hombros” (2002, 60) [this banquet was more sumptuous than the other because there was a lot of music, a very long farce and at the end an acrobat that jumped and performed some pirouettes on the ground and on a pole that two Chinese men were holding on their shoulders]. It looks like Luarca was in a hurry at this time to summarize the plot of the comedia. He limited his comments to a few lines in which he stated that this spectacle dramatized the lives of three brothers that were “valentísimos hombres” (2002, 60) [very brave men]. They were particularly characterized by their different hair color, as “el uno era blanco y el otro bermejo y el otro negro” (2002, 60) [one of them had white hair, another one had red hair and the other one had black hair]. The first one, maybe the eldest, named Laupi, was crowned king after a long military campaign and battles for the throne, according to Luarca. Inexplicably, the narrator ends his description at this point, keeping the reader in suspense. Nevertheless, he announces that about this family line “se dirá adelante más largo” (2002, 60) [he would provide more detail later], but he fails to do so. An inquisitive scholar might realize that the storyline of these siblings concurs with the ancestral lineage of some Chinese monarchs that is outlined in the second part of Miguel’s account. Indeed, in the sixth chapter, the author provides a long list of the glorious ancestors of the Kingdom of China and a history of sovereigns. In this particular case, this listing follows the description of the creation of the world by Taim, when he separated the earth from the sky in order to make room for the water of the oceans and the rivers to flow. In Chinese mythology, this genesis of life gave birth to humankind, which progressed and spread through many generations from the apparition of Pancom to the donation of fire and industrial wisdom by Untzin, and the invention of music and the musical instrument of the

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vihuela, maybe the pipa, by Ochiuntey, until the inauguration of the first Chinese royal family with the arrival of Vítey. Many centuries later, there would be a sovereign named Yantey, whose nephew Laupin rebelled against him with the assistance of two other brave individuals to become the ruler of their realm. Of these men, one was red-haired and his name was Guahey, while the other individual had black hair and responded to the name of Tiumhey. This alliance confronted the uprising of other tyrants, named Sosac, Suquam, Gusiam and Guansuer. Suquam betrayed his allies and signed a secret pact with Laupin to join forces and marry one of his daughters. This martial confrontation resulted in the division of their country into three regions: the largest was given to Laupin upon the death of Yantey, and the other two were inherited by Sosac and Suquam, respectively. It is very likely that this three-part division of the Kingdom of China corresponded to the story staged in the play mentioned above. The similarities between the characters and the repetition of their names are evident. One should wonder about the author’s rationale to censor himself and hide information about the spectacle he was once describing.7 Maybe this authorial choice was thought to devalue China’s democratic system to elect the ruler based on the individual merit, in contrast to the European imposition of a ruler allegedly selected by the divine and inherited through hereditary lines. In any case, in the end, the narrator condemns himself to failure and narrates a foundational myth of the Chinese people in positive terms, thus making space in his text for the subaltern to emerge and manifest the superiority of its political system over the one of his opponents. The heroes of this theogony reappear once more in the seventh chapter of this second part, devoted to the Chinese religion, when the author mentions that sailors often carried a statue of the red-haired warrior at the stern of their boats as their patron because he “fue valentísimo”

7  If this erasure had happened years earlier, in the first decades of the Ming dynasty, who ruled for two hundred seventy-six years, between 1368 and 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yüan dynasty, this decision would have been logical and necessary to survive in a restricted society. According to Liu Jung-en, “When another Chinese empire, the Ming dynasty—wiser but more cold-blooded—came once more to rule its own people, censorship was rigorously enforced. Anyone who put on, had printed, or was found in possession of plays of a certain kind was to be executed together with all the members of his family” (1972, 10).

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Image 2. A statue of a Heavenly King, a Buddhist god, wearing an armor and carrying a sword.8

(2002, 120) [was very brave] and it was believed that he would defend the local ships from the attacks of the pirates. In this seventh chapter, there is the final reference to the performance of a spectacle. In this case, the invention portrayed the religious beliefs of the hosts. The characterization is minimal. The narrator just mentions a promise by their new acquaintances to stage more farces “y algunas hacen con person8  Picture taken by Jorge Abril Sánchez inside the temple of the Big Buddha in Hong Kong on June 20th, 2018. The statue represents the King of the South and the God that causes good growth of roots. He is the ruler of the wind. His symbolic weapon is the sword, which he carries in his right hand to protect the Dharma and Southern continent. He is associated with the color blue.

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ajes revueltos a manera de títeres” (2002, 117) [and some of them they design with the use of puppets as their characters]. Luarca and his companions were able to attend one of these representations in the town of Gonolim, just one day’s journey from Ucheo, but again the Spaniard forgets to document such an event in his notes with a detailed description. There is no explanation for this apathy or lack of personal interest in providing an illustration of these experiences. At this moment, the reader is aware of the tiredness and frustration of the author, who is overwhelmed by the historical and political propaganda from China’s apparatus at the same time that he finds enormous obstacles to obtain information, as stated above, in villages like Ucheo. On several occasions, they had been deterred from buying books, but once in the narrative the narrator confesses the missed opportunity to enter in some of these shops with manuscripts and to buy some of these originals. In fact, they had seen many volumes “de muchos cantares y farsas y otras historias que no quisimos comprar, son descripción del reino de China” (2002, 127) [with many epic poems, farces and other stories that we decided not to acquire, and that were a description of the Kingdom of China]. Not only did this bad decision constitute an abandonment of the responsibilities of a chronicler, but it also prevented the observer from obtaining precious literary masterpieces in a realm in which paper had been invented and books were sold at an extremely low price. Luarca’s neglect coincides with the communication of the Chinese government’s decision to put an end to this embassy and impede their journey towards their realm’s capital, thus finishing with the Spaniard’s dreams to reach the highest authorities in the kingdom. Disillusioned, the old soldier prepares himself to return to his home in the Philippines and submit his account for the organization of future expeditions.

Conclusions All in all, Miguel de Luarca’s account of his voyage to the Chinese continent and his embassy to the local authorities should be praised not just for fostering diplomatic relations between the Spanish Crown of Castile and the Great Kingdom of China in the early years of Spain’s expansion over the Pacific Ocean and the millennial realm’s recent policy of openness to foreign nations,

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but also for collecting information and transmitting news about the cultural lore and traditions of these far lands. His narrative comprises an accurate description of the daily life of an unknown population that had been mystified by the inventive imagination of former untrustworthy chroniclers. His interest in portraying in detail the landscapes, the villages and the culture of their hosts in a beautiful painting as if he were an artist elevates him to the status of famous painters of the period. However, this portrait also presents some blurry stains. While he describes the regular representation of theatrical spectacles by the Chinese in honor of their guests, the narrator engages in a serious discussion with the alien object of his writing on equal terms. On some occasions, this disagreement permeates the composition of his piece of art. The confusion in defining instruments in the scene, the debate about the correct position of the actants, the erasure of relevant passages of the shows, the self-censorship in the illustration of the story, and the refusal to acquire more documentation confirm that this creative process is difficult and painful. Indeed, in order not to succumb to the eager defense of the subordinate that resists to be objectified, the speaking subject intensifies his effort to take control of his report, but his faithfulness to his responsibility as a chronicler ends up betraying him. Between the lines of his (hi)story the subaltern finds his way onto the surface of the opus prima, disputes the accuracy and validity of the projected image of his realm and contradicts his conversant by offering opposing views about creationism, historiography, meritocracy and protocol, thus demonstrating that the intended colonized could definitely speak and write back to the empire and that China as any other distant nation was not just empty lienzos or a tabula rasa that the colonizer would use to draw, modify and/or dispose at his will. Works Cited Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. 1994. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-colonial Literatures. New York: Routledge. Barbosa, Duarte. 1989. Livro do que viu e ouviu no Oriente. Edited by Luís de Albuquerque and María Augusta da Veiga e Sousa. Lisbon: Publicaçōes Alfa. García Castañón, Santiago. 2002. “Introducción.” In Miguel de Luarca, Verdadera relación de la grandeza del Reino de China, edited by Santiago García Castañón, xix-xxxviii. Luarca: Eco de Luarca.

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Giles, Herbert A. 1937. A History of Chinese Literature. New York and London: D. Appleton Century Company. Knight, Sabina. 2012. Chinese Literature: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lévy, André. 2000. Chinese Literature, Ancient and Classical. Translated by William H. Nienhauser, Jr. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Liu, Jung-en. 1972. “Introduction.” In Six Yüan Plays, edited by Liu Jung-en, 7-35. London and New York: Penguin. Luarca, Miguel de. 2002. Verdadera relación de la grandeza del Reino de China. Edited by Santiago García Castañón. Luarca: Eco de Luarca. Ma, Zhiyuan. 2001. Autumn in the Han Palace. Adapted by Xia Lianbao. Beijing: New World Press. Odoric of Pordenone. 1915. Cathay and the Way Thither, Being A Collection of Medieval Notices of China. South China in the Sixteenth Century. Volume 2: Text of Odoric of Pordenone. Edited by Henry Yule. London: The Hakluyt Society. Said, Edward W. 1994. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books. Shou-yi, Ch’en. 1961. Chinese Literature: A Historical Introduction. New York: The Ronald Press Company. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1995. “Can the Subaltern Speak?.” In The Post-colonial Studies Reader, edited by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, 24-28. New York: Routledge. Sun, Tzu. 2016. The Art of War. Translated by Lionel Giles. North Clarendon: Tuttle Publishing. Tang, Xianzu. 2002. The Peony Pavilion. Translated by Cyril Birch. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Tuan, Yi-Fu. 2013. Landscapes of Fear. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Various authors. 1915. Cathay and the Way Thither, Being A Collection of Medieval Notices of China. South China in the Sixteenth Century. Volume 1: Texts of Galeote Pereira, Gaspar da Cruz and Martín de Rada. Edited by Henry Yule. London: The Hakluyt Society. Various authors. 1972. Six Yüan Plays. Edited by Liu Jung-en. London and New York: Penguin. Various authors. 2005. Viajes medievales 1: Libro de Marco Polo; Libro de las maravillas del mundo de Juan de Mandavila; Libro del conocimiento. Edited by Joaquín Rubio Tovar. Madrid: Fundación José Antonio de Castro. Various authors. 2005. Viajes medievales 2: Embajada a Tamorlán; Andanças e viajes de Pero Tafur; Diarios de Colón. Edited by Miguel Ángel Pérez Priego. Madrid: Fundación José Antonio de Castro.

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Various authors. 2009. Viajes y crónicas de China en los Siglos de Oro: Bernardino de Escalante, Discurso de la navegación a Oriente y Noticia del Reino de la China; Juan González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas más notables, ritos y costumbres del reino de la China; Fernán Méndez Pinto, Historia oriental de las peregrinaciones de Fernán Méndez Pinto. Edited by María José Vega Ramos et al. Córdoba: Editorial Almuzara.

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(Tang Xianzu’s Peony Pavilion and Lope de Vega’s La quinta de Florencia) Frederick A. de Armas

For early modern Spanish writers China was just a place too far. It may have been possible to reach Goa taking an eastern route, or to travel to the Philippines going past the West Indies and crossing Central America by land through the hazardous Spanish Road. But for Spaniards, China lies even beyond these two immensely remote spaces. Such a trip would be almost unmanageable, a quixotic adventure— and Cervantes did claim (perhaps in jest) that his novel had actually reached the Emperor of China.1 Spaniards could acquaint themselves with China by reading travel works, such as Miguel de Luarca’s 1575 manuscript Verdadera Relación de la grandeza del reino de China, Bernardino de Escalante’s Discurso de la navegacion, or more likely, Juan González de Mendoza’s La historia del gran reino de China.2 While Cervantes represents China in one masterstroke, Lope de Vega scattered references to this land throughout many of his works. Perhaps the best known in this regard is his play Angélica en el Catay. Here Angelica seems to be an indiana from the New World as well as a Moor (Lee 2016, 46). Most of the playwright’s references to China, however, seem to have

1  Such a voyage would have brought him and other travelers into contact with a kingdom that, as Christina Lee asserts, “had highly complex political structures analogous to those of Western Europe” (2016, 43). 2  There were eleven printings between 1585, the date of its first publication, and 1597 (Lee 2016, 43). The work has been seen as an idealized vision of China, a land of fertility, wisdom, diligent workers and chaste women. Mendoza was accused of fabricating this view since he was never in China. To his descriptions must be added Jesuit writings with news about China and other places in the Far East.

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very specific functions, underlining one of four notions, (1) remoteness;3 (2) geographical amplitude;4 (3) a quixotic journey, land or situation;5 and (4) the display of precious merchandise such as silk, diamonds, damasks, porcelain, and ornate bedspreads.6 While Spanish playwrights evoke China, to my knowledge no Chinese playwrights of the period refer to Spain.7 And yet, their theaters were not so different. Since Lope de Vega has been called the Shakespeare of Spain, I would like to compare him to Tang Xianzu. After all, President Xi Jinping, in his visit to Britain in 2015, called Tang the Shakespeare of the East. Although they were contemporaries of Shakespeare, these two authors led very different lives. What Wilt Idema says of Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu can also apply to the English bard and Lope de Vega: “Both were playwrights 3  In La quinta de Florencia Belardo assures Laura: “no dudes que no hay China / tan remota a do no fuesse” (1995, vv. 558-59). In La doncella Teodor we read, “con vos a Italia / a la China” (2008, v. 634). 4  In the praise of Sevilla in La vitoria de la honra we read: “desde la gran Toledo hasta la China” (1930, 444); while in Don Juan de Castro (segunda parte) we find a very similar comparison “desde Galicia a la China” (1930, 444). 5  In Virtud, pobreza y mujer we read: “cenamos en su limpia Talavera / que a mí me pareció que era en la China” (2010, vv. 477-478); and in Los palacios de Galiana a quixotic situation is proposed: “puedes pedir en la China que su corona te den” (1993). 6  In Servir a señor discreto Silvestre states: “Bésoos las manos, que a mi esposa traigo / mil cosas de la China que a venderse / llegan a Lima, como son damascos, / y rasos de matices diferentes / con mil varias figuras, colchas llenas / de animales extraños, flores, pájaros / y en barniz de azarcón doradas jícaras / y algunas porcelanas” (2012, vv. 1045-1051). 7  Tang Xianzu did have meetings with the Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci, one of the founders of the Chinese missions, in Zhaoqing and Macau, while also meeting with “other missionaries and foreign merchants” (Xu 2016, 10). He obliquely refers to a church in Macao in the twenty-first scene of the Peony Pavilion since the term fan’gui (foreign devil) is used: “Fan’gui was how local people addressed foreign merchants with the hint of xenophobia. Matteo Ricci, to attract the natives, displayed in the assembly halls in Zhaoqing and Shaozhou the chime clocks, watches, glass prisms, portraits of Jesus, gilding hardcover books, maps and globes, and western musical instruments, etc. The drama depicts the grand pomp of the treasure display to welcome the officials of treasure appraisal in Treasure Temple constructed by the “Fan’gui”, which was an artistic synthesis of the churches with the missionaries and the hongs with the trades” (Xu 2014 n.p.). As evinced in this note and elsewhere, I cite from both the papers for a conference (2014) and from the published volume that ensued (2016). At times, one or the other provides additional information that is relevant for our purposes.

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of genius who created works that were immensely popular during their lifetimes and that not only continue to be performed in adaptations and revivals to this very day but also have given rise to veritable academic industries” (2016, xix). Lope de Vega (1562-1635) lived life to the fullest, triumphing on the Madrid stage with a new formula for writing plays. He breached social strictures with seeming impunity and enjoyed success among all social strata, writing hundreds of comedias. Tang Xianzu (1550-1616) was an official in the Ming empire, who retired in 1598, disappointed at the corruption and rigidity of court life.8 While at court, he associated with playwrights and actually wrote one important work.9 But after leaving he composed the Four Dreams, called thus because “in each play a dream plays a key role” (Idema 1997, 193). These four works highlight romantic, eerie, mysterious and melancholy aspects of a reality where love stands center stage.10 And, like Lope de Vega, who wrote a most influential treatise on theater, Arte nuevo de hacer comedias, Tang Xianzu composed one of the “most important articles on the theory of dramas in ancient China, Yi Huang Xian Xi Shen Qing Yuan Shi Miao Ji (Record of the Shrine of Qing Yuan, Master of Drama in Yihuang County). The article was an exposition on the dramatic theory from the aspects of the origin of drama, the relation between drama and 8  Xu Yongming summarizes his rise at court and his later disappointment: “Tang Xianzu successfully passed the imperial examination to become a jinshi (presented scholar) at the age of 34. In the following year (1534) he declined to be recruited by Chancellors Shen Shixing (1535-1614) and Zhang Siwei (1526-85), and instead was appointed chamberlain for the Court of Sacrificial Worship in Nanjing. In 1588, he was appointed the deputy governor of the Supervisorate of Imperial Instructions and in the following year was transferred to the Bureau of Ceremonies governed by the Board of Rites as chief of staff. In 1591, Tang Xianzu submitted his famous Memorial to Impeach the Ministers and Supervisors (Lun fuchen kechen su), upsetting the upper authorities, and was demoted to the position of a clerk in Xuwen County in Guangdong Province” (2016, 8). 9  The Purple Hairpin, written in 1587, was a revision of his unfinished early work Zi Xiao Ji (The Purple Flute). The story was adapted from the Biography of Huo Xiaoyu. The play replaced the story’s tragic ending with a happy ending (Xu 2014, n.p.; 2016, 9). 10  Tang retired in 1597 to devote himself to writing. His third work, The Peony Pavilion, received great praise and became very popular. Today, it is considered as his masterpiece. Afterwards, he wrote two more plays: The Handan Dream and The Nanke Dream. His two early plays are The Purple Flute which he rewrote as The Purple Hairpin.

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reality, the social function of drama, and the artistic self-cultivating of drama performers (Xu 2014, n.p.).

1. Kunqu Opera and the Comedia Before moving to specific comparisons, I would like to present a brief outline of the main similarities and differences between the two theaters. These will be generalized statements that are not meant to describe every performance or even to fully contextualize the historical situation. It is but a first draft of a preface on the subject. First and foremost, Lope de Vega was part of what has been called the Spanish Golden Age, the flourishing of the arts and literatures that took place during the second half of the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth under three Philips of the Habsburg dynasty. As part of this Golden Age, a national theater emerged. In China, the late Ming dynasty (1572-1644) saw the second Golden Age of Chinese theater, the first having taken place during the Mongol Yuan dynasty two centuries earlier. While popular theater was the main expression in English and Spanish theaters, in this second Golden Age of China the focus was “on the form of ‘elite theatre’, written by scholarly playwrights for members of their literary circles and performed in their residences usually by private household troupes owned by themselves or their friends” (Tan 2016, 2). The literary form of southern plays was known as chuanqi, texts which were characterized by their great length, having from 30 to 50 scenes, and by their many characters and topics from history, legends or other popular accounts. The elite not only watched but avidly read these works, often produced in lavish tomes. When performed, these chuanqi adopted a specific musical form. As KangI Sun Chang and Stephen Owen explain: “the most famous of its musical forms was called kunquo or ‘song from the south’” (2010, 127). The bamboo flute is the main instrument that accompanies arias and intoned verses. They were difficult to sing due to “a complicated, highly literary libretto” (Chang 2010, 127). These musical sections alternate with spoken parts. These early operas deal with romantic love, foreground refined sentiments, and are intended for an elite audience. Indeed, they were often performed “in the

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homes of the powerful and highly placed” (Chang 2010, 128).11 Some with more popular themes “were performed at fairs and temples” (Chang 2010, 128). As noted, this contrasts with plays of the Golden Age, which were most often intended for the corrales and a mixed audience, from nobles to rowdy mosqueteros or groundlings. It is true that Spanish comedias could be performed for particulares, or private homes, but this was the exception. While elite home viewing was central to chuanqi, it was incidental in Spain. Both theaters were also staged at the court. Theatrical troupes existed in both traditions, although in China the troupes created by elite families were the most prominent. Both theaters use minimal staging; both claim a number of the same stock characters such as the young suitor and the maiden, but Chinese stock characters have complex divisions and subdivisions. Spanish and Chinese plays alternate between highly lyrical or dramatic moments and humorous scenes, highlighting the gracioso in the comedia.12 While Spanish plays are mostly in verse (exceptions to the rule include letters and messages), Chinese chuanqi use long prose passages in addition to verse.13 Both theaters have similar ways to tell past or offstage actions. The comedia utilized the relación, often in romance verse form, to narrate what has happened or to tell of a character’s past. Chinese plays included a series of prose monologues given by a character that introduces himself to the audience and discusses his situation at the beginning of a scene.14 In addition to staging, many of these plays enjoyed a strong print tradition. Starting in 1604, a series of partes (parts) of Lope de Vega’s plays began to be published, twelve works in each volume. Finally understanding the importance of the published work, the Spanish playwright claims for himself the privilege of the publication beginning with 11  Tang’s plays were performed “before an elite audience, usually in a private household” (Birch 2002, 13). 12  Kang-I Su Chang emphasizes that the Chinese works “carefully alternate the tragic with the comic” (2010, 129). 13  The many verse forms used in a Spanish play contrast with Chinese custom: “The verse may take the form of a shi (poem in regular meter) or ci (lyric) with lines of irregular but prescribed length” (Birch xxxi). 14  “In the standard scene opening, a single character appears onstage, sings one aria, recites a verse, then descends into prose to introduce himself and his business” (Tang 2002, xxxi).

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the ninth part and going on to the twentieth in 1625. These twenty parts (with 240 plays) are but a sample of the many plays written by Lope. The result of the Council of Castile’s suspension of the publication of theatrical works in 1625 was a series of “pirated” editions in other parts of the Iberian Peninsula, mainly Barcelona, Sevilla and Zaragoza. In 1634, the prohibition was lifted but Lope was only able to prepare two more parts for publication, since he passed away in 1635 (Moll 1992, 199-200; Calderón 2017, 208). While other playwrights such as Tirso de Molina and Calderón worked on their own partes, they had to vie with collections that included the “best” plays by a series of authors, often including wrong attributions. An equally robust print market can be found in China. As Shih-pe Wang asserts: “It is well established that there was a prosperous printing culture which speeded up the circulation of drama in the late Ming period (c. 1572-1644); the more widespread a play text was, the more the diversity of reader/audience responses sprung up” (2014, n.p.). In addition to wide circulation in print and the many editions that ensued, both Spanish and Chinese theaters are well known for their rewritings of plays. In Spain, a playwright may come up with a successful new play through the rewriting of an old one. Or, this very playwright may rewrite his own work, as Germán Vega García-Luengos has shown.15 In China, the Peony Pavilion had quite a complex and prolific reception.16 Tang’s friend Lu Yusheng did an adaptation that angered the author; while Shen Jing rewrote the play now called Tung Meng Ji (The Story of the Equivalent Dream).17 Before proceeding I will make some introductory remarks about the plays we will be discussing. Tang Xianzu’s works center on quing or strong 15  “los testimonios que ahora salen a la luz aportan la prueba fehaciente de que comedias bastante bien conocidas —con una dilatada trayectoria editorial, en dos de los casos—, y que han podido pasar como originales son, en realidad, productos de flagrantes delitos de reescritura, perpetrados en diferentes momentos a lo largo del siglo xvii por los mismos poetas que elaboraron las primeras versiones… o por otro diferente” (Vega García-Luengos 12-13). 16  On the reception of the Peony Pavilion, see Catherine Swatek’s 2002 book and Shih-pe Wang’ paper (2014). 17  “he changed the plot sequence to make clear the ambiguous point in the original play, making the dream of male and female protagonists the same one” (Wang 2014, n.p.; 2016, 180-93).

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feelings that foreground love as overpowering (Birch 2002, x).18 Lope also foregrounds desire, but in many of his comic plays, strong emotion is substituted by a game of mistaken identities and differing love interests. Lope ends his plays with a series of marriages that may or may not be happy ones.19 He also includes portraits of strong female characters.20 Tang Xianzu’s Peony Pavillion, in the words of the novelist Lisa See, is: “the first piece of fiction in the history of China in which the heroine —a girl of sixteen— chose her own destiny, and that was both shocking and thrilling. It entranced and fascinated women, who, with rare exceptions, were allowed to read the opera but never see or hear it” (See n.d., n.p.).21 Indeed, during this period: “One actress identified so clearly with Du Liniang that she actually died onstage in the middle of a climactic scene. Other sensitive women were said to have been so deeply affected that they fell ill and died after reading it” (Chang 2010, 140). Since Tang’s work was written in 1598, I have chosen a play by Lope also composed around this time, La quinta de Florencia.22 Given the length of Tang’s play—“fifty-five scenes and four hundred and three arias” (See 2008, 18  In Lisa See’s novel we read: “My mother could get very emotional about things because she was governed by quing: sentiment, passion and love. These forces tie together the universe and stem from the heart, the seat of consciousness” (2008, 5). 19  Tragic works by Lope, such as El castigo sin venganza, develop strong and complex emotions. 20  See, for example, Leonarda in La viuda valenciana and Laurencia in Fuenteovejuna. 21  Lisa See is an American novelist born in Paris in 1955. Her paternal great-grandfather was Chinese and her work most often deals with Chinese themes. Her novels include: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2005) and Peony in Love (2007). In the latter, Peony watches a performance of Tang Xianzu’s The Peony Pavillion and falls in love with a stranger. Imitating the protagonist of the work, Du Liniang, she becomes melancholy and starves herself to death, knowing that she cannot marry the stranger since she is betrothed to a man she does not know and has been picked by her father. This novel, like the seventeenth-century opera, uses death as a gateway to new adventures and realizations. 22  Morley and Bruerton have dated Lope’s plays as written between 1598 and 1603, and most probably in 1600 (1968, 593). Tang Xianzu’s play was first performed at the Pavilion on Prince Teng in 1598. Tang wrote his play approximately midway through Wanli emperor’s reign (1572-1620), who came to represent the downfall of his dynasty for his lack of concern with the kingdom in his later years; while Lope’s comedia was composed at the beginning of Philip III’s reign (1598-1621), as Spain began to decline.

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10), I would add here a second and much later play by Lope, El caballero de Olmedo.23 There is much that can be captured through these comparisons, but also much that is lost in translation — first of all because my reading of the Peony Pavilion is based on a translation into English of the play. Cyril Birch has already effaced some of the original, as it is prepared so that western readers and audiences can readily understand it. I will select seven topics in order to foreground commonalities and elements lost in translation: Space, Theatricality, Melancholy, Paintings, Dreams, Gardens, and the Gods.

2. To Envisage Distant Spaces Lope de Vega’s La quinta de Florencia evokes and describes Florence and the villas outside the city. These spaces are further expanded through poetic hyperbole to include places that are even more distant. Three peasants, Belardo, Roselo and Doristo, claim Laura’s attention. To be rid of them, she presents them with three pieces of paper, one for each, explaining that they are to serve her by finding an impossible item she requests. All three proclaim that they will travel to the ends of the world to fulfill their quest. Their replies go beyond the old geography where the world was divided into three continents, Europe, Asia and Libya or Africa, with their center around the Mediterranean. This early vision of the world proposed by Herodotus and even affirmed by Natale Conti in his Renaissance mythography, gave way to a more expanded vision, which sought to include the new discoveries.24 23  Morley and Bruerton date it between 1620 and 1625 (1968, 294-96), while Francisco Rico, in his edition of the work would specify around 1620 (1997, 62). 24  In the Spanish translation of Conti we read: “Después Europa consiguió de Júpiter que la tercera parte del mundo llevara su nombre, de la que dicen que está situada de tal manera que para los que navegan a través del mar de las columnas hacia dentro en la parte derecha está África hasta la desembocadura del Nilo, en la izquierda Europa hasta el Tánais y los habitantes de la Meótide y los boristenenes, ya que una y otra parte limitan con Asia” (1988, 649). Calderón de la Barca at times utilizes the old geography in his plays. See, for example, Los tres mayores prodigios. Here, the centaur Nesus has abducted Hercules’ wife. Jason will try to find her in Asia; Theseus will look for her in Europe; while Hercules will remain in Africa. The work will then take place in “las tres partes del mundo” and in three stages in which the court will witness “tres maravillas” (Calderón 2007, 1005).

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Thus, Roselo sticks to the old geography when he claims: “iré al Cáucaso, a la Libia, / trayré yerbas de Tesalia (1995, vv. 581-82). Indeed, he would bring her not just what she requests, but “todo el tesoro de Italia” (1995, v. 579). Doristo would also travel to Libya but would go even further, pointing to America: “Iré donde el indio adusto / abrase el sol. sin disgusto” (1995, vv. 568-69). Belardo, the most sympathetic and heroic of the three would go even further, “No dudes de que no ay China / tan remota a do no fuesse” (1995, vv. 558-59). The evocation of China includes its four main functions in Lope’s theater. First, it underlines its remoteness. Secondly, it calls for geographical amplitude as the viewer seeks to envision a place so far away. Third, it calls for a quixotic journey, one that few can undertake successfully; and finally, it evokes the precious objects of a land as demanded by Laura. The Peony Pavilion also features a series of spaces, although no vision of the world that includes Europe is to be found here. Geographer Yi-Fu Tuan explains that: “Early Chinese literature used the expression, one thousand li, to evoke a sense of great distance.”25 In the play, we encounter a huge wall and tower where one can see for a thousand miles (2002, 179). But in general, the use of li or miles in Tang’s play is not related to geography, but is used to show the distance between this world and the land of dreams. Du Liniang’s first step in her voyage occurs when her maid Fragrance lures her into entering the garden, something her father had forbidden.26 She falls asleep and in a dream, she encounters a young man. She describes the next step in the journey: “he carried me to a spot beside the peony pavilion, beyond the railings lined with tree peonies, and there… a thousand fond caresses, a million tendernesses passed between us” (2002, 51-52). To accentuate the distance between her innocence and this new experience, she turns to numbers: thousands and millions of caresses, which stand for miles traveled. In Lope de Vega, César, the duke’s secretary, imagines loving a painted Venus, a goddess that only abides in the lands of myth. In both Lope and 25  “By the Han dynasty ‘ten thousand li’ came into fashion. Poetic hyperbole required adjustment as geographical knowledge increased” (1977, 55). 26  Here, “I found a hundred different flowers in bloom everywhere, and the beauty of the scene set my heart in turmoil” (Tang 2002, 51).

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Tang, then, the greatest distance is that between this world and the land of myths and dreams. A final note on distance and spaces: Lope de Vega also uses distance in relation to passion: “Como un hambriento Tántalo me pinto, / a la boca la fruta hermosa y bella, / mil leguas della” (La prueba de los ingenios, 1997, vv. 2721-23). But nowhere in his plays is distance so compressed and paradoxically enhanced as in Tang’s Peony Pavilion where the garden, just at the back of the house, is so far because it is forbidden. The road to this garden takes Liniang to a dream, to a dream lover, and eventually to death and resurrection. New performances in the West struggle to render such impossible spaces attainable to modern readers.

3. Theatricality Distance can also exist between spectators and play. Although a “fourth wall” separates illusionistic theater from those watching, this boundary can be breached through notions of theatricality and metatheater.27 Many have noted the histrionic quality of early modern Spanish culture: “un actuar como personaje en el gran teatro del mundo, sintiéndose contemplado como si estuviese en escena” (Orozco Díaz 1969, 109). This constant performance by the courtier who is always conscious of playing a role, of being observed, is replicated in the theaters of the period, where characters create their own scripts and play out roles that they imagine. In El caballero de Olmedo, a charade is played at Inés’ home so as to deceive her father. Here, Inés pretends to be preparing herself to enter a convent and tells her father don Pedro that she will need “una mujer / de buena y santa opinión / que me de alguna lición / …y un maestro de cantar / que de latín sea también” (1207-9; 201112). However, she is not preparing to become Christ’s bride. She is actually concealing her passion for don Alonso. In this play within the play, Fabia, 27  Denis Diderot, in his Discours sur l’art dramatique, was the first to employ this term: “Soit donc que vous composiez, soit que vous jouiez, ne pensez non plus au spectateur qu’il n’existait pas. Imaginez sur le bord du théâtre un grand mur qui vous sépare du parterre: jouez comme si la toile ne se levait pas” (1758 [1984], 86).

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the go-between, plays the part of the saintly woman, while Tello, Alonso’s servant, becomes the Latin teacher, who reads letters from Alonso to Inés. In La quinta de Florencia, César dreams of a painting of Venus and Adonis, and decides to find his Venus in the world. He thus plays the part of Adonis seeking his beloved. However, he is no Adonis, violently pursuing his prey; and she is no goddess but a peasant woman. Jonathan Thaker explains: “Life and theater intermingled. The reasons behind this sharply perceived histrionic urge almost certainly have to do with anxieties about identity – an identity that can be broadly termed social. A poor performance could lead to a life devastated” (2002, 2). Both La quinta de Florencia and El caballero de Olmedo evoke devastation. A belief that one must always play a part in the theater of life was commonplace during the Ming dynasty in China. As differing social spheres drew closer, it was necessary to act one’s socially determined part and be wary of impostors. Sophie Volpp explains that Ming theater teaches spectatorship and not vice versa: “theatrical roles are likened to social roles, and theatrical spectatorship becomes the training ground for the recognition of social imposture and inauthenticity” (Volpp 2011, 8). This particular insight may allow us to look back upon La quinta de Florencia and see in Laura’s independence (as opposed to Liniang’s passion) a sign of her authenticity and her refusal to play a part in César’s lustful drama. Although most everyone in the Peony Pavilion performs different roles, quoting and alluding in order to be seen in a specific manner or as part of a specific class, one character, according to both Sophie Volpp and Kong Rui may be seen as authentic – Liniang who pursues a love forbidden by all around her.28 Ironically, this perceived authenticity opens the way for role-playing as women who read the play and succumb to sadness and even death. A similar “authenticity” can be gleaned in Lope’s El caballero de Olmedo. Alonso follows a ballad that foretells his demise as the play enacts or literalizes a metaphor, dying for love (Wardropper 28  “Du Liniang in The Peony Pavilion and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet might be both regarded as independent and even rebellious characters, because the two beautiful adolescents from rich and powerful feudal familial systems are courageous in pursuing love even if their emotions and behaviors might be regarded improper or prohibitive at that time” (Kong 2014, 132).

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1972, 177-96; Friedman 1996, 74). And yet, future works will again theatricalize this work, further conflating theater and life, the feigned and the real.

4. Melancholy In the Peony Pavilion, Liniang is often admired for her lyrical intensity when she “sings first of her ennui and later of her longing” (Idema 1997, 193). Unable to bring her dream lover to her reality, she starts to lose interest in the everyday. Her maid proclaims: “you have been careless of your meals and careless of your rest. Do you think it can be the disturbance of the spring that is causing you to pine and grow thin?” (2002, 67). Looking at herself in the mirror, Liniang confirms that she has become “completely haggard” (2002, 67). In Spanish theater the male figures suffer from this affliction much more often than the women.29 For Belén Atienza, melancholy becomes the main malady in the Spain of Philip III, and it is a signal of decline. While it is an individual condition, it may point to social and political anxieties. César’s melancholy in La quinta de Florencia is part of this malaise felt in the peninsula (Atienza 2009, 189-216). It is both an illness of the intellect and of the passions. In the Peony Pavilion, Du Liniang turns away from her readings and turns to feelings. In La quinta de Florencia, César turns to works of art and painting as a refuge, but these very works accentuate his melancholy, as he experiences a vivid and perhaps even a waking dream that leads him to excessive passion. The experience of melancholy is mediated by two rather differing views of this humor in the western tradition. For some, it was a balneum diaboli, a bath of the devil that allowed evil spirits to seep into human beings, eliciting visions of ghosts and other-worldly creatures. For others, it was a positive humor that brought about the visions of sages and poets. The Renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino had transformed how melancholy was viewed in the period: “The Renaissance extension of melancholy into a state of height29  Paolo in Tirso’s El condenado por desconfiado is a religious melancholic, while the wifemurderers of Calderón’s A secreto agravio, secreta venganza, El médico de su honra and El pintor de su deshonra, suffer from this affliction.

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ened sensitivity opened a new country of the mind for lyric exploration” (Kaske and Clark 1989, 23). In El caballero de Olmedo, Lope de Vega plays with both interpretations of this humor. By including a sorceress in his play, and by having Alonso see shadows and ghosts he points to the negative side of melancholy; but, in the exalted vision of Inés we may encounter a perspective closer to that of the neo-Platonic philosopher. The melancholics’ many visions lead them to alternate between reality and dreams — and such is the case with César and Alonso. Liniang enters the dream while already feeling some ennui, but before becoming melancholy. Both César in La quinta de Florencia and Alonso in El caballero de Olmedo are melancholy figures, who pine for their beloveds. However, it would be mistaken to consider that characters in Ming and Habsburg theaters exhibit the same feeling. Chinese culture did not subscribe to the Greek humoral theories that structured numerous characters in Spanish theater. The liver’s black bile is not the locus of melancholy in the Peony Pavilion. According to traditional Chinese medicine, grief and melancholy are lodged in the lungs. Since these organs are in charge of qui (chi) or life energy, the feelings of grief and melancholy consume the very life of a human being.30

5. Paintings In all three plays paintings and word paintings (ekphrases) are somehow related to melancholy. Lope de Vega is well-known for the many ekphrases that can be located within his comedias. This is an ancient technique derived from rhetoric whereby there is a pause in a narrative to describe an object, most generally an art object. The locus classicus is the shield of Achilles in Homer’s Iliad. Centuries later, Virgil understood that to rival Homer he would have to surpass his model’s many techniques, including that of ekphrases. Thus, Virgil regales his reader with many such passages, from Aeneas’s shield to Dido’s murals. By Lope’s time the technique was found in many literary texts, but the Spanish playwright preferred above all to de30  The lungs are one of the five zang organs, and in terms of the five Chinese elements, the lungs are related to metal (Wang and Zhu 2010, 50-51).

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scribe Italian Renaissance paintings. Since plays had almost no decorations, this was a way in which to adorn his works at least in the mind of spectators and readers. It also served to give depth to the characters as they were associated with mythological figures, particularly in Titian’s paintings. Indeed, Lope used the myth of Adonis and Venus repeatedly in his plays — and as noted, it appears in both La quinta de Florencia and El caballero de Olmedo. In La quinta de Florencia, César enjoys contemplating the works of art in his villa. One afternoon, he dozes off while looking at a painting of Venus and Adonis: Miraba a Venus y Adonis una tarde en una siesta él con el bozo dorado, y ella con doradas trenzas… Dióme deseo de amar una mujer como ella (vv. 297-300; 309-10).

Having come to the villa to assuage his melancholy, he gazes upon a painting in a state between waking and sleeping, and comes to desire a woman like the Venus in the painting. Indeed, the work, as described, points to Titian’s canvas on the subject (De Armas 2008, 171-82). First not able to find her in reality, and second having found her in the guise of a labradora who has no interest in him, further aggravates his melancholy. Thus sight and the painting serve to further exacerbate his humoral imbalance. Harmonious Renaissance art is not, in many of these works, an indication of a balanced physiology. A similar situation can be encountered in El caballero de Olmedo. Here, the “painting” serves to trigger Alonso’s melancholy. What we have, actually, is a precious description of the first meeting of the lover in the words of Alonso, but triggered by the go-between Fabia’s own observation of the scene. The lyrical description, with its many Petrarchan commonplaces, is found in lieu of an actual painting.31 Alonso revisits this image of Inés dressed as a labradora as his emotions churn and he becomes more and more 31  “Los corales y las perlas / dejó Ines, porque sabía / que las llevaban mejores / los dientes y las mejillas” (1997, vv. 99-102).

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the melancholic lover. As opposed to La quinta de Florencia where Laura is a peasant woman, here Inés is merely disguised as such.

6. Dreams and Gardens Turning from melancholy to oneiric phenomena, we can ascertain that in Chinese and Western early modern cultures, the notion of dream interpretation was quite common — we need only recall the importance of Macrobius’ Commentary on the Dream of Scipio as essential to Western modes of thought. Macrobius admits that there are dreams that have physical causes that arise from “mental, or physical distress, or anxiety about the future” (1952, 88). Others, however, bring us direct revelations from the beyond while still others must be interpreted. The same is the case in Chinese culture – perhaps going back to the famous two dreams by Huang Ti (the Yellow Emperor), who not only believed his dreams, but interpreted them successfully and acted upon this interpretation.32 Indeed, in Luarca’s description of Chinese culture, he specifically mentions books “para adivinar por sueños” (fol 149b). Liniang, although not interpreting her dream, believes in the reality of the loved one she encountered within, and this leads to her death but also to her eventual happiness. Her belief in a loved one within a dream, recalls César in Lope’s La quinta de Florencia. César insists on transferring the dream to the present (searching for the Venus image), which brings him close to a tragic denouement. In El caballero de Olmedo, Alonso refuses to interpret a dream that is so clearly symbolic and refuses to act upon it. This may be one of the causes of the final tragedy. However, Chinese culture seems to go far beyond Spanish beliefs in accepting that a dream lover can truly exist, and that one may return not just from a dream, but also from death. In terms of dreams and of the garden, what is lost in translation is how birds, plants and flowers are interpreted in each culture. In Alonso’s dream, the goldfinch and the hawk are highly symbolic. Alonso is obviously repre32  He interpreted the wind who swept dust away from below the heaven as referring to his future prime minister and a man with a cross-bow herding sheep as his future general (Ong 1981, 8-9).

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sented by the delicate and joyous goldfinch “cuyas esmaltadas alas / con lo amarillo anadian / flores a las verdes ramas” (1997, 1765-67). He is attacked by the hawk, which clearly evokes his rival don Rodrigo. The almond tree, on which the hawk rests, is often seen as a marker for tragedy, since it is the first to flower in spring and thus its blossoms can be destroyed by a winter storm. The jasmine on which his beloved is perched, points to Inés’ purity and her role as spectator in the tragedy: “su esposa, que en un jazmín / la tragedia viendo estaba” (vv. 1782-83). Alonso’s dream is ominous, prophetic, and associated with his own death (McCrary 1966, 114-24; Hall 1985, 6279). At the same time the images within it are quite vivid and material. Alonso will disregard the dream as omen to his own peril. In Tang Xianzu, we need not enter the dream to have a lyric description of many of nature’s avian, arboreal and floral images. The plum blossoms (mei) of the garden are as impacting as the flowering almond in Lope. Plum and almond blossoms are said to be the first to appear at the end of winter, the first in the eastern tradition and the second in the western. Called the flower of winter, plum blossoms are often imperiled, but indicate perseverance and purity.33 Indeed, Tang Xianzu’s play is about a pure first love that will be rewarded through perseverance.34 Inés’ jasmine also underlines purity. The peony, on the other hand, has a series of conflictive meanings, which we can only glimpse at in this essay. The flower can be connected to Spanish desengaño, the piercing of the illusion of beauty and the permanence of earthly life. Linda See, in her novel, recalls such a moment in the opera: “Liniang returned to her rooms, changed into a robe embroidered with peony blossoms, and sat before a mirror, wondering at the fleeting nature of her beauty” (2008, 13). Some would even demote the beauty of the peony: “However fine the peony, / how can she rank as queen / coming to bloom when spring has said farewell?” (Scene 10; 2002, 45). Only at the end of the drama, with her love fulfilled, and her appearance at the Emperor’s court, can Lin33  For Linda See, the plum has a different meaning: “The plum tree with its lush foliage and ripening fruit, brought to mind the forces of nature, so this name was suggestive even to me of Mengmei’s passionate nature” (2008, 10). 34  In the edition that I am using, Cyril Birch translated the name of the flower as apricot blossom, explaining: “I use ‘apricot’ throughout for mei, the flowering tree that is actually a Japanese apricot, though conventionally translated as ‘plum” (2002, 2, note 2).

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iang claim this royal flower. At the court, the young heroine recalls that her beloved scholar first appeared “amid the willows and flowering apricots [plums].” He is “surnamed Liu for ‘Willow,” and uses the name of Mengmei, Dream-of-Apricots [Plums]” (Scene 55; 2002, 330).35 The willow tree, since it bends, is said to stand for the humility of a scholar; but it is also associated with the other world as in the Qingming Festival, they are used to ward off ghosts. Tang Xianzu places garden images center stage: Plum for purity, peril and perseverance (and perhaps passion), willow for humility and the overcoming of the ghostly realm, and peony for both disillusionment and final triumph. Lope conceals his garden images within the mind of don Alonso, or within César’s painting imbuing his dream with images of delight and doom. Different avian, arboreal and floral images reveal similar concerns: the almond tree instead of the plum for peril; the jasmine as opposed to the plum for purity; the goldfinch instead of the peony for love and resurrection.

7. The Place of the Gods But what kind of ideology permits the construction of these symbolic and dreamlike gardens? And what is the place of the gods in them? Having read some poems by Tang Xianzu, concerning his hairpin that accidentally fell into the lotus pond, a most important religious figure, Monk Zhenke (15431603), saw in them a certain detachment from life, and sought to convert him to Buddhism. Indeed, Zhenke “tried to enlighten Tang Xianzu with the religious legend of Guanxiu’s imitation of the Eighteen Arhats” (Xu 2016). According to this legend, these Arhats (called Louhans in China) are the original followers of Buddha and the ones charged with guarding his faith and waiting for his return to earth. They were said to have appeared to Guanxiu in a dream since he was a master calligrapher. They asked to be portrayed by him. To this day, these portraits are the accepted images of the 35  This is reiterated throughout the play: “a scholar named Liu for “willow,” / Mengmei for ‘dream-of-apricot” (Scene 1; 2002, 2). “I am Liu Mengmei. Liu means ‘willow,’ Mengmei ‘dream-of-apricot’” (Scene 1; 2002, 4).

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Arhats/Louhans in China. Although dreams and art are common features in the works of the period, it might be worth considering that Liniang’s dream and the portrait she later painted of herself may echo Guanxiu’s dream in a secular rather than sacred fashion. Rui Kong has argued that during Tang Xianzu’s lifetime, the “Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) was going through a stringent and repressive philosophy of Neo-Confucianism named Daoxue, which praised appropriate displays of behavior and rituals and disdained passion and desire of human being” (Kong 2014, 131).36 At the same time, these rigid Confucian rules came into conversation with Buddhist practices, through monks such as Zhenke.37 The Peony Pavilion can thus evoke Buddhist detachment, point to Confucian rules and even depict Daoism. Indeed, the play sets in motion a conflict that opposes the courtly ideals of the time with the more ancient beliefs of Daoism.38 It opposes authoritative Neo-Confucianism with the li (meaning miles) of love’s voyage. From the start, the Peony Pavillion opposes the library and place of study with the pleasant yet forbidden garden. Madame Du explains to the tutor which books her daughter has memorized, which ones are of “no concern” for a woman, and which are too profound (2002, 17).39 This reflects not only attitudes on women at the time but also Confucianism’s belief that women are inferior to men. Later, Liniang’s maid Fragrance 36  McCairn explains: “left to their own devices humans have harmful tendencies and must rely on education and other scholastic pursuits to stay morally virtuous. In addition to scholarly pursuits, family honor was another attribute highly venerated by Confucius… social life was studded with a complex structure of obligations founded on specific norms, and the norms of good conduct that are inspired by these rites. Such a structure provided a sense of order in society” (2016, 2). 37  “…popularity of four eminent monks among Confucian literati in the late Ming— Zibo Zhenke (1543-1603), Hanshan Deqing (1546-1623), Ouyi Zhixu (1599-1655) and Yunqi Zhuhong (1535-1615)—was in large part because these four monks were all trained in the Confucian Classics in their youth and shared the same experience of taking civil examinations with the Confucian literati” (Hongyu Wu 2013, 21). 38  For Birch, Tang Xianzu seeks to reconcile “Confucian ideals with the transcendental values of Daoism and Buddhism which the playwright had imbibed from family members, notably his grandmother” (Birch 2002, x). 39  “The Changes set forth the cosmic duality of yin and yang in mysteries too profound for her; the Documents treat of government and are of no concern to a woman” (2002, 17).

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counsels her differently: “Miss, you are tired from your studies, why don’t you think of some way to amuse yourself… Just to take a walk in the garden behind the house” (2002, 39). Her father had forbidden her to walk there, expecting her to study. But when he is away, and the gardener has swept the paths, she will venture into this space. While the father follows the letter of the law as dictated by Confucius, his daughter is lured into spaces of danger, albeit places of comfort where she will learn to love (in a dream) and thus fulfill her longings. The flowers and trees of the garden point the way forward. She must travel from this world to the next and back again in order to enjoy the fruits of her love. Only at the very end will her father forgive her. It is widely reported that Confucius ate nothing without a sauce flavored by the peony (Dharmananda, n.p). Tang’s play, then is flavored by passion and the senses, as it shows love triumphing over duty and appropriate behavior, thus creating a new order of things.40 In Lope de Vega we find a similar clash. Some of the figures in the oneiric garden are derived from Christian symbols: the goldfinch is a symbol of Christ since the bird tried to relieve him of the crown of thorns.41 And yet, Alonso has been playing a charade with Inés — one that turns Christian ideals upside down, as his desire for Inés is depicted as Christ’s passion, and their marriage is cast in terms of her becoming a nun: “¿Quién es / la señora doña Inés / que con el Señor se casa?” (1997, vv. 1412-14). Religious devotion is transformed into amorous play. Indeed, a pagan ambience enfolds the play, as numerous references to classical myths point to excessive passion and a tragic conclusion. Is the tragedy a result of turning away from the Christian to the pagan? Or, does the pagan permeate the play, leading to such a denouement? The clash is even more extreme if we turn to La quinta 40  McCairn prefers to see the play as bringing together opposites: “A movement toward abiding by such social norms paved the way for a harmonious conclusion to the plays. Therefore, dualities such as peace versus conflict, and the human world versus the supernatural world are integral parts of these two plays. Another duality in Chinese culture involves the interaction of the concepts li and qing” (2016, 2). 41  “The goldfinch is fond of eating thistles and thorns, and since all thorny plants have been accepted as an allusion to Christ’s crown of thorns, the goldfinch has become an accepted symbol of the Passion of Christ. In this sense, it frequently appears with the Christ Child, showing the close connection between the Incarnation and Passion” (Ferguson 1961, 19).

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de Florencia. The beautiful meadows or gardens become, for the dozing lover, the very landscape that surrounds a mythological painting. In the end, he decides that this very Venus must exist in the real world around him as he goes off to search for her with almost disastrous consequences. Myth so intrudes upon the work that two codes clash with each other, that of Christian virtue and that of pagan abandon. Studying space and place, Yi-Fu Tuan contrasts Chinese mythical spaces with those of ancient Greece and its successors in Renaissance and early modern Europe: “In China, a color, an animal, or an element was attached to each cardinal point. In Greece, a color, a plant, a vowel, a metal, or a stone was attached to each planetary god.” (1977, 93). Thus we will think of the plum blossom as still winter, associated with the North (water element) and the peony as a spring flower linked to the East (wood element).42 The Peony Pavilion clearly evokes these analogies. The Western configuration of elements and cardinal points would be very different: Venus, as the third planet, is associated with the phlegmatic humor, the element of water, the woman and the voluptuous; while Saturn as the seventh planet is associated with earth, maleness and the studious. Let us recall that in Lope de Vega, melancholy is associated with Saturn and the figure of Venus represents the beloved, often separated from the melancholy lover. Contrasting eastern and western views of the gods Yi-Fu Tuan has argued that Chinese cosmology seems more static and their “nature spirits and gods lacked the dynamic and unruly character of Greek gods” (1997, 93). Perhaps this goes a long way towards explaining my experience while reading Lope and Tang. The first is all action, all sound and fury. Even at its most lyrical, it betrays conflictive thoughts as in Alonso’s back and forth between Olmedo and Medina; and in César’s desire to adore a goddess and lust after a labradora. Frantic movement and harsh realities in Lope contrast with the dream-like melancholy of Tang Xianzu, where even death is soft and visionary; and where marvelous and other-worldly vistas commingle with present 42  The North is associated with winter and a black turtle (water element). The South is associated with summer, and the red phoenix (fire element). The East is linked to spring and the azure dragon (wood element). The West is the white tiger and the season of autumn (metal element). The fifth element is earth and the yellow dragon.

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realities.43 While melancholy in Lope is a dark humor, in Tang, it is about life itself, as love is as essential as the breath. These melancholy figures from east and west surrender to art — whether to a painting ascribed to Titian or a portrait of a melancholy maid. It is through art (and theater), then, that we may glimpse at the dreams and aspirations of two not so different cultures that call to us from a distant past, impelling us to seek out their secrets and delight in the fragrance of the peony and the plum, the jasmine and the almond blossom.

Works Cited Atienza, Belén. 2009. El loco en el espejo. Locura y melancolía en la España de Lope de Vega. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Brennan, John. 1993. “Dreams, Divination and Statecraft: The Politics of Dreams in Early Chinese Literature.” In The Dream and the Text: Essays on Literature and language, edited by Carol Schreier Rupprecht, 73-102. Albany: State University of New York Press. Calderón, Manuel. 2017. “Printing Licenses and the Trade in Fiction in Spain in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century.” In A Maturing Market: The Iberian Book World in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century, edited by Alexander S. Wilkinson and Alejandra Ulla Lorenzo, 192-212. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Calderón de la Barca, Pedro. 2007. Los tres mayores prodigios. In Comedias II, edited by Santiago Fernández Mosquera, 991-1125. Madrid: Biblioteca Castro. Chang, Kang-I Sun and Stephen Owen. 2010. The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature. Vol. 2: After 1375. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Conti, Natale. 1988. Mitología. Murcia: University of Murcia. De Armas, Frederick A. 2008. “Adonis y Venus: Hacia la tragedia en Tiziano y Lope de Vega.” In Hacia la tragedia aurea: Lecturas para un nuevo milenio, edited by Frederick A. de Armas, Luciano García Lorenzo and Enrique García SantoTomás, 97-115. Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert. 43  Chinese Kunqu plays can be much more fantastic and imaginative than early modern comedias. In The White Snake, Baishe zhuan (Paishe chuan), a white snake metamorphoses into a beautiful woman to marry a handsome pharmacist. However, a monk tries to destroy her and her marital bliss, eventually incarcerating her beneath a pagoda.

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— 2008. “Lope de Vega’s Speaking Pictures: Tantalizing Titians and Forbidden Michelangelos in La quinta de Florencia.” In A Companion to Lope de Vega, edited by Alexander Samson and Jonathan Thacker, 171-182. London: Tamesis. Dharmananda, Subhuti. “White Peony, Red Peony and Moutan: Three Chinese Herbs Derived from Paeonia.” Institute for Traditional Medicine. Escalante, Bernardino de. (1992). Discurso de la navegación que los Portugueses hacen a los Reinos y Provincias de Oriente, y de la noticia que se tiene de las grandezas del Reino de la China. Santander: Universidad de Cantabria. Edición facsímil de Sevilla, 1577. Ferguson, George. 1961. Signs and Symbols in Christian Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Friedman, Edward H. 1996. “Theater Semiotics and El caballero de Olmedo.” In El Arte Nuevo de Estudiar Comedias: Literary Theory and Spanish Golden Age Drama, edited by Barbara Simerka, 66-85. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press. Hall, J. Gaston. 1985. “Observation and Symbolism in El caballero de Olmedo.” Modern Language Review 80: 62-79. Herbert, Ian and Nicole Leclerq, eds. 2003. The World of Theater 2003 Edition: An Account of the World’s Theater Seasons, 1999-2000, 2000-2001, 2001-2002. International Theatre Institute. London and New York: Routledge. Idema, Wilt L. 2016. “Preface.” In 1616: Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu’s China, edited by Tian Yuan Tan, Paul Edmondson and Shih-pe Wang, xix-xxii. London and New York: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare. Idema, Wilt L. and Lloyd Hall. 1997. A Guide to Chinese Literature. Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies 74. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan. Kao Ming. 1980. The Lute: Kao Ming’s P’i-p’a chi. Translated by Jean Mulligan. New York: Columbia University Press. Kaske, Carol V. and John R. Clark. 1989. “Introduction.” In Marsilio Ficino, The Three Books on Life, 3-90. Binghamton: Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies. Kong, Rui. 2014. “A Comparison of Dying for Love Between Oriental and Occidental Drama: Taking Du Liniang and Juliet as Examples.” Cross-Cultural Communication 10 (6): 131-34. Krummel, John W. M. 2010. “Li: Transcendent or Immanent? Its Significance and History in Chinese Philosophy.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 37 (3): 417-37. Lee, Christina H. 2016. “Imagining China in a Golden Age Spanish Epic.” In Western Visions of the Far East in a Transpacific Age 1522-1657, edited by Christina Lee, 43-68. London and New York: Routledge.

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Loarca, Miguel. Relacion del viaje que hezimos a la China desde la ciudad de Manila en las del poniente año de 1575 años, con mandado y acuerdo de Guido de Lavazaris governador i Capitan General que a la sazon era en las Islas Philipinas (1575). Manuscript from the Academia de la Historia. Digitalized by Dolors Folch Fornesa. https://www.upf.edu/asia/projectes/che/s16/loarca.htm Lunden, Jeff. 2012. “The Peony Pavilion: A Vivid Dream in a Garden.” NPR Morning Edition November 30, 2012. Macrobius. 1952. Commentary on the Dream of Scipio. Translated and edited by William Harris Stahl. New York: Columbia University Press. Mattza, Carmela. 2018. “Intoxicating Dreams: The Quest for Beauty, Knowledge and Power in the Theater of Tang, Xiansu and Calderón de la Barca.” International Conference on Theater under the Mings and the Habsburgs: Angelica in and out of Cathay. University of Chicago, Hong Kong Center, June 21-22. McCartin, Alexander. 2016. “The Harmonious Conclusion of the Peony Pavilion and The Lute.” Master of Arts Thesis, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. McCrary, William C. 1966. The Goldfinch and the Hawk: A Study of Lope de Vega’s Tragedy “El caballero de Olmedo.” North Carolina Studies in Romance Languages and Literatures 62. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Moll, Jaime. 1992. “De la continuación de las partes de comedia de Lope de Vega a partes colectivas.” In Homenaje a Alonso Zamora Vicente. Volume 3: Literatura española de los siglos xv al xvii. Edited by Pedro Peira, 199-211. Madrid: Castalia. Morley, S. Griswold and Courtney Bruerton. 1968. Cronología de las comedias de Lope de Vega. Madrid: Gredos. Ong, Robert Keh. 1981. “The Interpretation of Dreams in Ancient China.” Master Thesis, University of British Columbia. Orozco Díaz, Emilio. 1969. El teatro y la teatralidad del barroco. Barcelona: Planeta. Palley, Julian. 1983. The Ambiguous Mirror: Dreams in Spanish Literature. Chapel Hill: Hispanófila. Pontón, Gonzalo. 2016. “Cervantes, Shakespeare ¿y Lope?” El País, 11 March. https://elpais.com/elpais/2016/02/13/opinion/1455387466_397023.html See, Lisa. “About Peony in Love,” http://www.lisasee.com/books-new/peony-inlove-2/about-peony-in-love/ — 2008. Peony in Love. New York: Random House. Soufas, Theresa Scott. 1990. Melancholy and the Secular Mind in Spanish Golden Age Literature. Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press. Swatek, Catherine. 2002. “Preface and Introduction to the Second Edition.” In Xianzu Tang, The Peony Pavilion, Mudan Ting. Translated by Cyril Birch, introduction by Catherine Swatek, ix-xxx. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

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— 2002. Peony Pavilion Onstage: Four Centuries in the Career of a Chinese Drama. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan. Tan, Tian Yuan. 2016. “Introduction.” In 1616: Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu’s China, edited by Tian Yuan Tan, Paul Edmondson and Shih-pe Wang, 1-3. London and New York: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare. Tang Xianzu. 2002. The Peony Pavilion, Mudan Ting. Translation by Cyril Birch, introduction by Catherine Swatek. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. — 2018. The Complete Dramatic Works of Tang Xianzu. Edited by Wang Rongpei and Zhang Ling. London and New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. Thacker, Jonathan. 2002. Role Play and the World as Stage in the Comedia. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Tuan, Yi-Fu. 1977. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Vega Carpio, Félix Lope de. 1930. La vitoria de la honra. In Obras de Lope de Vega publicadas por la Real Academia Española, 10, 412-54. Madrid: Galo Sáez. — 1995. La quinta de Florencia. Edited by Debra Collin Ames. Kassel: Edition Reichenberger. — 1997. El caballero de Olmedo, edited by Francisco Rico. Madrid: Cátedra. — 1998. Don Juan de Castro. (segunda parte). Edited by Paloma Cuenca Muñoz and Jesús Gómez, volumen xv. Madrid: Editorial Turner - Fundación Castro. — 2008. La doncella Teodor, edited by Julián González Barrera. Kassel: Edition Reichenberger. — 1993. Los palacios de Galiana. Edited by Paloma Cuenca Muñoz y Jesús Gómez, volumen vii. Madrid: Editorial Turner - Fundación Castro. — 1997. La prueba de los ingenios. In Comedias, Parte IX, tomo I, coordinated by Alberto Blecua and Guillermo Serés, edited by Julián Molina, tomo 1, 39-164. Madrid: Gredos. — 2012. Servir a señor discreto. Edited by José Enrique Laplana. In Comedias, Parte XI, edited by Laura Fernández and Gonzalo Pontón, tomo 1, 761-920. Madrid: Gredos. — 2010. Virtud, pobreza y mujer. Ed. Donald McGrady. Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta. Vega García-Luengos, Germán. 1998. “La reescritura permanente del teatro español del Siglo de Oro: nuevas evidencias.” Criticón 72: 11-34. Volpp, Sophie. 2011. Worldly Stage: Theatricality in Seventeenth-Century China. Harvard East Asian Monographs 267. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

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Wang, Hongcai and Bing Zhu. 2010. Basic Theories of Traditional Chinese Medicine. London and Philadelphia: Singing Dragon Press in cooperation with People’s Military Medical Press. http://www.itmonline.org/arts/peony.htm. Wang, Shih-pe. 2014. “The Ways of Adapting Peony Pavilion around 1616: Different Viewpoints from Literati, Actors, Readers/Audience, and Critics.” Brave New Theaters: 1616 in China and England. International Conference organized by SOAS, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, National Chung Cheng University Venue: SOAS, 5-6 June 2014. Panel Five. — 2016. “Revising Peony Pavilion: Audience Reception in Presenting Tang Xianzu’s Text.” In 1616: Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu’s China, edited by Tian Yuan Tan, Paul Edmondson and Shih-pe Wang, 180-94. London and New York: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare. Wardropper, Bruce W. 1972. “The Criticism of the Spanish Comedia: El Caballero de Olmedo as Object Lesson.” Philological Quarterly 51: 177-96. Witmore, Michael, Barbara Bogaev and Wei Fend. 2017. “Tang Xianzu and Shakespeare in China.” Folger Shakespeare Library. https://www.folger.edu/ shakespeare-unlimited/tang-xianzu-china. Wu, Hongyou. 2013. Leading the Good Life: Peng Shaosheng’s Biographical Narratives and Instructions for Buddhist Laywomen in High Qing China (1683-1796). Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh. Xu, Yongming. 2014. “Tang Xianzu’s Dramatic Activity against Varied Regional Backgrounds.” Brave New Theaters: 1616 in China and England. International Conference organized by SOAS, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, National Chung Cheng University Venue: SOAS, 5-6 June 2014. Panel Nine. — 2016. “The backdrop of regional theater to Tang Xianzu’s drama.” In 1616: Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu’s China, edited by Tian Yuan Tan, Paul Edmondson, and Shih-pe Wang, 7-18. London and New York: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare.

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Global Climate and Emotions Juan Pablo Gil-Osle

Image 1. Mural in a coffee shop near Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.

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El amor es algo que … nos permite ignorar el hambre y el frio…, por él pueden también los vivos morir y los muertos renacer.1 Zhang Qi (1476?-1541?) Out of qing dreams are developed; out of dreams drama is composed.2 Tang Xianzu (1550-1616)

As indicated in the epigraphs, love is something that, while enabling us to ignore hunger and cold, permits us both to dream and to compose drama. Probably, this poetic truth is valid on a global scale. But the associations in this sentence need to be unpacked, since weather, famine, love, emotions, dreams and literature seem to be creating an equation that calls for a refined expression of the connections between climate and literature; and more specifically between extreme climate situations and literature of exacerbating love dreams, if there is any. In “Natural Universals and the Global Scale,” Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing said that “Making the globe our frame of reference is hard work” (2015, 227). I agree, since any comparison of early modern Iberian theater and late Ming theater encounters the problem of globality and literature, as opposed to nation and literature. Reviewing the criticism on early modern Spanish theater and late Ming theater in China, it is hard to find any reference to connections between both fields of study. For that reason, in times of accelerated globalization with its characteristic transfer of knowledge and technology, it is pertinent to think that national philology, overarching critical theories, and ongoing cultural studies have to be added to the analysis of past, present and future global studies. So, please indulge me some thoughts about the how and the why of this situation, and why we are thinking now about building bridges with all the elephants of globalism in the room. When thinking of Ming and Spanish Habsburg theater, one really needs to confront the globe as a frame of reference. Both Iberian studies and Sinol1  See Santangelo (2003, 235), as quoted in Alicia Relinque Eleta’s edition of the Mudan Ting (Relinque 2016, 13). 2  Cheng (2013, 22).

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ogy are insulated for several reasons.3 For as much as the reality of the differences is overwhelming, the concomitances are equally extant.4 Out of the many possibilities for articulating this comparative study of Sino-Iberian theater, I have chosen climate and emotions—情，qing—, since both have the quality of being ubiquitous. I depart from the bold assumption that massive climate changes seriously affect and transform emotions attached to the human experience and, more importantly for literary criticism, that the written expression of these mutated emotions may be altered in an intense and transcendental way. Additionally, the expression of these metamorphosed emotions may seek the satisfaction of unexpected needs. In this essay, I argue that we could consider Climate Criticism—‘Cli-Cri’—as an appropriate tool to engage in Sino-Iberian studies of literature with a focus on representations of extreme emotions.

1. Climate Change and Elevated Emotions Concerning Iberian and Chinese literary criticism, the global frame of reference is too large. As a consequence, the topic of early modern Iberian globalization as represented in literature is so broad that it needs to be narrowed down in such a way that one could work with discrete amounts of manageable and cohesive information. Serge Gruzinski, in The Four Parts of the World: A History of Globalization (2004), has expressed a related methodological conundrum in a very provocative way: 3  A non-exhaustive list of explanations for the insulation of Habsburg and Ming theaters would be the following: Sinophobia (Padrón 2012); Orientalism where the Orient is reduced to a theater of the Orient (Said 1979, 86); 19th-century philology and its participation in nation building processes, misconceptions about who were the first hands writing about China (Brockey 2012); Sinology’s and Hispanism’s own tendencies to serve political projects and nation building curricula; and translation habits, among many others. 4  On the other hand, both fields could be put in contact: high cultural content; not individualistic, pre-modern encored experiences (Pagden 2007; Simons 1901), comparative search for the social need for public theater (religious rites, scapegoats, power displays, propaganda; free time, and increasing wealth in mercantile social strata and consumption of art, distraction; cosmology and pageantry; performance and music; see Lu (2001) and Tan (2016).

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How can we put together elements apparently so disconnected such as the killing of Henry IV, the native writing of the Spanish Mexico, and the interest of the inhabitants of this country in the Tokugawa’s Japan. In other words, how can we return to the analysis of the ‘desenclavamientos planetarios’ (Pierre Chaunu) or the “overlapping of civilizations’ (Ferdinand Braudel). (2004, 42-43. My translation from Spanish)5

In fact, Serge Gruzinski claims that connecting geography, economy, bureaucracy, institutions, banks, religious orders, Jewish networks, literature, visual arts and music is the way to analyze the Iberian global conglomerate of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (2010, 46). The result of his quest is indeed a narration that shatters some of the boundaries of our profession. Let’s focus first on the economic aspect of these initial moments of globalization, in our journey to uncover the global emotions in Sino and Iberian drama. Concerning literature and the economic aspect of the early modern power conglomerates, there exists a very interesting attempt to connect the early modern silver trade, literary production, and globalizing forces. In 2017, Ning Ma published The Age of Silver: The Rise of the Novel East and West. From a comparative literature perspective, Ning Ma opens a real window to the study of early modern literature and globalism. The circulation of materials is his amalgamating concept. Floods of silver from Zacatecas and Potosi inundated the markets of the sixteenth century giving rise to increasing connections between them. Similar uses of this material—silver—are the cause of one effect of interest for literary critics: the rise of the novel. For Ning Ma, Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, The Plum in the Golden Vase, among many other novels from China, Japan and Europe, are the effect of a singular cause: the economic growth caused by the increasing circulation of silver in the “Age of Silver.” These consequences of the Age of Silver share commonalities and divert in local ways, but they are comparable. The connections between 5  “¿Cómo lograr reunir elementos aparentemente tan inconexos como el asesinato del rey Enrique IV, la escritura india en el México español y el interés de los habitantes de ese país por el Japón de Tokugawa? En otros términos, ¿cómo retomar el estudio de los ‘desenclavamientos planetarios’ (Pierre Chaunu) o de los ‘recubrimientos de civilizaciones’ (Ferdinand Braudel)?” (Gruzinski 2010, 42-43).

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the novel with bourgeois moral and practices have been extensively studied; see the Rise of the Novel by Ian Watt, and the sharp criticism of this approach in Diana de Armas Wilson in Cervantes, the Novel and the New World. More interesting than the origins debate is that Ning Ma has created a system to work from a global point of view with extremely canonical novels, while he challenges the national propaganda that in the end mark many of the books about the origins of the novel.6 But, of course, yearning for silver is not the only commonality that the Iberian Habsburg and Ming dynasties shared. Coincidentally, it bears to mention the less glamorous effects of climate change on this “Silver Age.”7 It has been said that by the end of the 16th century temperatures dropped globally. The effect of this global climate change is known under several names, one of them being the Little Ice Age. The glacial ‘high tide’ of the Little Ice Age in the Alps lasted from about 1590 to 1850, before the ebb began, known today as Global Warming. According to Fagan, “These two and a half centuries at the climax of the Little Ice Age straddle momentous changes in European society” (2000, 127). For some, within this two-hundred-and-fifty-year window of “global cooling,” the year 1618 is a notorious threshold in the reports about this climate change since temperatures dropped dangerously, causing suffering in many societies around the globe. As it is well known, the invasion of Ming China began in the year 1618, and the Thirty Years’ War exploded in Europe. Both of these events finished with tragic results for the Ming dynasty, the Habsburgs in Spain, and elsewhere. 1618 was not only an important date in politics, but also in the realm of the arts. For instance, the comets of 1618 were recorded in poems by the Conde de Villamediana and Luis de Góngora.8 In the sonnet “En año quieres que plural cometa” (1619), Góngora makes a number of references to war in Portugal and climatic anomalies—cold summer, snow,

6  For more details on the effects of this silver revolution see Mann (2011, 157-209), Kamen (2004, 291-92). 7  See the scientific article published by Alexander Koch et al, about the necessary correlation between massive depopulation of the Americas and the global cooling at the turn of the seventeenth century (Koch 2019). 8  Conde de Villamediana, “Otras décimas a los privados” (Villamediana 1994) and Luis de Góngora, “En año quieres que plural cometa” (Góngora).

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floods—, plus global traffic of cloves and cinnamon. All of them are mentioned in the tercets when the poetic voice says: fresco verano, clavos y canela, nieve mal de una Estrella dispensada, aposento en las gavias el más bajo; el primer día folïón y pela, el segundo, en cualquier encrucijada, inundaciones del nocturno Tajo.

Related to this painstaking suffering in the world around 1618 and beyond, Geoffrey Parker published Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century in 2014, where he claims that one third of the global population died in the 17th century due to the effects of global change. The earth cooled down provoking hunger, diseases, war, and revolutions: recent work by demographers and climatologists suggests that around 1618, when the human population of the northern hemisphere was larger than ever before, the average global temperature started to fall, producing extreme climate events, disastrous harvest failures and frequent disease epidemics. Human demographic systems can seldom adapt swiftly enough to such adverse events, yet instead of seeking ways to mitigate the natural disasters and save lives, most governments … it killed up to one-third of the human population, and why it transformed the world inhabited by the survivors. (2014, 2)

In his volume of nearly nine hundred pages, Parker embraces the Ming and Qing China, the Ottoman empire, Russia, Poland, Germany and Neighbors, Britain and Ireland, the Iberian conglomerate, the Mughals and Neighbors, early Tokugawa Japan, Africa, Australia and the colonial Americas. It is an admirable endeavor directed to prove that the wars, rebellions, epidemics, and famines of the times were responsible for the death of one third of the global population. Yet, what impresses me more is Geoffrey Parker’s insistence on the year 1618, the year of the three comets, all throughout his book. As an historical rarity, we would face the fact that both the Peony Pavilion and Life is a

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Dream (circa 1636) were composed around the year 1618. Both of the plays appeared around twenty years apart from the year 1618, the year of the three comets and the tidemark of the Little Ice Age. The dreams of Du Liniang and Segismundo came to fruition eighteen years before and after the dreadful pick of the Little Ice Age. Would intense dreams have any correlation with weary climate change effects? In Dreams, Dreamers and Visions, Ann Marie Plane and Leslie Tuttle assert that “dreams—as lived, reported, and interpreted—played a significant role in structuring historic change… These processes go on continually throughout human societies, but they were particularly important in colonial contexts, where European imperialism forced societies with distinct cultures into intimate and uneasy contact with one another” (2013, 3). Presumably, dreams were even more necessary in the “great crisis” period from the 1590’s to the 1680’s that embraced the globe. As a matter of fact, both of the plays share an emphasis on love, as well as dreams, violence, and representation of power changes. For instance, both in Life is a Dream by Calderón de la Barca, and the Peony Pavilion (1593-98) by Tang Xianzu, between the famous descriptions of visions, there is personal and social transformation in a vehement fashion. To be sure, war plots set in times of dynastic upheaval are an important part of the theatrical traditions of both China and Spain¾ see for instance the edition of plays based on the cycle of historical tales of the Three Kingdoms, by Stephen West,9 or the numerous historical plays concerned with wars and conquest during the decadence of Spanish power from the 1580’s on, studied by Frederick de Armas, Barbara Simerka, Veronika Ryjik, and Enrique García Santo-Tomás, among many others. Violence in La vida es sueño is a constant topic of research, for instance Frederick de Armas proposes that the generational confrontation between Segismundo and his father is a transposition of the opposition between Philip IV (Segismundo) and his father, Philip III (Basilio).10 Concerning the Peony Pavilion, in some scenes there is a war between the Jin and Song, that at times seems to be purposely disrupting the intensity of the dreams and desires of the lovers. It is said that the background war in the Peony Pavilion 9 

See West (2012). See De Armas (1987; 2001; 2016, 194-200).

10 

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is of great importance. Critics see wars between the Jin and the Song, which starting in 1125 lasted for many years, as a transposition of the uneasiness caused by the corruption in the Ming dynasty. Against the background of this dynasty, and the increasingly wealthy “Silver Age,” a number of Chinese social iconoclasts—later tagged as “deviant officials” and “cliques” by their enemies—represented views of freedom, friendship, entrepreneurship, feelings/passions/self as a way to question the “traditional hierarchical arrangement of society” (Ebrey 2010, 206-13).11 While a global cooling phenomenon had profound destabilizing effects, the flow of silver from the Americas both incremented the corruption during the late Ming dynasty and spurred discontent among some intellectuals who expressed their frustration by an iconoclastic practice: the debate about emotions and the abundant representation of extreme emotions. Therefore, both in China and Iberia, the aftermaths of the cooler weather were exacerbated by increasing corruption caused by the flow of silver, both of which would be, among other causes, responsible for the elevation of the status of emotions and their increasing representation in literature. This premise may open many venues for comparing drama production during the late Ming and in early modern Iberia, since a commensurate situation was perceived by some as degrading the social structures of both Ming China and Habsburg Spain.

2. The Columbus Exchange and Emotions in Literature If my mention of dreams and expression of feelings/passions/self in relation to global climate change and global silver markets is not challenging enough, then let’s go a bit further. We know that global silver markets are a consequence of the global exchanges that started in 1492 until today— 11  For instance, Zhang Qi (1476?-1541?) said that “El amor [qing] es algo que … nos permite ignorar el hambre y el frio…, por él pueden también los vivos morir y los muertos renacer” (Santangelo 2003, 235; as quoted in Tang 2016, 13). Some decades later, in the same vain, Tan Xianzu got to say that “Out of qing dreams are developed; out of dreams drama is composed” (Cheng 2013, 22).

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circulation of bacteria, pathogens, plants, silver global markets, economic expansion, widespread wars— (Crosby 2003, 208-19).12 Yet, what is it that provoked the climate change known as the “Little Ice Age”? According to different academics, there are several explanations.13 But one very appropriate for this essay, is that the cooling of the earth was triggered by the same “Columbus Exchange” that spurred the expansion of global silver markets from America to the rest of the world. One of the effects of the arrival of Columbus to the Americas was the implosion of Native American populations. As a consequence, the spontaneous reforestation caused all over the Americas the “anthropogenic land use change” —evoking the terms of Koch and his team (Koch 2019, 26; Mann 2011, 32-33). The massive reforestation of the Americas affected the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, which cooled the temperatures in Europe, created recurrent flooding problems in China, and diminished the productivity of soils, among many other problems. While some climatic global crises happened, the speed of global exchanges made some parts of the world richer and richer. These profound changes had an impact on the literary representations of emotions, both positive and negative ones. If we are willing to accept this hypothesis of global climate, global crises and global exchanges reflected in the Ming literature in China and Golden Age literature in Iberia, then we have a significant number of aspects to analyze in the Peony Pavilion, Life is a Dream, and many other plays. The cultural comparative perspectives could be many, and a substantial list of them appear here and there.14 For instance, one aspect that particularly appeals to me is how Spanish ingenios and Chinese literati embraced ideas that challenged social structures, as they engaged in debates of love, friendship, and regicide, among others, all at the same time in China and Europe. Focusing on early 12  For a discussion about Crosby’s concept of the Columbus Exchange and later developments and applications of his theories, see Häläläinen (2010, 173-76). 13  “(i) the atmospheric CO2 decline, (ii) changes in total solar irradiation, (iii) the impact of volcanic eruptions, and (iv) anthropogenic land use change, in the Americas and the rest of the world, are required to precisely attribute the changes to the Earth system and fully understand the anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic carbon cycle impacts over the 1500s” (Koch 2019, 26). 14  For instance, see the contents of these two items: Lu (2001) and Tan (2016).

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modern discourses on friendship, theories on amicitia were the focus of great debate during the late Ming dynasty,15 as well as in Renaissance and Baroque Europe.16 At the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the first European to live at the heart of the Ming power understood very clearly this intercultural connection of the times, and chose one of the topics that had a very good reception between ingenios and literati alike. Matteo Ricci, to make himself accepted in Ming China, immersed himself in the Chinese debates on male friendship. One of his Chinese books from the Nanchang period has a marked theological content, but another deals with theories of amicitia. His 交友論 (Jiaoyou lun) [On Friendship: One Hundred Maxims for a Chinese Practice] (1595) was a gift to a powerful patron. We know it became a success in Chinese learnt circles because it was included in anthologies, quoted by local intellectuals, incorporated into collections of books sponsored by the Emperor, and more importantly, it was contested by Confucian literati (Xu 2011). The success of the book introduced him into the heart of literati academies of the time—for instance, the White Deer Grove Academy, at Lushan—, through the literary cultivation of friendship theories. Zhang Huang, a famous neo-Confucian and Ricci’s intellectual partner, composed the objectives of the White Deer Grove Academy in 1592. The second objective stressed the connections between the neo-Confucian academies—jianhui—,17 learning and friendship: “The main aim of learning is to gain friendships that 15  “The extant accounts of jiangxue [debates] festivities suggest that for many Ming neoConfucian activists jianghui [gatherings in the academies] were indeed an alternative sphere that was seriously competing with jia 家 (family) for their devotion and time” (Huang 2007, 159). 16  Fernán Pérez de Oliva made reference in a neo-Aristotelian way to necessitudo as the engine for comunal life, which is necessary for the perfection of men: “Si bien consideras, hallarás que estas necesidades son las que ayudan a los hombres a bivir en comunidad, de donde cuánto bien nos venga, y cuánto deleite, tú lo vees, pues que de aquí nascen las amistades de los hombres y suaves conversaciones. . . no es sino guía que nos lleva a hallar nuestra perfección” (Pérez de Oliva 1995, 151). 17  “A jianghui participant was supposed to devote himself to the intellectual and spiritual exchanges with his comrades completely oblivious to the outside world of daily routines and petty concerns. Leaving one’s home to stay or even live in an academy where jiangxue were conducted was also a movement from the secular to the sacred” (Huang 2007, 159).

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will help us in the path of virtue” (Hsia 2010, 161).18 Ricci’s knowledge of the topic, and the convenient vogue of it in China, were stepping stones to becoming over time a sort of “minister”—or a wunderkammer item, I would say (Gil-Osle 2018, 13-14)—whom mandarins and scholars would visit in Beijing, as a curiosity and as the holder of a place of tranquility in the midst of the examinations and triennial evaluations (Hsia 2010, 268). In fact, if his gift of a book on friendship opened him to a whole other level of Chinese society, a big number of his powerful and sophisticated interlocutors chose which aspects of the complex gift of empire they accepted. Theories on friendship, astronomy, mathematics, cartography, books, paintings, and theology, among others, were welcomed and debated; while the commercial and military aspects of the westernization enterprise were neglected as unnecessary, or at least tightly controlled. As for magnified representations of friendship, some intellectuals say that, in China, they were assimilated to challenges to the Confucian order (Kutcher 2000, 1616-17). Since Confucian ethical discourses were supposed to sanctify state and family almost exclusively, the promotion of friendship over family was problematic, but a number of neo-Confucian thinkers made the case to justify their own practice of friendship (Huang 2007, 168). In Europe also, both idealistic and non-altruistic representations of male friendship were loaded with political meaning,19 as the long tradition of the story of the two friends shows us, and particularly its degradation during the seventeenth-century process of imitatio.20 Of course, this could be a coincidence, but in completely insulated academic and artistic realities coincidences should be negligible, or nonexistent. If the discourse of friendship is 18  About the connection between learning, friendship, and academies in China, see Huang (2007), McDermott (1992), Mann (2000), and Xu (2011), among others. 19  A few examples would be the importance of the debates about the privates as friends of the monarch, the Republic of Letters in Europe, the rhetoric of amicitia in the letters between humanists, the catalogues of friends written by Cervantes and Lope de Vega, among many other artists, the influence of academies in the political, artistic and knowledge centers, the work of female writers to undermine the androcentrism of the male amicitia discourse, and the use of friendship during the conquest of the Americas and exploration of the world. 20  On representations of non-altruistic friendship, see Gil-Osle (2009 and 2013), and Herrería (2014).

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fundamental in the evolution of Europe from patron-client societies to successful capitalism during the Enlightenment; what did the transformations of friendship mean in China? This last question is actually twofold. The first part, which is going to remain for the most part unanswered is: if there was an evolution of the representation and evaluation of emotions—as stated by Huang (2007), Kutcher (2000), Lo (2006), Mann (2000), McDermont (1992), Ong (2006), Ollé (2016), and Cho 2018)—, did grandiose representation of emotions between literary friends have a function within Chinese cultural history? The second question is: did it correlate with changes in the economical make-up of the world? My take from the above-mentioned critics is that, during the so-called Silver Age, movement of peoples increased due to work, business, study, and tourism. That mobility distracted them from being the perfect father, son, and husband that traditional Confucian philosophy asked from ethical Chinese men. Therefore, the bond of male friendship started to be more appreciated, or even became necessary. This could be a good reason to consider that global economic changes in the 16th and 17th centuries influence our views of literary representations of friendship, in cultures apparently as distant as Ming China and Habsburg Iberia, but the critics mentioned do not go beyond the analysis of internal forces that brought up such a change. As the author has analyzed in previous publications, early modern representations of male friendship were very idealistic, and degraded as European cultural patterns moved away from Renaissance and Baroque tropes, to the point that Enlightened concepts of the self and the community jeopardize our appreciation of the “story of the two friends” (Gil-Osle 2009 and 2013). If we think that the topic of friendship in Europe is strange to today’s readers when, for example, male friends get married in La boda entre dos maridos by Lope de Vega; traffic wives in “El curioso impertinente” by Miguel de Cervantes and Guillen de Castro; invest all their money in the other’s love adventures, like in The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare; when they spend day and night together for years; when they bet on the number of shredded hymens and perpetrated killings in a set period of time, as happens in El burlador de Sevilla, attributed to Tirso de Molina; or when they get involved in gigantic war enterprises in the name of friendship, knighthood, and love, as in Cárcel de Amor by Diego de San Pedro, or Cómo han de ser los amigos

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by Tirso de Molina, among many others; this is nothing compared to the representations of friendship in the same period in Chinese literature.21 In China, one of the famous male friendship plots was rewritten several times in Chinese history. It involves two students—Fan Juqing and Zhang Yuanbao—(like in “La Señora Cornelia,” by Cervantes). Fan gets sick during one of their travels: After a full recovery under Zhang’s attentive care and before returning to their hometowns, Fan promises Zhang that he will visit him in two years. However, Fan has been so preoccupied with business that he does not recall his pledge until it is almost too late. Believing that the soul can travel much faster than the body. Fan commits suicide by slitting his throat so that his soul can reach Zhang on the day promised. In his encounter with Fan’s soul, Zhang realizes what Fan has done and travels to Fan’s hometown to attend his funeral. Then, moved by Fan’s devotion, Zhang commits suicide in order to be buried next to his friend. As can be seen from this summary, the friendship between Fan and Zhang takes on a much more radical form (double suicides) and is much more intense, probably reflecting the heightened friendship favor during the late Ming. (Huang 2007, 26-27)

As Huang indicates, the late Ming version is the most captivating and radical. The period coincides with the height of the evolution of the story of the two friends in Europe,22 in part thanks to the works of Cervantes, like the “Tale of the Impertinent Curious,” in the first part of Don Quixote; and the picaresque novels, like Guzmán de Alfarache.23 In China, also, there seems to exist a period of intense debate about the expression of emotions and the value of friendship—the fifth Confucian bond24—followed by an intensification of topics with a long literary history; all of which has been perceived

21  I suspect it is still true according to the content of current numerous Chinese soap operas, such as 小花，娘道，延禧攻略, or books, such as 兄弟. 22  See Sorieri (1937), Avalle-Arce (1957), and Gil-Osle (2009 and 2013). 23  See Herrería (2014). 24  In “The Fifth Relationship: Dangerous Friendships in the Confucian Context,” see a clear explanation of three of the concerns of the Confucian scholars with regard to friendship (Kutcher 2000, 1615-616).

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as part of the expression of a new social and economic regime. Huang comments on this “friendly world:”25 The commercialization of the Ming economy and the resultant enhanced social and geographical mobility created new needs as well as new possibilities for friendship: the blurring of traditional social boundaries (such as those between literati and merchants) tended to make Ming society relatively less hierarchical, thus more conductive to cultivation of friendship among different social groups. (Huang 2007, 29)

This, beyond being compatible with the economy of friendship in Europe, and significant material for analyzing the evolutions of the representations of Fan and Zhang’s friendship from the point of view of the enrichment of Ming and Habsburg societies in the 16th and 17th centuries after the first ‘Columbus Exchange’ in 1492, indicates that the intensification of emotions and friendships occurs in these literary traditions against the background of silver circulation, climate change, and global crisis during the period. And yet, it occurs against the creation of new literati groups and academies that serve the interests of an increasing travelling population in China, Europe and the Americas, and the rest of the world. For instance, in China travelling became fashionable and an opportunity to befriend people from all venues of life: During the last one and a half centuries of the Ming dynasty, there were more opportunities, as well as need, for men to be away from their families, whether being an official in the capital or stationed in another region, a merchant doing business far away, a tourist exploring new scenic sport, or a pilgrim journeying to a sacred site. (Huang 2007, 152).

This situation gave rise to an unprecedented valorization of friendship in Chinese culture and the appreciation of philosophical debates—jiangxue— in those groups of literati and academies, nothing of which is surprising for specialists in Western early modern male friendship, or specialists in 25  Huang’s borrowed terminology comes from McDermott’s “Friendship and Its Friends in the Late Ming” (1992).

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academies around Europe. In both parts of the world, these new centers of learning meant a revolutionary way of organizing, storing and diffusing knowledge. While the rise of a more commercial society, the increasing freedom to travel among men, and the foundation of a republic of letters are common social changes in China as well as in the Iberian world, none of this would make much sense from the perspective of a global comparison of Sino-Iberian theater if we did not incorporate into the equation the global cooling of the earth just when the great theater about emotions and dreams was produced in China and Iberia. In 2019, Alexander Koch and his team published “Earth System Impacts of the European Arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after 1492.” According to their study, the only way to explain the global cooling of the earth from 1577 to 1694 is the Great Dying of Native Americans after 1492 (Koch 2019, 27-30). In 2013, Geoffrey Parker stipulated that one third of the global population died as a result of the multiple consequences of the Little Ice Age, a fact that cannot be overlooked when studying the underlying connections in the Sino-Iberian theater of the epoch. In this essay, we have proposed that the overexaggerated emotional expressions of friendship, and love, in early modern literature might well be connected with the global experience of cold, dead, war, disease, and hunger that unraveled from the 1580’s on. Perhaps this is why we see the creation of the wonderful literature of the late Ming and the Spanish Golden Age: because opposed sets of forces stimulated creative responses to economic and ecological changes of great vastness. In a way, nineteenth-century philology has educated us to focus on the particularism, with the agenda of creating imagined communities and education curricula that serve the needs of nations. For as much as its approach is useful, it has made difficult a SinoIberian interdisciplinary dialogue that could give great fruits. Particularism can lend itself to a deeper understanding of regional differences, but connecting that information to a global perspective of historical events and cultural productions enriches our understanding of sociohistorical influences on the creative processes and treatment of themes in Sino-Iberian literatures, of their cultural zeitgeist, and of the psychological and emotional effects of climate change.

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Ricci, Matteo. 2009. On Friendship: One Hundred Maxims for a Chinese Prince [交 友论]. New York: Columbia University Press. Ryjik, Veronika. 2011. Lope de Vega en la invención de España: El drama histórico y la formación de la conciencia nacional. Woodbridge: Tamesis. Said, Edward. 1979. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books. Santangelo, Paolo. 2003. Sentimental Education in Chinese History: An Interdisciplinary Textual Research on Ming and Qing Sources. Leiden: Brill. Simons, Sarah. 1901. “Social Decadence.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 18: 65-86. Sorieri, Louis. 1937. Boccaccios’s Story of Tito e Gisippo in European Literature. New York: Institute of French Studies. Tan, Tian Yuan, Paul Edmondson, and Shih-pe Wang, eds. 2016. 1616: Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu in China. London: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare. Tang Xianzu. 2016. El pabellón de las peonías o Historia del alma que regresó. Edited by Alicia Relinque Eleta. Madrid: Trotta. Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. 2015. “Natural Universals and the Global Scale.” Ecocriticsm: The Essential Reader. Edited by Ken Hiltner, 211-31. New York: Routledge. Villamediana, Conde. 1994. Poesía inédita completa. Edited by José Francisco Ruiz Casanova. Madrid: Cátedra. Watt, Ian. 1957. Rise of the Novel. Berkeley: University of California Press. Weber, David J. 2009. The Spanish Frontier in North America: The Brief Edition. New Heaven: Yale University Press. West, Stephen. 2012. See Idema. 2012. Battles, Betrayals and Brotherhood. Wilson, Diana de Armas. 2000. Cervantes, the Novel, and the New World. Oxford University Press. Xu, Dongfeng. 2011. “The Concept on Friendship and the Culture of Hospitality: The Encounter between the Jesuits and Late Ming China.” Doctoral Dissertation, University of Chicago.

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(Tang Xianzu’s Peony Pavilion and Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s La vida es sueño) Carmela V. Mattza Su

Figure 1. Peony Pavilion (https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/d0211870-2292-0133-ac7e58d385a7b928)

The Peony Pavilion (Mudan ting), which was subtitled The Soul’s Return (Huanhun ji), is one of Tang Xianzu’s most popular dramatic works (Figure 1).1 It is also sometimes referred to as a ghost story, although it is more complex than that since “the Chinese character gui has a broader spectrum of meanings than does the English word ghost.” (Zeitlin 2006, 4). The Peony Pavilion narrates the love story between Du Liniang and the scholar Liu 1  Citations refer to the published English translation of the play prepared by Cyril Birch and Catherine Swatek, The Peony Pavilion: Mudan Ting (IUP, 2002).

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Figure 2. Pavilion of Prince Teng (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/40134)

Mengmei. After seeing Liu in a dream for the first time and falling in love with him, she dies of a broken heart or “lets herself die.”2 Du Liniang finds her way back from the afterlife with the help of the Judge of the Underworld, who promises to help her back to the land of the living once he realizes that she has died without fulfilling her destiny. However, she returns as a ghost, and after appearing in Liu Mengmei’s dreams, Du Liniang is able to convince him to exhume her body and the couple, after completing a few tasks and overcoming some challenges, live happily thereafter. The Peony Pavilion was published in 1589 (Wang 2016) and staged for the first time that same year at the Pavilion of Prince Teng (Chō 2012, 268) in all likelihood to celebrate its 13th reconstruction (Figure 2). Located in Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi province, the Pavilion of Prince Teng is one of the four great towers in southern China, having undergone a total 2  To die of love was a condition that appears in classical Greek poetry and is brought again to light by Western Renaissance poets. In Spanish Golden Age literature, Miguel de Cervantes’s story of Grisóstomo in Don Quijote (1605) has received attention and study. For details see Emily Bergman’s recent work (2018).

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of 36 reconstructions through the present day. If we agree with critics that The Peony Pavilion is a story about human emotion and passion, or about love, resilience and free will, the history of the many reconstructions of the Pavilion of Prince Teng can be considered a material representation of those emotions and ideals. Moreover, in both the play and in Prince Teng’s Tower, there is a pavilion or garden surrounded by or filled with flowers, plants, ponds and trees, which symbolizes the richness of the edifice, and defines it not only as a privileged but as a royal space. However, in Tang Xianzu’s play the pavilion becomes something more. It is a space of emotion, language, knowledge and mystery. These four elements twine together in a fascinating story reminiscent of the classic fairy tale The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods. As in the fairy tale, in The Peony Pavilion, the reader or spectator is presented with a beautiful lady who needs to be awakened from her sleep or metaphorically brought back to life by a Prince Charming. Still widely propagated through folk and pop culture today, in Western European civilization the origins of this classic and popular fairy tale can be traced to the 14th century Catalan poem “Frayre de Joy et Sor de Plaser” (Léglu 2010, 99-100). Nonetheless, the fairy tale only became popular after Charles Perrault published his version in Paris in 1697.3 Certainly, there are obvious similarities to this western classic fairy tale in Tang Xianzu’s story, but the play clearly surpasses those resemblances to acquire an identity of its own. In Tang Xianzu’s play, both the pavilion and the protagonist’s dream are defined by the presence of one particular flower, the peony, a historically important, popular and significative symbolic flower in Chinese culture. Yet, the play not only relies on the popularity of the peony, but subtly takes on its image to stress and bring to light hidden cultural meanings, religious symbolism, medical practices and unusual uses of the peony flower to create a dramatic space where visual image and language meet to address what we can consider un-representable and un-dimensional: the relationship between emotions and human will (Lang 2018, 19). Through this use of the peony, Tang Xianzu became one of the first in 3  For details, see Charles Perrault and Sally Holmes, The Complete Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault, 131-32; and also Graham A. Loud and Martial Staub, The Making of Medieval History, 122-24.

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Chinese Classical literature to clearly conceive of or treat emotions not as a state of mind mingling with things in external space, but as spatial per se.4 In his writings, emotions are portrayed as dispositions to act instead of affective tendencies or images coming from the inner being, soul or spirit (these images were also called “phantasma” by the medieval scholastics). From this perspective, an emotion is not just an image or affect situated only in the mind, but also leads to action. Emotion becomes what Donald Davidson and the post-Wittgenstein philosophers describe as a belief, i.e. a disposition to act, a term that would also be adapted by cognitive science. Thus, an emotion is first conceived as a movement of the soul, in a tridimensional relationship with two other things. That movement is triggered by the mind and it exists in a space. Thus, emotions and feelings are not just understood as extensions of the soul or mind, since that relationship or bind only exists in its own space. In Chinese philosophy, emotions in general belong to the realm of the qing,5 and Yu-Yin Cheng argues that for Tang, “drama could be an effective means for the playwright to present qing and to evoke the audience’s qing, as shown by his words that drama made those who are without feeling to have feelings.” (2013, 22). Moreover, the critic identifies a propaedeutic goal in Tang Xianzu’s The Peony Pavilion, a “drama as a means to illuminate the meaning of qing and further transform his audiences who watched his plays” (2013, 21-23). It is not surprising to find in his writing the influence of, and interaction with, the philosophical political ideas of his period (2013, 21), in particular in the presentation of Du Liniang, the heroine of this play, as a model. Her behavior —her will to come back to life and be found by her lover, Liu Mengmei— seems to perform what qing entails or means: to act according or close to the Way (dao), the (natural) path of wisdom that should never be restricted by human conventions, and to recognize the time

This is what Ling Hon Lam understands as “Theatricality”, chapters one and two. It is a difficult term to translate because of the wide semantic field it creates. It can be interpreted as love or sentiment (Zeitlin 1994, 128); romance and passion (Zeitlin 2018, 86); or simply as emotion or feeling. Birch discusses the difficulty of the term in the preface to his second edition of this play (x). 4  5 

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or moment when one needs to go beyond those restrictions to be closer to the Way.6 Thus, as it happens in the Spanish Golden Age comedia Life Is a Dream7 by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, in the Chinese play there is also an effort to think of the relationship to the Self (understood as a movement of the soul that implies action and politics in a codified system of power) in order to portray a prescriptive image of duty and value. Yet, what is even more remarkable is the agency that both writers attribute to their main female characters. As some critics have noticed, Tang Xianzu’s Du Liniang embodies an agency and freedom uncharacteristic of women of the times. As Blanchard states “the fictional Du Liniang has no clear counterpart among late Ming women artists” (2016, 133). She is not only able to come back from death, but also to design a plan to make sure her lover can find her, which constitutes the most important contrast with the story of Sleeping Beauty. Du Liniang’s agency, will, freedom to act, and determination remind us very much of Rosaura, the main female character of Calderón de la Barca’s Life Is a Dream. Yet, in both plays, freedom, will, and determination exist or are exercised only for the time needed to bring these well-established female characters back to the order or sphere from which they have been displaced. Moreover, in both plays, in their journey or quest, our heroines Du Liniang and Rosaura find themselves in a space or place in which they were warned to never enter. They need to hide their true identities, and as such, come in contact with objects (portraits of themselves) and spaces that carry emotional significance. Although the aim of this article is to comment from a comparative perspective on Tang Xianzu’s play The Peony Pavilion and Calderón de la Barca’s Life Is a Dream, our approach will not be conventional since our focus is not on main female characters, but on the cultural and emotional significance of these three elements or features common to both plays: 1) The garden or pa6  For details, see chapters two and three of Ling Hon Lam’s book, The Spatiality of Emotion in Early Modern China: From Dreamscapes to Theatricality. 7  La vida es sueño was composed in Spanish and it is known as Life Is a Dream in English. Although there are many good English translations available, I have decided to cite the edition of the play prepared by Ciriaco Morón Arroyo, La vida es sueño (Cátedra, 1980). All translations of this play into English are mine.

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vilion, which will be the tower in La vida es sueño; 2) The role Du Lianiang’s dream plays compared to the one Segismundo’s mother had before giving birth to him, and, second, to the plot created by King Basilio, Segismundo’s father, in which he made Segismundo believe that what actually did happen to him in the palace was a dream; and finally, 3) The portraits, with which both Du Liniang and Rosaura interact. Thus, this study will interconnect Du Liniang not only with Rosaura but also with Segismundo. In this way, by bringing together two paradigmatic plays from two different literary traditions, this article aims to provide a platform to keep exploring the ways in which our comprehension of human emotions, representation and theatricality can go beyond the limits imposed by national, native language or geography.

1. The Pavilion The Peony Pavilion is the story of Du Liniang, a sixteen-year-old girl from a wealthy family. As she is growing up, her parents Mr. Du Bao and his wife Madam Du (or Madam Zhen) try to provide her with the best education and environments to raise her as their only child and heir. Their plans take a different turn when Du Liniang falls in love with Liu Mengmei, a young scholar, whom she first meets not in real life, but in a dream that she has when falling asleep after visiting the garden or pavilion on her parents’ estate for the first time (Figure 3). She comes to this garden after her curiosity is sparked by her maid Chungxiang or Spring Fragance, who awakens in her the desire to visit this pavilion after describing it as a delightful and playful space: … half a dozen pavilions, one or two swings, a meandering stream one can float wine cups down, weathered Taihu rocks on the other bank. It’s really beautiful, with all those prize blooms and rare (exotic) plants. (2002, Scene 7, 39)

In Chungxiang’s description, the pavilion is strikingly pretty, and it contrasts with the one by Du Liniang’s mother, Madam Du, for whom the pavilion is an abandoned place that only ghosts and demons visit:

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© / public domain

Figure 3. Du Liniang Falls Asleep (http://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2016/05/tang-xianzu-the-great-mingdynasty-playwright.html) That garden is a vast and lonely place, kiosks and terraces crumbling in neglect. Even if a person of mature years such as I should think of going there, still I should hesitate. […] ghosts and demons lurk within the storm­swept groves (2002, Scene 11, 54)

Thus, the pavilion or garden described first as a locus amoenus by the young maid, is seen by the mother as an isolated or deserted forest, razed by a storm and currently in decay, a mysterious and wild forest, a space of fear and sorrow, where the Shḗn dwells.8 The play emphasizes the fact that this is a gar8  According to Living in the Chinese Cosmos: Understanding Religion in Late-Imperial China (1644-1911) the Shḗn can be understood as: a) the Spirit, or the Divinity; b) the ghost and spirits or guishén (all manner of spiritual beings in the largest sense, those benevolent and

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den completely unknown to Du Liniang until now. Moreover, although she has never been explicitly forbidden to visit it, she is certainly not expected to ever do so, since, as her tutor Master Chen alerted her once, visiting such places would be considered against the customs of the virtuous lady her parents hope she will become (40). Nonetheless, Du Liniang is brought into the garden by Spring Fragance or Chungxiang, and what she finds in it is not what her mother claims, but a different scene: an idyllic space, a vivid grove filled with different tones of colors and sounds, birds, flowers, plants, a pond and trees. They all together create an ecstatic and aesthetic experience in the young lady: Spring Fragance (Chungxiang): Look how while on the lacquered walkway traces of gold dust glitter, there on the lodge at pool’s edge mosses make a green mass. Timid lest the grass stain our newly broidered socks we grieve that the flowers must bear the tug of tiny gold bells. Du Liniang: Without visiting this garden, how could I ever have realized this splendor of spring! See how deepest purple, brightest scarlet open their beauty only to dry well crumbling. “Bright the morn, lovely the scene,” listless and lost the heart —where is the garden “gay with joyous cries”? My mother and father have never spoken of any such exquisite spot as this. Du Liniang: Streaking the dawn, rose­colored at dusk, rosy clouds frame emerald pavilion; fine threads of rain, petals borne on breeze

malevolent, lucky and unlucky, good spirits and demons, ghosts and trolls); c) the spiritual, the realm that cannot be measured by Yin and Yang but possesses the power to disrupt the entire system of yin and yang. (for example, women who died before marriage, beings that are part animal and part human, those who died of suicide, on the battlefield, etc. (http://afe. easia.columbia.edu/cosmos/bgov/cosmos.htm).

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gilded pleasure boat in waves of mist: glories of spring but little treasured by screen­secluded maid. Spring Fragance (Chungxiang) All the flowers have come into bloom now, but it’s still too early for the peony. Du Liniang: The green hillside bleeds with the cuckoo’s tears of red azalea, shreds of mist lazy as wine fumes thread the sweetbriar. However fine the peony, how can she rank as queen coming to bloom when spring has said farewell! Spring Fragance (Chungxiang): See them pairing, orioles and swallows! Du Liniang and Spring Fragance (Chungxiang): Idle gaze resting there where the voice of swallow shears the air and liquid flows the trill of oriole. Du Liniang: We must go now. Spring Fragance (Chungxiang) Really one would never weary of enjoying this garden. Du Liniang: Say no more! (2002, Scene 11, 80)

Thus, this garden, an enclosure of peonies, is not only a natural environment, but “also a symbolic landscape, a topos associated with Du Liniang’s love, her death, and her revival” (Swatek 132). This idea is brought out as, rather than geographic or imagistic, an emotional space through its dual appearances in the mother and in Chungxiang. Moreover, in this garden that represents the splendor of Spring, only two types of flower are mentioned, and only one is blossoming. It is the (red) azalea (杜鹃 or dújuang). There

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is a play of words here since the “dújuang” means or refers to both the red azalea and the cuckoo. In Classical Chinese tradition the red azalea was perceived as the flower of sadness or tragedy in love,9 but in Sichuan, where azaleas first evolved, this flower was also well known for its medical properties since it was drunk as tea for its narcotic effects. But this property of the flower to alter people’s minds seems to be a very well-known effect, not only in Sichuan and in South East Asia but beyond, since Pliny The Elder also writes about its opiate effects in his Historia Naturalis.10 In Pliny however, this opiate section seems a digression—but it is picked up, although quite a bit later through his Historia. In Birch’s English translation of the play, the eglantine is mentioned as the second flower that’s blossoming.11 However, John C. Y. Wang’s analysis and comparison of three different translations into English of The Peony Pavilion highlight the complexity of describing nature and in particular the flora. Thus, what Birch translates as eglantine, H.C. Chang calls a rose arbor and Stephen Owen, blackberry (14-16). Rongpei Wang and Ling Zhang, who together edited and prepared a complete translation of Tan Xianzu’s Works in 2014, translated the verse as follows: “Upon roseleaf raspberries willow thread cling.” (452). In any case, it becomes clear that the presence of the flower is symbolic since it escapes taxonomic designation as a botanical specimen, and it helps 9  The red azalea was immortalized by the poetry of Du Fu (Tu Fu), who makes this flower the symbol of homesickness and return (See his poem, “On seeing Cuckoo flowers at HsuanCh’eng”, translated by Cooper, 1973). In Shanghai folklore, the cuckoo is thought to be the soul of the mythical king Du Yu who became Emperor Wang Di. He left office and retired to live in solitude after realizing his misdoing (having an affair with the wife of one of his advisers, Bie Ling). For more details see, Wolfram Eberhard’s Dictionary of Chinese Symbols: Hidden Symbols in Chinese Life and Thought. 10  In his Natural History, Pliny describes the peony as a plant that grows “…on shaded mountains, having a stem among the leaves about four fingers high, which bears on its top four or five growths like almonds, in them being a large amount of seed, red and black.” that has as one of its properties the prevention of “delusions that the Fauns bring on us in our sleep.” But he also warns against uprooting it in the day time because if the woodpecker of Mars should see the act, it will attack the eyes in its defense.” (157). 11  The Spanish translation prepared by Alicia Relinque Eleta also mentions the presence of the eglantine “Seda de humo embriagada sobre las eglantinas” (80).

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Figure 4. The Royal Wedding Cake (https://twitter.com/kensingtonroyal/status/997828026971893760)

to announce and stress what will happen to Du Liniang in the garden as her spirit gets intoxicated. Thus, that the azalea and the rose/eglantine/sweetbriar or tea berry flower are blossoming when Du Liniang visits the pavilion should not be taken lightly. They are not only verbal images but symbols. In The Peony Pavilion imagery and symbolism are blended to reveal not only an external beautiful scene (the garden), but also to announce the emotions embodied by the story. Du Liniang’s spirit will get wounded by love or passion, and there will also be sorrow, a sense of exile, the longing for a returning (azalea or cuckoo flower), and the need to find healing or a cure (eglantine/raspberry flower). Because the peony is the only flower mentioned that is not blossoming in the garden, the reader or spectator is called to focus on and try to imagine the flower’s role in Du Liniang’s story since the peony is the flower of riches and honor. Peonies became particularly popular during the Tang dynasty and since the 10th century their cultivation has spread through China. It is associated with royalty and distinction, but also with romance and prosperity. Peonies are seen as omens of good fortune and happy marriage and we can expect them to be back in demand after being displayed in the Royal Wedding cake of the now Duke and Duchess of Sussex (Figure 4).

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I have already mentioned that in the play, the pavilion becomes a dramatic space that is subjected to a duality; it can be perceived as a locus amoenus by the youth but also as a deserted, enchanted or forbidden forest by the elders. This contraposition or ambivalence makes this garden similar to the tower in La vida es sueño by Calderón de la Barca. Calderón’s most emblematic play tells the story of prince Segismundo, who is born under two inauspicious signs: first, on his birthday, there is a solar eclipse, and second, his mother dies as soon as he is born. King Basilio, his father and an astrologer himself, interprets these two as part of a prediction about who Segismundo will be, which he later confirms through his own reading of the stars and so he establishes his son’s horoscope, something very close to what is called an astral chart. Thus, Basilio, through the use of judicial astrology, predicts that Segismundo will be a cruel leader and tyrant who will eventually also kill him. Faced with this dire prediction, Basilio decides not to kill his son but instead keeps him hidden in a tower from birth. Nobody knows Segismundo is there but Clotaldo, his privado or prime minister, and the secret is kept until the day when Rosaura and Clarín, Rosaura’s servant, discover him by chance. They are on their way to request justice for Rosaura, who was abandoned by Astolfo after he promised to marry her. Astolfo has gone to Poland to marry Estrella. Rosaura and Clarín find the tower and enter it, hoping to find and receive the assistance and help they need in order to continue their journey and so fulfill the mission that brought them to Poland. For Segismundo, certainly, the tower constitutes his world, a world that he realizes is like a jail, a space that deprives him of his freedom. For King Basilio the tower is the forbidden space, the one where he keeps Segismundo locked up but alive. And for Rosaura and her servant Clarín, the tower becomes the place of surprise, change, and movement. It is where she meets her father, Clotaldo, whom she had never met before and had believed was dead. Nonetheless, the tower is also the place where Segismundo meets Rosaura for the first time and also for the first time falls in love, as happens to Du Liniang in the pavilion. Thus, the tower, like the pavilion, becomes a dramatic space, one that first functions as a prison since it limits the movements of those who are in it. It is a place of sorrow and pain, but it also becomes the space in which people encounter love, the most uplifting of emotions.

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Moreover, in both plays, as soon as Du Liniang and Segismundo experience it, their enclosure is ended as they are transported or move to a different space. In both plays the first experience of erotic love ignites a process of transformation; it starts the edification of their will and determination. The space of the garden is absent in Life Is a Dream, but gardens play a very important role in Spanish Golden Age drama. For Garrido, they constitute a dramatic space (2000) and gardens that function similarly to the one in Tang Xianzu’s play are present in other comedias by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. For example, in Calderón’s mythological plays such as, Amor, honor y poder (Love, Honor, and Power) and El monstruo de los jardines (The Monster of the Gardens), the garden appears as a place of discordia concords (Alvarado 2010, 148). As it also occurs in The Peony Pavilion, in those plays, the garden is revealed as a space for a game of opposites. On the one hand, it fosters a space for the bliss of love (Lara 1990). Indeed, most times, in Calderón’s plays —such as, Los tres mayores prodigios (The Three Greatest Wonders), Fieras, afemina amor (Wild Beasts Are Tamed by Love), El jardín de la Falerina (The Garden of Falerina) and Apolo y Climene (Apollo and Clymene)—, the garden is a space for the materialization of “correspondencia amorosa” (requited love) (Alvarado 2010). On the other hand, the garden can also generate discord or the pain of love; it can be the space for sadness or melancholy in El príncipe constante (The Constant Prince) (2015, 24), emotions that Segismundo also experiences in his tower. Circe’s garden in Calderón’s El mayor Encanto, Amor (Love, the Greatest Enchantment), where the garden is a space identified with passion, deserves special mention. It is called “paraíso del amor” (love’s paradise) or “academia del dios ciego” (academy of the blind god), (Lara 1990, 945). Nonetheless, in The Peony Pavilion the garden appears as an ambivalent place, of love but also of the mother’s concerns; it is a place where its true nature can hide behind its beauty. On the one hand, like in the mythological plays of Calderón, it is made of human beings metamorphosed into plants and animals who yield to lust or deseo, as Madame Du Bao reminds us. It is a tricky or deceitful garden because it is born of lust or desire, which parallels well with the description of Circe’s garden in El Mayor Encanto Amor “Mintió el deseo/ Mas ¿cuándo dijo verdad el deseo?” (“Desire lied/ but when did it tell the truth?”) (2013, 150). Or, to put it in Clarín’s words,

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“This is the garden of a witch, enchantress or sorceress, and necromancer.”12 On the other hand, as also happens in Calderón de la Barca’s play, the garden becomes the space in which love is encountered.

2. The Dream In The Peony Pavilion, the visit to the garden is not the first for the maid Chungxiang but it is for Du Liniang, who is overwhelmed by the awakening of her senses thanks to an experience that calls on all five senses: hearing bird songs; seeing the color of nature in flowers, plants and pond, smelling flowers; touching the beauty of the garden by entering in contact with the flowers and plants, and tasting the garden by reciting poetry. Certainly, the visit to the garden produces a different state of mind in Du Liniang, one she never experienced before. At this point, the Flower Spirit comes on the stage to tell us that Du Liniang has fallen asleep and is dreaming. In her dream, Du Liniang meets Li Mengmei next to a wall of peonies blossoming (or a pavilion of peonies blossoming, or in a bed made of peonies blossoming; all these translations are offered in English for the Chinese verse) and they “played at clouds and rain” or make love consummating their passion. The Spirit of Flowers announces that Du Liniang is awake and out of her dream by the falling of the petals of flowers. The fact that in her dream the peonies are said to be blossoming is an important mark of time, in particular, of the future since peonies are in Chinese literature at their peak in summer, not in spring, the season when the lady and her maid visit the garden. Thus, the presence of the peony blossoming in summer should suggest the prophetic character of this dream. First, it announces that the time for azaleas (or the time for sadness or madness) or eglantines should be over when the peony is blossoming, because the peony represents happi12  El mayor encanto, Amor, p. 200. “No confesare que Circe no es una fiera/ nigromanta, encantadora/ energúmena, hechicera/ súcuba, íncuba y en fin/ es por acabar el tema/ con los demonios, demonia/ como con los duendes duenda” (“I will not confess that Circe is not a beast/ necromancer, enchantress/ possessed, sorceress / succubus, cuckoo and finally / as to end this theme / with the demons, demonia / as with the goblins, an elf ”).

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ness, honor, marriage, progress and royalty. Second, it becomes a way for Du Liniang not only to know, but to encounter her future. The bed, pavilion, or wall of peonies in which Du Liniang is dreaming of laying down with Liu Mengmei, becomes the altar, or threshold, a bridge that allows her to experience her own future by becoming an intermediary, a medium or trance medium. The figure of the medium in the western literary tradition is very much attached to the practice of necromancy and finds a good example in the woman necromancer at En-dor more commonly known as The Witch of Endor, whom Saul visits to access King Samuel, who is dead, to request him to announce the destiny and future of his kingdom. Although this woman is never explicitly referred to as a witch in the Bible, the literary tradition has put some emphasis on seeing the necromancer and the witch as synonyms up to the first decade of this century.13 What is interesting in this Bible episode is the fact that the woman, who does invoke the soul of King Samuel, is able to serve as a ghost-diviner for Saul, who is looking for an answer. The necromancer is also a medium, someone who mediates a message from beyond the grave. Du Liniang lying on that bed made of peonies is certainly neither evoking the dead nor requesting her death but is letting herself die. Yet, in the process, she can somehow access her future. But she is not a necromancer, there is a nun in the play, Sister Stone, who has that role. Neither the nun nor Du Liniang are necromancers, at least not in the way that Marquino is in Cervantes’ Numancia, who wakes up the soul of a dead soldier to tell him the outcome of a siege. This incorporation of necromancy from Lucan’s Pharsalia could help us understand Cervantes’ play as an “epic of the defeated” or an “anti-Aeneid” as pointed out by David Quint (1993, 145) and Frederick A. de Armas (1998, 145). It is of interest to remember that Pliny the Elder, in his volume 5 of Naturalis Historia, or The History of the World as it was first translated into English in 1601, writes about the peony, and specifically 13  Esther Hamori affirms that the necromancer of En-dor is neither a sorceress nor a witch but a woman who acts as an intermediary between the living and the dead “a woman who is a ghost-diviner” (105). For details and further information on the misunderstanding about the necromancer of En-dor see Esther Hamori’s Women’s Divination in Biblical Literature: Prophecy, Necromancy, and other Arts of Knowledge, Chapter 7.

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about a peony called aglaophotis, or known as Marmaritis in Persia and Arabia. He writes that “[b]y means of this plant, he says, the Magi can summon the deities into their presence when they please” (1856, Book 25, Chapter 102). Pliny adds that only Democritus and Pythagoras were able to master this knowledge practice known as occultism, and that while necromancy is a form of occultism, the contrary is not always the case. All this highlights the connection that the peony has to implications of access to the future in both Eastern and the Western civilizations. Whether the peony was used as a ritual element (the flower needed on the altar, or even composing the altar) or as part of a drink used in the ritual (the faunia peonia was also known as a plant with properties similar to opium), it becomes evident that the peony does cause certain intoxication in the soul; it appears to work as an external agent that connects the three realities of the Shen we explain above: 1) the Spirit, or the Divinity, 2) the ghost and spirits and 3) the spiritual. Du Liniang’s dream about her experience of dream in which she experiences sexual arousal can be connected to what medieval and early modern Christian literature describes as a mystical experience, or encounter of the human soul with the divinity. From this experience the soul will be always left empty and wanting a return of the lover, as if it were sick and wanting to die as first Teresa de Ávila wrote, “Vivo sin vivir en mí, / Y tan alta vida espero / que muero porque no muero” (“I live without living myself / and in such a way I hope / that I die because I do not die”) (1983, 375-76). Then Juan de la Cruz express in his poetry and through these verses: “Vivo sin vivir en mí, / y de tal manera espero / que muero porque no muero” (“I live but not in myself / and I have such hope, / that I die because I do not die”) (2017, 55-56). The perception of the dream as a way to access knowledge about the future is an idea contained in the Bible and other ancient texts. Classical and medieval writers as well as early modern authors did not contest that belief. They all thought that dreams have a prophetic function. But it is only in the Early Modern Period, and first in Pedro Calderón de La Barca’s La vida es sueño, that dreams appear not only as making reference to a cognitive activity but also as part of an experiment to prove the truth of such activity. In Calderón’s play, the first dream mentioned is the one had many times by

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Clorilene, Segismundo’s mother. She repeatedly dreams of giving birth to a monster in human form and dying because of him: Infinite times his mother, among ideas and hallucinations of dreams, watched break forth defiantly from her entrails a monster in human form and, drenched in her blood, it brought her death through its own birth, an inconceivable human viper.14

Unfortunately, Clorilene’s dreams come true. She dies giving birth, not to a monster, but to Segismundo. Moreover, having given birth to Segismundo during a solar eclipse, Basilio feels the urge to prepare his son’s astrological chart and realizes that Saturn will become a central element in Segismundo’s horoscope. Basilio also understands that Saturn, “el planeta más impío (1. 789: “the most destructive planet”) will impel his son to act as a new Jupiter once he grows up, defeating and dethroning his own father” (De Armas 4) All this moves Basilio to lock Segismundo up in a tower from the day of his birth, where he remains enchained for many years. He is only visited by Clotaldo, Basilio’s privado or prime minister until the day he is brought back again to the palace as a way to test the prediction about him. When that day arrives, Segismundo is drugged and brought to the palace asleep and, when he wakes up, is told by his father the truth about him, but at no point does Basilio tell him except for the reasons that led him to keep him hidden. Segismundo is irate after listening to Basilio’s confession and acts out of pride and revenge. His behavior in the palace seems to prove the prediction 14 

madre infinitas veces, entre ideas y delirios del sueño, vio que rompía sus entrañas atrevido un monstruo en forma de hombre, y entre su sangre teñido la daba muerte, naciendo víbora humana del siglo. (1980, Jornada 1, vv. 667-675)

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about him since by acting as a king in the palace, he appeared as a cruel and despotic ruler (Act II). Thus, without knowing it, Segismundo becomes part of an experiment that aims to prove a prediction about his future.15 This experiment can be perceived as a wink at, or bad joke about, Aristotelian logic by Calderón, a way to persuade and prove to the scholastics and neo-Aristotelians that it might be possible to establish the truth of future contingencies. It becomes of interest to understand why Calderón introduces a dream that is not strictly a dream but a plot, an experiment to establish the truth of a theory (prediction) about the future. Segismundo is made to believe that his visit to the palace was a dream when he awakes after being brought from the palace to the tower again. However, everyone else in the play knows that it is not. This experiment is intended to address the discussion about whether the future can be predicted through astrology, and if this “science” is perverse or demonic. In The Peony Pavilion, the dream gets a different treatment and provokes an unforeseen situation. It becomes clear that the future can be predicted. Du Liniang is able to foresee her future when dreaming. She is able to bring her future into her dream and by doing so she is wounded by the reality of not having that dream with her when she wakes up, which ends up provoking her death since she dies of sorrow, of lack of that emotion/feeling/ etc. she experiences. Moreover, in her dream, she does not only see herself meeting the man whom she will meet and marry in the future, but makes sure to prepare for him the path to find her when she is gone, that is, she prepares a plot for herself and Mengmei as Basilio does with Segismundo. It becomes clear that the future can be predicted. The fact that the peonies are only blossoming during Du Liniang’s dream in the play becomes not only another important marker of the tone and emotions developed, but also of the peonies’ role as a bridge to the realm of the supernatural. The peonies seem to underline the importance of all the three dimensions of the Shḗn listed above. The play becomes an invitation 15  For details about the value of experience in Early Modern Spanish baroque, see Nicolas Vivalda’s Del atalaya a los límites de faetón: narrar la experiencia cognitiva en el barroco hispánico.

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to consider those as a unity in order to understand the relation of the human will to Providence or the future. But it can also be seen as a propaedeutic story about the importance of good classical liberal arts education to face the dangerous consequence of penetrating into the Unknown. Du Liniang’s education in the classics prepares her for the challenges and perils she encounters. In that regard, the blossoming peonies in her dreams announce her happiness in meeting Liu Mengmei and the process of metamorphoses that she will experience, because peonies are also symbols of changes and progress. In Tang Xianzu’s play, the dream becomes a sort of limbo, a space or realm where the supernatural and the human condition meet, law and emotions try to reconcile, knowledge and superstition seem to work together, and kingship, morality and society seem to find common ground.

3. The Portrait In Tang Xianzu’s play, the portrait that Du Liniang paints of herself after meeting Liu Mengmei in her dreams, while visiting the pavilion for the first time and shortly before dying, allows Liu to recognize her first as the lady of his dream, literally speaking, and, once he finds the grave where she rests, to procure the means to bring her back to life. Thus, the painting, once the representation of Du Liniang, becomes her own presence among the living as soon as she dies. It is her way to somehow remain in this realm after dying, and also leaves open the possibility of coming back again. The portrait becomes more complex than a mnemonic device; it not only allows her to be remembered but keeps her alive. Yet, this is not the only portrait present in Tang Xianzu’s play, Mudan Ting. In addition to Du Liniang’s self-portrait, there is the portrait of a foreign emperor on horseback. As Burkus-Chasson points out, this painting is an official portrait. It is an object produced by an artist of the court and its role in the play is different from the one played by Du Liniang’s portrait (2015, 136).16 Therefore, each portrait introduces us to a different sphere. The first, 16  By juxtaposing these two portraits “Tang alludes to the diverse institutions that governed the production of portrait likenesses in his time. But the playwright distinguishes the

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Du Liniang’s, connects human passion and emotion with the metaphysical and supernatural. The second, of the emperor, speaks of authority, law, and social restraints and also makes reference to the human group that produces the painting. They are not in opposition, but they are quite different. What matters in the first is irrelevant for the second, yet they both represent culture, that is, the result of a constant cultivation of practice of certain habits or customs for a period of time. Moreover, in both there is an acknowledgement of myths and traditions of the past as a way to salute but also to highlight the logical processes or rationality that takes us to the present time. Du Liniang’s portrait becomes not only a symbol of the hope that Liu Mengmei would find her, but a testimony to her faith in love and her tenacity to do as much as she can for it. It is Du Liniang’s actions that allow us to reflect on the nature and power of “qing.” Moreover, it is one of those actions that contribute to the making of her portrait, which not only stands for her or becomes an extension of her, but actually becomes her among the living until she is able to come back. The emperor’s portrait, on the contrary, represents the authority and social expectations that Du’s spirit in the other world and Liu Mengmei will have to defy as they carry on their plan to bring Du Liniang back to life and so also, ironically enough, to her parents and society. But the Chinese emperor’s portrait also reveals to us another point of confluence with Renaissance and the Early Modern Period paintings, since both are displaying the same function. Critics have highlighted the constant presence and important role of paintings in the Spanish Golden Age. The foundational book by Emily Bergman (1979) set a research path that later works by Laura Bass (2008), Frederick de Armas (2005 & 2016) and Malveena Mckendrick (1996 & 2002), among others, contributed to consolidating and developing. two portraits in yet another way. The imperial portrait, constructed primarily in accord with established convention, is vulnerable. For it runs the risk of being perceived merely as a sign or a code and nothing more. In the end, the shallowness of the map- portrait that is captured by words exposes the illegitimacy of the emperor, who is portrayed as an actor in a play. Thus, in The Peony Pavilion, Tang uses the portraits to exemplify the seemingly incompatible genres of the farce and the romance, which intermingle throughout the play. Whereas the presentation of the imperial portrait contributes to the play’s farce, the beauty’s portrait primarily enhances the play’s romance” (136).

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In the case of the Spanish Golden Age comedia it becomes clear that paintings are not just objects on the stage but constitutive of the dramatic language that made the comedia possible. They are not accessories but part of the cultural network in which the comedia is born. Portraits in particular appear in many Spanish Golden Age plays, and, as Laura Bass writes, “[Portraits]…serve as tokens of love, objects of jealous passion, and icons of royalty. They are commissioned by lovers and kings, exchanged in marriage negotiations and manipulated in political plots […]”. (1) A good example of such functions can be found in Life Is a Dream, where the portrait carried by Rosaura becomes part of a game of not only power and authority, but also of free will and determination. Rosaura’s portrait had been in Astolfo’s hands since the moment he promised to marry her. Driven by ambition, Astolfo decides to break his promise and goes back to Poland with the intention to marry his cousin Estrella and so become the heir to his uncle, King Basilio. As he leaves, he leaves Rosaura behind but takes her portrait with him as he enters Poland to visit Estrella in King Basilio’s kingdom. Not knowing that the portrait is of her, Estrella asks Rosaura who the subject of the portrait is. In the meantime, Rosaura has hidden her true identity and becomes known as Astrea in the palace and one of Estrella’s ladies-in-waiting. She is to ask Astolfo to give her the portrait so she can take it to Estrella. As Rosaura and Astolfo meet in the palace for the first time after he left her, he recognizes her in spite of her efforts to deny such identification. Yet as she is trying to grab her portrait from his hands, Estrella enters the scene and asks them to explain what is transpiring. At that point, Rosaura makes up a story by which she is able to recuperate her portrait and indirectly show Estrella who Astolfo is: a man who left another woman to be with her but can’t give up the other lady’s portrait for her. Malveena Mckendrick has stressed a reading of the portrait in Life Is a Dream as a symbol of Rosaura’s determination to regain control of her own life, and so, of her ability to become an autonomous subject (1996). Frederick de Armas has a different approach: he sees the portrait as “an ekphrastic object that hides a mystery, Rosaura as Astraea.” (2016, 56). His reading highlights the connection or distance between what is imagined (portrait) and what is seen on the stage (Rosaura) as an analogy of the distance between the ideal, for example, women’s agency in the public sphere, and the real-

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ity, women’s actions as confined to the domestic sphere (2016, 57). Thus, if we agree with De Armas, one can say that it is not only in Life Is a Dream that the presence of the portrait as a mystery becomes a metaphor for the freedom that makes the artistic imagination possible, but also in The Peony Pavilion by Tang Xianzu. Works Cited Alvarado Teodorika, Tatiana. 2010. “El jardín en el teatro aurisecular. Las comedias mitológicas de Calderón.” In Actas del XVI Congreso de la AIH: Nuevos Caminos del Hispanismo, edited by Pierre Civil and Françoise Crémoux, Madrid/ Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert. 145-65. Bass, Laura. 2008. The Drama of the Portrait: Theater and Visual Culture in Early Modern Spain. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Bergmann, Emily. 1979. Art Inscribed: Essays on Ekphrasis in Spanish Golden Age Poetry. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. — 2017. “Voicing Disruption, Disrupted Voices: Cardenio and Grisóstomo.” In “Los cielos se agotaron de prodigios”: Essays in Honor of Frederick A. de Armas, edited by Christopher B. Weimer, Kerry Wilks, Benjamin J. Nelson, and Julio Vélez-Sainz. Delaware: Juan de la Cuesta, 269-79. Birch, Cyril. 2002. “Preface.” The Peony Pavilion: Mudan Ting. Translated by Cyril Birch and Catherine Swatek. Toronto: Indiana University Press. i-xiii. Blanchard, Lara C.W. 2016. “Imagining Du Liniang in The Peony Pavilion: Female Painters, Self-portraiture, and Paintings of Beautiful Women in Late Ming China.” In Women, Gender and Art in Asia, c. 1500-1900, edited by Melia Belli Bose. London; New York : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. 125-39. Burkus-Chasson, Anne. 2015. “Like Not Like: Writing Portraits in The Peony Pavilion.” Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture, 2 (1):134-72. Calderón de la Barca, Pedro, Edited by Ciriaco Morón Arroyo. 1980. La vida es sueño. Madrid: Cátedra. Calderón de la Barca, Pedro, Edited by Alejandra Ulla Lorenzo. 2013. El mayor encanto, amor. Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert. Calderón de la Barca, Pedro, Edited by Isabel Hernando Morata. 2015. El príncipe constante. Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert. Chang, H.C. 1973. Chinese Literature: Popular Fiction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 293-302.

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Chō, Kyō, and Kyoko Iriye Selden. 2012. The Search for the Beautiful Woman: a Cultural History of Japanese and Chinese beauty. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Columbia University’s Asia for Educators Program. 2007. Living in the Chinese Cosmos: Understanding Religion in Late-Imperial China (1644-1911). New York: New York. http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/cosmos/. De Armas, Frederick A. 1993. The Prince in the Tower: Perceptions of La Vida Es Sueño. Lewisburg: London; Cranbury: Bucknell University Press; Associated University Presses. — 1998. Cervantes, Raphael and the Classics. Cambridge, U.K.; New York: Cambridge University Press. — 2005. Ekphrasis in the Age of Cervantes. Lewisburg, Bucknell University Press. — 2015. “Sultanas, reinas, damas y villanas: Figuras femeninas en la comedia ecfrástica del Siglo de Oro.” Hispanófila 175 (1): 49–61. Eberhard, Wolfram. 2006. Dictionary of Chinese Symbols: Hidden Symbols in Chinese Life and Thought. London and New York: Routledge. Hamori, Esther J. 2015. Women’s Divination in Biblical Literature: Prophecy, Necromancy, and other Arts of Knowledge. New Haven: Yale University Press. John of the Cross, Kieran Kavanaugh, and Otilio Rodríguez. 2017. The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross. Washington, D.C.: Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications. Lara Garrido, José. 1983. “Texto y espacio escénico (El motivo del jardín en el teatro de Calderón).” In Calderón. Actas del Congreso Internacional sobre Calderón y el teatro español del Siglo de Oro, Madrid, 8-13 de junio de 1981, edited by Luciano García Lorenzo. Madrid: Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, II, 939-54. — 2000. “El jardín y la imaginación espacial en el teatro barroco español.” In La cultura del Barroco. Los jardines: arquitectura, simbolismo y literatura. Huesca: Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses, 187-226. Léglu, Catherine. 2010.  Multilingualism and Mother Tongue in Medieval French, Occitan, and Catalan Narratives. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Li, Bo, Arthur R. V. Cooper, and Fu Du. 1973. Li Po and Tu Fu: Poems. Harmondsworth: Penguin books. Lam, Ling Hon. 2018. The Spatiality of Emotion in Early Modern China: From Dreamscapes to Theatricality. New York: Columbia University Press. Loud, Graham A., and Martial Staub. 2017. The Making of Medieval History. York: York Medieval Press, an imprint of Boydell & Brewer.

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McKendrick, Melveena. 1996. The Revealing Image: Stage Portraits in the Theater of the Golden Age. London: Dept. of Hispanic Studies, Queen Mary and Westfield College. — 2002. Identities in Crisis: Essays on Honour, Gender and Women in the Comedia. Kassel: Edition Reichenberger. Owen, Stephen. 1996. An Anthology of Chinese Literature. New York: W.W. Norton. 883-96. Perrault, Charles. 1993. The Complete Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault. New York: Clarion Books. Plinius Secundus Maior, Caius, and H. Rackham. 2007. Natural History, 1. Preface and Books 1-2. Cambridge: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann. Pliny, John Bostock, and Henry T. Riley. 1856. The Natural History of Pliny. London: G. Bell & Sons. http://books.google.com/books?id=-XNiAAAAMAAJ. Feb. 1, 2019. Quint, David. 1992. Epic and Empire: Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Swatek, Catherine. 1993. “Plum and Portrait: Feng Meng-lung’s Revision of The Peony Pavilion.” Asia Major, 6 (1):127-160. Tang, Xianzu, and Alicia Relinque Eleta. 2016. El Pabellón de las Peonías o Historia del Alma que Regresó. Madrid: Trotta. Tang, Xianzu, Rongpei Wang, and Ling Zhang. 2018.  The Complete Dramatic Works of Tang Xianzu. London: Bloomsbury China, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. Tang, Xianzu, Cyril Birch and Catherine Swatek. 2002. The Peony Pavilion: Mudan Ting. Toronto: Indiana University Press. Teresa of Avila; Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D.; Otilio Rodríguez, O.C.D. 1987. The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila. Washington D.C.: Institute of Carmelite Studies. Yu-Yin Cheng. 2013. “Tang Xianzu’s (1550–1616) Peony Pavilion and Taizhou Philosophy: A Perspective from Intellectual History.” Ming Studies, 67, 3-29, DOI: 10.1179/0147037X13Z.00000000010. February 8, 2019. Vivalda, Nicolás M. 2013. Del atalaya a los límites de Faetón: narrar la experiencia cognitiva en el barroco hispánico. Potomac, Md: Scripta Humanistica. Wang, John C.Y., and 王靖宇 . 2013. “‘Multiflorate Splendour’ - A Commentary on Three English Translations of Scene 10 of The Peony Pavilion/ ‘ 姹紫嫣紅’ — 《牡丹亭• 驚夢》三家英譯評點.” Journal of Oriental Studies, 46 (1): 1–33. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43498665.

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Wang, Shih-pe. 2016. “Revising Peony Pavilion: Audience Reception in Presenting Tang Xianzu’s Text” in 1616: Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu’s China. Edited by Tian Yuan Tan, Paul Edmondson, and Shih-pe Wang. London: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare. 180-207 Zeitlin, Judith T. 1994. “Shared Dreams: The Story of the Three Wives’ Commentary on The Peony Pavilion.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 54 (1):127-19. — 2007. The Phantom Heroine: Ghosts and Gender in Seventeenth-century Chinese Literature. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. — 2018. “Passion, Romance, and Qing: The World of Emotions and States of Mind in Peony Pavilion.” Ming Studies 2018 (78): 85–88. doi:10.1080/014703 7X.2018.1513390.

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Picaresque Theater

(Miguel de Cervantes’ Pedro de Urdemalas, directed by Alejandro González Puche and Ma Zhenghong) Alejandro González Puche

Image I. Invitation to the premiere of Pedro de Urdemalas in Beijing, Central Academy of Drama Pedro I: Day III of Pedro de Urdemalas, presentation for royalty.

Cervantes is the creator of the modern novel, but he always considered himself a theater person. For contemporary critics of Golden Age theater, however, he was considered a minor author, recognized at best for his entremeses, or verse interludes, since he was the first to put his signature to, and therefore rescue, this minor genre from oblivion and dependence on comedy, in addition to creating true dramatic gems. Scholars of Cervantes theater

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have paid particular attention to the recent staging of the plays he wrote which were never performed; according to some scholars, since they were meant to be read and not performed, they never had to go through the usual initiation rite of the “corrals” (literally “theatrical courtyards”, the standard performance venues of the period) and were never really taken seriously by contemporaries. Therefore, their current staging becomes, several centuries later, a means for assessing their value.1 Theater directing, beyond its showmanship, is a mechanism for studying and appreciating these works; and upon analyzing contemporary performances we can understand how to approach this supposedly undeveloped style of playwriting. Staging Cervantes has been a tug-of-war between taking extreme liberties with the scripts and remaining highly faithful to them. Curiously, our author has fared well by his encounters with alternative theatre groups, such as the staging of Interludes by La Abadía Theatre, under the direction of José Luis Gómez; or that by the Els Joglars company of The Altarpiece of Wonders, which Albert Boadella adapts to the stage as a politically and socially mordant production. The method used by the theatre director is not systematic in nature; in many aspects, it can be compared to and even complemented by the kind of textual analysis that philology uses. But theatre analysis is characteristically pragmatic, and any interpretation must be anchored in some larger meaning within the work, and validated during the rehearsal process. The director justifies the meaning of the lines in the context of a specific situation; as variations can be very complex, this exercise requires keeping an open mind, and basing all decisions, in some way, on the aesthetic world of the playwright. The comedy Pedro de Urdemalas, which is considered by many to be the author’s last and most accomplished work, was chosen as an entry point into establishing a dialogue with Cervantine theater. As a metatheatrical play, it allows for a more precise assessment of the playwright’s uncertain achievements. To give the studied material a new dynamic, I had the opportunity to stage a performance of Pedro de Urdemalas at the Beijing Central Academy 1  I want to thank Professor Everest Dixon, Universidad del Valle, Colombia, for the translation into English of this essay.

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of Drama, from March to July 2008;2 it was an ideal context for testing our theory, because, despite the language barrier, Cervantes had the advantage of being a totally unknown playwright, without any predispositions or susceptibilities on the part of the audience. Taking on Cervantes in China would involve every conceivable obstacle, in terms of language, context and character, but would provide the great advantage of being carried out within the framework of an uncontaminated laboratory, as it were, where the actors would have no predetermined ideas on Spanish controversies between Lope and Cervantes, for example, or the mannered, “picturesque” style, known as costumbrismo, in which the classics are sometimes performed in Latin America and Spain. In the Chinese context, Cervantes was simply a genius, as he should be considered, and the plays worked very well. Where did this idea of staging Cervantes in China come from? Perhaps to follow the example of the Chinese emperor’s offer to Cervantes, described in a dedication written by the author to Count Lemos, in the second part of Don Quixote: And he who has shown the greatest longing for him has been the great Emperor of China, who wrote me a letter in Chinese a month ago and sent it by a special courier. He asked me, or to be truthful, he begged me to send him Don Quixote, for he intended to found a college where the Spanish tongue would be taught, and it was his wish that the book to be read should be the History of Don Quixote. He also added that I should go and be the rector of this college. 2  Pedro de Urdemalas at the Beijing Central Academy of Drama (2008), Direction Alejandro González Puche, Assitant Director in Chinese Ma Zhenghong. Central Academy of Theater of Pekin, Department of Directing. Acting group and directors from the 2005 class, Academic Staging of Pedro de Urdemalas. Actors: Zhu Gang Riyao as Pedro de Urdemalas. Yang Ming as Clemente, Sacristán, Mostrenco, Representante. Chen Xuanchen as Benita, Labrador, Belica. Li Suya as Martín Crespo. Yang Junru as Sancho Macho, Regidor, Silerio, (un criado del Rey), Labrador, Autor. Liu Chao as Diego Tarugo, Pascual, Maldonado, Representante. Liu Jingyuan as Hornachuelos, Inés, Marcelo. Miao Tingru as Belica, otra Gitana. Huo Nifang as Clemencia, una Viuda, Labradora. Liu Fan as Lagartija, un Ciego, El Rey. Liu Dan as Redondo, un Alguacil de comedias, una Representante. Ma Weiqin as La Reina. Músico: Wei Boya, Set Design: Bian Wentong, Producer: Xu Xiang, Artistic Supervisor: Liu Libin, Production Supervisor: Ding Ruru, Translator: Liu Yushu. Premiere 20 June 2008. North Theater of Beijing – Jiao Dao Kou Nan Da Jie # 67, District Dong Cheng.

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Over four months, we established a professional and cultural dialogue between Cervantes and the actors involved in the process; later, ten performances in Beijing, with an audience of unbiased spectators, provided us with the opportunity to refine the work and devise a theoretical and practical approach to the theater of Cervantes. In Beijing, we also researched the hidden biography of Chinese performers, which, as in the West, is a vast unexplored territory of the theater, a story yet to be written. Pedro de Urdemalas focuses special attention on certain aspects which allow us to inquire about the biography of the performers; this is the backbone of the play, the plotline which structures the work. Pedro rides the paradox of being many people and ultimately being no one. The protagonist’s mask depends on the situation in which he finds himself. At the same time, Pedro is an antihero who does not comply with the strictures of moral demands; he does not fight for his lover; when the gypsies get into trouble, he only tries to save himself, and does not work for the good of all. The wealth of themes, situations and characters is one of the strengths of the play but also one of the obstacles to its staging. It is difficult for the viewer and the contemporary director to identify a single through-line. In Pedro de Urdemalas Cervantes does not idealize the office of performer; instead he foregrounds the vicissitudes which an author must go through in order to successfully bring a company together. The actors disappear halfway through the rehearsal process, and metaphorical dogs have to be sent out into the streets to sniff them out. Although it seems a reprehensible life, it is the typical life of an actor. The actor described by Cervantes is completely different from the actor idealized by Lope in The Great Pretenders. The knowledge gained by bringing the play to the stage has a real and definitive feeling to it. Although not everything can be resolved through scenic devices, staging the work forces us to recognize the limits of table analysis and the actor’s performance. A play can only be completely understood when it is brought before the assessment of an audience, the rest is mere conjecture and theory. Staging a play allows for focusing directly on the structure of the action, regardless of the quirks and, in the present case, the “tyranny” of the text. The actors were witness, for example, to how easily confused the audience, and they themselves, could become about the meaning of the play. In

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the first act, the motif of the country folk through the long Saint John’s Eve scenes and the election of Martin Crespo as Mayor, as well as the comic relief seemingly provided by Maldonado and his court of gypsies, would only confuse the audience more; they would watch in dismay as a simple exotic scene would turn into a long biographical monologue by the protagonist. Chinese viewers only started to connect with the play when Pedro began to take on other roles, mirroring the attraction that the Baroque audience felt for Protean characters, and this only began to happen in the second act when Pedro appears as a blind, fugitive gypsy. To resolve this indeterminacy of subject and the impatience of the audience witnessing a play that, for more than an hour, does not know what it wants to say, we resorted to the artifice of beginning the play at the end, with the scene of Pedro’s premiere performance as an actor and his emotional encounter with Martín Crespo before going on stage. Pedro’s triumph and his assured place in the theater gave the audience a chance to settle into the action, since it could understand from the very beginning where the play was headed. We transformed the linear narrative into a circular structure. The stage version arose out of the analysis of the play, without any major attempt to alter the play’s theme with an aggressive directorial vision. It was strange to observe in Cervantes a need for a realistic treatment, so that the play could develop through concrete emotions, and not through a priori effects for laughter or spectacle. If Cervantes was against the precepts of Lope, against the laziness of the actors who resort to artifice, to formulas, then Cervantes should not be staged in the same way, and all formulas should be abandoned. What is the meaning, the message of this play? If we take the protagonist’s life as its through-line, the message which the play seems to convey can perhaps be expressed as follows: “Strange are the paths which lead to the theater.” Nicolás de los Ríos can be an actor, because he uses the mask of a popular character in order to adopt many faces. The success of a famous actor can replace the wedding, as prescribed in the New Art of Writing Plays, as a happy ending. The difficulty in analyzing the play is its structure of pasos (“prose interludes”) or entremeses (“verse interludes”); I would even venture to affirm that, among Cervantes’ plays, it is perhaps the one which most resembles an

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entremés. The chain of events leads directly to the climax in Cervantes, and here the structure of the entremés can be perceived: each act culminates with the end of a storyline. In China, Golden Age theater and its formulas are scarcely known, and it was only in 1978 that Fuenteovejuna was first staged there, in the Central Academy of Drama mentioned above. Performers and audience are totally oblivious to concepts such as decoro (“decorum”), the gracioso (or comic servant) or the whole value system of the New Comedy. Which themes could I cull from Miguel de Cervantes that might intrigue them? We had to try to get the actors to understand the biography of a Baroque actor and have them relate to this important theatrical period. The only problem might be the Catholic nature of some passages and characters, such as the widow and the gypsies. In the first encounter with the actors, a wonderfully large and willing group, it should be said that only 20% dared to express their opinions. I was surprised, however, by their level of preparation: many had read the biography of Cervantes and even the first part of Don Quixote, specifically to prepare for the rehearsal process. Theatrical Spain was completely unknown to them, only a handful knew who Lope was, and Tirso was more generally known for his Don Juan; though apparently, they were acquainted with the Spanish hero through Molière. The first impressions were excellent. For them Pedro de Urdemalas resembled a folk legend from Xin Jiang, the Muslim province with a sharply distinct cultural identity. For Han Chinese, the people of Xin Jiang are almost Western. The protagonist, Zhu Gang Riyao, an actor from Yun Nan, near Vietnam, said that he could relate to Pedro, because he had also changed cities and professions many times before finally becoming an actor; a graduate of the Beijing Opera secondary school, he admitted that though the play fascinated him he did not understand it. It took him two hours to read the first two scenes, then he finished the first act in just one hour. At first, despite not understanding many words, it seemed to him that it was a comedy, though afterwards it did not seem to be very funny. Other secondary characters seemed very interesting to him. He immediately saw the connection between Cervantes’ difficult life and that of Pedro: both were men of little luck.

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Image 2: Program Pedro de Urdemalas, Central Academy of Drama.

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Image 3: Huo Nifang, in the role of Clemencia in Act I, Pedro de Urdemalas.

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Image 4: Zhu Gang Riyao as Pedro de Urdemalas and Liu Chao as Farsante. Act II.

Huo Ni Fan, a small actress, thought the play was similar to his entremeses, although she found Pedro more interesting.3 She said that it was “a comedy that made her cry,” at first very funny, but then very bitter. She said something that I appreciated coming from a Beijing actress whose grandfather from Xian had participated in the Long March: she very much liked the dignity of the women in the play; for her, Belica and the Queen are very strong women. She liked getting to know, through Cervantes, the gypsies

3  Entremeses, Teatro La Abadía (1996), Madrid. Co-directors: José Luis Gómez and Rosario Ruiz. Scene composition for: La cueva de Salamanca, El viejo celoso, El retablo de las maravillas. Director: José Luis Gómez and Rosario Ruiz Rodgers. Production: Teatro de La Abadía. Costumes: María Luisa Engel. Lighting: Juan Gómez-Cornejo, Music: Luis Delgado. Staging: Rosario Ruiz Rodgers. Set Design: José Hernández, Master of Movement: María del Mar Navarro, Assistant Director Jorge Saura. Interpreters: Pere Martí, Inma Nieto, Lydia Otón, Miguel Cubero, Roberto Hernández, Cipriano Lodosa, Juan Antonio Codina, Elizabeth Gelabert, Rosa Manteiga and Alfonso Lara. Music: Alfonso Lara and Rafael Martín. Premier: 23-3-1996 in the Teatro La Abadía of Madrid.

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and related them to the Arabs. She also thought that in order to perform these characters, you had to know a lot about Spanish culture. Liu Chao, from the northern province of Hei Long Jiang (the main province of Manchuria), commented that reading Don Quixote helped him understand the genius of the small characters of the play. He observed, correctly, that here the characters are less developed than in Don Quixote, although he stressed that the characters followed their own rules, and concurred with Cervantes that the character’s needs should follow the requirements of the genre. He identified an important characteristic of Pedro: when he helps others, he is a good character, but he fails in his own projects. He found several similarities with Don Quixote, such as the fact that when the characters joke, you can sense a bitter sweetness to them. For Liu Jingyuan, a director from Suzhou, the characters in the plot seemed to be puppets, to be performed on the street, or on a makeshift stage a la commedia dell’arte, with the devices of popular theater. In general, the references to the Christian-Catholic religion of the play did not seem strange to him. Arthur Miller’s ‘Salesman’ in Beijing served as a road map for me, because of its reading or diagnosis of the situation of Chinese theater made by the famous playwright in 1983. ‘Salesman’ in Beijing continually tells the story of the difficult situation of the theater and particularly of actors; during the Cultural Revolution they were expelled from their homes and forced to live on farms, though paradoxically they continued to receive their salaries. Replacing them came actors from the traditional opera, who were more submissive; young men who had been controlled from their earliest education, without any real discernment, and who never had any sympathy for the actors who’d been expelled. Strange as it may seem, I gave the actors some rules on how to recite; after all, what can a Spanish speaker possibly recommend to a Chinese performer on how to recite! But verse is, in some cases, like ballet, there are laws common to all languages, especially those that try to distinguish between interpretation in verse and prose: underplay the commas, keep perspective, make just the right pauses, do not make the text “psychological,” and etcetera. Chinese students tend not to suspect anything bad about their characters. For example, they had a very idealized Pedro: they said that he was a

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good person, that he helped everyone, that he was unlucky in love. When I countered that Pedro was a traitor, distancing himself from the gypsies at the first sign of trouble and throwing away everything which had cost him so much effort to join the fraternity, the actors would stare blankly. The actors think too well of the characters but Cervantes sees the country folk in opposition to the idealized image constructed by the New Comedy. In the entremeses, the countryside is not picturesque; the peasants in El retablo de las maravillas (The Altarpiece of Wonders) and La elección de los alcaldes de Daganzo (The Election of the Daganzo Mayors) are conveyed as somewhat ridiculous and corrupt villains. As many of the actors were from the provinces, I asked them if the image of the idealized peasant, popularized during the Cultural Revolution, differed from the real one. They nodded timidly. When we began to read the scene of Martín Crespo’s appointment as mayor, we talked a little about the picaresque, a genre which grew out of the deep poverty that existed in Spain when it was the first world power, comparable with the United States today and, of course, with China. I explained how people had to resort to ingenuity to earn their livelihood. Cheating became a delicious literary theme. Their blank looks again told me that this was an alien concept for them. During the textual analysis we read the scene where Pedro steals chickens from a farmer and meets the actors. I asked them what they thought of the situation Pedro finds himself in vis-a-vis the acting profession. After all, the actors are complicit, through a kind of live improvisation, in the theft of the chickens. The actors would even, for that matter, have enjoyed the stolen chickens themselves had they not been called to rehearsal. When I asked them, “What would your parents and grandparents say if they saw a scene where actors, your colleagues, are depicted as thieves by Cervantes?”, the actors finally began to understand what the scene was about. Then I had to counter their sadness and even disgust at this understanding by pointing out that, as a mitigating factor, the call to rehearsal kept the actors from sharing in the spoils of the robbery, and we should appreciate this fact. The dignity of artists is an issue strongly influenced by the ideology of the Chinese establishment. Despite new opportunities opening up for free theater training in private establishments, the students of the Academy still see themselves as a kind of privileged class. Most of the actors consider them-

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selves to be public officials, and feel no connection at all to actors who have had to make it on their own. Only students with some connection to the traditional theater, to opera, appreciate the know-how of the workaday actor. Faced with the question of whether Pedro de Urdemalas chooses the profession of actor or is predestined to it, Peng Tao, a friend and theater critic who speaks Russian, helped me reflect on this matter. He told me that the concepts of predestination and free will are totally non-existent in Buddhism. For them, Buddha is inside each person, and each person has the capacity to discover him; Buddha is not a god but a concept. Each person can come to discover their Buddha, by doing good things, but, surprisingly, also by doing bad things. The question lies precisely in being able to find its own nature, the balanced and kind nature of each being. Therefore, this concept is closely linked to the way Pedro finds his profession; he discovers his essence in the theater after doing many reprehensible actions. Peng Tao explained to me that there are people who spend their whole lives doing things and pretending to have found their souls, but it is only an attitude; in the background they are terribly unfortunate beings. During the staging of the play, we decided to do exercises on the biographies of Chinese actors. But whenever we spoke of actors, the natural reference for them was always the traditional Opera, never dramatic theater. When they were asked to do acrobatics or virtuoso fan numbers they were excellent, but when asked to perform references to theater actors, they often had to resort, self-confessedly, to the gossip columns of North American and European show business. They also resorted to Chinese storytellers, who are truly magnificent; when you take a taxi in the afternoon in Beijing, all self-respecting drivers are listening to them on the radio. Adept at sharp contrasts, their language is evocative and colorful. A little disappointed by this lack of response on the subject of actor biographies, Professor Ma Zheng Hong found testimonies of Chinese actors who greatly resembled Pedro de Urdemalas. The most surprising case was Tong Chao (1925), an actor who eventually triumphed in Hollywood after a palm-reading foretold that he would become an actor. (Like the sage Malgesí in Pedro de Urdemalas). Hou Bao Ling (1917-1993) was a vaudeville actor who could not remember his real name nor who his parents were— like Pedro, who was born of a stone. The actors admitted that, although they were

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familiar with them, they did not know how to perform them on stage; my belief, though, was that they had not read them firsthand and had no real appreciation for these kinds of stories. The director Yang Yang expressed his concern about the extremely low expectations his generation has with regards to the theater. Almost everyone wants to make movies, since theater directing is a very poorly paid profession. All the recognized directors in Beijing are over fifty years old; there has been no generational change. It has been ten years now that no new director has emerged from the school. A whole generation, the one that had led the Tiananmen protests, was erased from the theatrical map, because they were considered suspicious and rebellious. None of the students have any plans to go to the provinces. The scene where the curious Martín Crespo plays judge never seemed to work; they would try to be funny, but would never know how to place or perform the events. In Beijing there are civil courts for settling disputes in every part of the city. I suggested they observe the way people speak in these court cases, to help them avoid being facetious or derisive. But there was always a sense that the Chinese have no collective imaginary or resources when it comes to justice and litigation; it is a country where the absence of democracy is reflected in a very archaic development of justice. It is not judges who come to a verdict, but people in power. In contexts where references did exist, the actors were very good. For example, the great monologue by Marcelo, perhaps the longest in the work where he recounts the entire genealogy of Belica. One director interpreted Marcelo from the point of view of a woman, and had the great intuition to stage it as a children’s legend, in which the texts of Duchess Felix de Alva, and Rosamiro, the queen’s brother, were put in the mouth of other actors. The scene became a theater show for children, almost like an altarpiece with a hint of medieval history; in its affinity with the Chinese storytellers, this theatrical primitivism undoubtedly helped the audience to assimilate this long monologue which is so important for the fate of Belica and the development of the plot. As for the end of the play, when Pedro becomes Nicolás de los Ríos and asks the queen to regulate the profession, the Chinese actors did not understand why it was important for the guild to achieve professional recognition;

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or that a lack of social recognition, among other things, might keep an amateur from calling himself an actor. I reminded them, for example, that regulatory laws had been enacted in China which allowed the presence of women in traditional opera, and how that regulation had completely modified the repertoire, the work of the companies, opera training, etc. The actors insisted that the only event was Belica’s coming out, but they did not realize that for Pedro and the guild the social recognition was transcendental. Because of this general disbelief that Cervantes could even be staged, the rehearsal process entered into crisis mode, and the truth is that I already had my doubts that such a strange plot, without any known formulas and so foreign to the Chinese sensibility, could work. Under pressure to present the results of the first stage of rehearsals in a public showing, we decided to perform five scenes of our Cervantes, and the actors, despite so much uncertainty, marshalled their full battery of charm, and, fully intent on the play and the situation, had the audience on the edge of their seats. Most interesting of all was the confirmation of my feeling that the use of the unexpected and unpredictable, for which Cervantes is so much avoided, is his strongest weapon. As Cervantes builds the plot on such unconventional premises, the actor can gradually ease the audience into the action and keep the stakes high. During the staging there was a major earthquake in the province of Sichuan, and by law the theaters and cinemas were closed for five days for a national mourning; it was too much, and I was sorry to think about the fate of the independent collectives with performances programmed during those days, with bankruptcy as a real possibility; at the same time, the restaurants and bars did not close. The theaters close in China, just as they did in Spain, as when, for example, on the death of Margaret of Austria, wife of Philip III, in October 1611, a national mourning was decreed and the corrals were closed until the summer of 1613. The premiere was preceded by a showing before the censor board, an inquisitorial practice. Not even in Russia, where I had premiered several plays, was I ever confronted with a tribunal worthy of the Baroque. After all, Cervantes himself had proposed the presence of an intelligent person capable of assessing comedies before their first performance. In this case, there were seven people hidden away in the darkness of the theatre hall; some well-

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known critics or professors, but party officials as well. One of China’s most important critics fell asleep as soon as the house lights went down. At intermission he woke up, went to the bathroom, and promptly fell asleep again on his return. Finally, he woke again and filled out the form. But how could he write an assessment? We will never know because the envelopes are not signed, they are filled in with the help of a flashlight or mobile phone during the performance, picked up by a Party official and only then do we get a copy. The censor board considered the choice of the play, the adaptation and the translation all acceptable. It was inconceivable to me that Cervantes should have been subjected to a censor board for their approval of his talent. And what did they conclude? They considered that, though there were a great many characters, some were very well-defined and richly imagined. The simple fact of this premiere of a play by Cervantes, who had never crossed the Chinese stage, was considered to be of great consequence. On the day of the premiere in Beijing, people were crammed into the small entrance of the theater, which was located in a huton or a Beijing traditional neighborhood. The hall had originally been designed for political rallies, and in 2017 it was transformed into a hotel. A full house, rows lined with family members, and the performance began. Ten performances followed, full houses all. Sold out performances of Cervantes in Beijing. Justice had been served! The ushers were very young and frightened girls from the countryside, but they saw the play every night and enjoyed it a great deal. Also in attendance was a large contingent of committed Hispanophiles who almost leapt from their seats when the first guitar chords sounded, and then there were those who had attended my conference. The run was magnificent: the show seemed to expand with every performance. For the last six nights, the second floor of the theater had to be refurbished. The sense of humor was infectious, and the audience and performers, guided by the verse of Cervantes, improvised and delighted in making new discoveries. It gave me great joy that these young people were discovering their freedom on stage, though of course we were not exempt from excesses. I debated whether I should reign them in, but I could not forbid them to surrender to a performance style that I myself had encouraged. After the performance run and hearing the actors and audience’s perceptions on the meaning of the work, there were some surprising insights. For

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example, Li Suya, one of the show’s directors, suggested that Pedro de Urdemalas was not a profoundly conceptual play, in the style of La gran sultana or Numancia, but rather a biographical work. The play simply describes the life process of a man who seeks to fulfil his longings; it does not try to express any deep feelings or moral issues. The show leaves us with the feeling of a play which comforts us and makes us love life. There were differing opinions on the play and its staging. It is striking how commentators insist upon the folk character of Pedro de Urdemalas. I think that Chinese teachers want to talk about the picaresque nature of the material because the genre is so little known. And the theater of Cervantes, even in China, can barely be divorced from the respect commanded by his signature work, Don Quixote. The actor who played Maldonado introduced me to his parents, and I asked him what his mother thought about our profession now after seeing its strong resemblance, in Cervantes’ depiction, to the life a thief. He confessed to me that his mother now thinks the actor’s profession is very difficult, especially after seeing this production. Hu Ni Fang, who played the widow, appreciated that during the run of the show, it was the audience’s reaction that was decisive in helping the actors develop the popular aspects of the play; during the rehearsals this was impossible to understand, but the audience and the connection with the stage partner allowed this understanding to emerge. Seven years later, in 2015, Pedro de Urdemalas took the stage in Cali, Colombia, with talented, highly qualified students. The show was performed widely in Cali and at a congress of Hispanists. But, I have to admit, the performance did not have the same artistic impact as in Beijing, perhaps because it was not seen as a major novelty in the theatrical repertoire, or because the ghosts of the theater of Cervantes had come back to life. Now I can see that the Chinese actors were more attuned to the ritual demands of Cervantes’ plays. The Colombian actors understand the popular world, but the Chinese actors believe it, they live it. In any case, the Protean nature of Chinese art lives on in phenomena like the Bian Lian masks of Sichuan, which change their appearance, and the idea of reincarnation in another form in Taoism. The difference between the Pedro de Urdemalas in Colombia and in China is that the Chinese were able to construct a poetic image of a place where a

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Image 5. Group of actors from Pedro de Urdemalas in Beijing, Central Academy of Drama.

Protean figure could thrive. In Colombia the audience identified the character as a cheat, and the performance fell into the trap of costumbrismo, the folk clichés of the Spanish theatre.

Bibliography Boadella, Albert, dir. 2004. El retablo de las maravillas. Els Joglars company. — 2011. El retablo de las maravillas. En un lugar de Manhattan. Madrid: Cátedra. Cervantes, Miguel de. 1970. Entremeses, edited by Eugenio Asesio. Madrid: Castalia. — 1999. Numancia, edited by Robert Marrast. Madrid: Cátedra. — 2007. El rufián dichoso, Pedro de Urdemalas. Madrid: Cátedra. — 2008. Don Quijote de la Mancha, edited by Francisco Rico. Perú: Santillana. Fuenteovejuna. 1978. Central Academy of Drama, Beijing. Gómez, José Luis, and Rosario Ruiz, dir. 1996. Entremeses. Teatro La Abadía, Madrid.

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González Puche, Alejandro and Ma Zhenghong, dir. 2008. Pedro de Urdemalas. Central Academy of Drama, Beijing. Lope de Vega. 1955. Lo fingido verdadero. In  Obras escogidas, tomo 3. Madrid: Aguilar. — 2009. Arte nuevo de hacer comedias, edited by Enrique García Santo-Tomás. Madrid: Cátedra. Miller, Arthur. 1984. Salesman in Beijing. New York: Viking.

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(Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s El astrólogo fingido, directed by Alejandro González Puche and Ma Zhenghong) 马政红 Ma Zhenghong

Image 1: Poster for El astrólogo fingido.

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When used in staging comedies from the Spanish Golden Age, the expressive stage devices of Chinese traditional opera offer wonderful possibilities for spectacle, and at the same time become a kind of parallel score of an abstract nature, which then serves as a trampoline toward understanding the meanings of the Spanish verse. This was our experience of staging El astrólogo fingido (The Fake Astrologer) by Calderón de la Barca, in Cali, Colombia in 2001, in which we adapted the classical play to the stock characterizations of the traditional Chinese opera. The staging allowed us to verify certain hypotheses we had formulated on how this material had been performed in its time, utilizing a technique far removed from the current devices of the psychological theater.1 The staging of The Fake Astrologer in Cali, Colombia, in 2001, began as an academic exercise; the process of reading and analyzing the play was carried out under the direction of Alejandro González Puche. He implemented the method of active analysis, a method of theater exploration which belongs to the Stanislavski system, where improvisations are followed by readjustments for each scene in the play, thus arriving at a full understanding of the play. Upon completing this process, and when it was time to “understand the play on stage on its feet,” a number of obstacles appeared. Some actors were incapable of memorizing the lengthy verse monologues, while others would recite them monotonously and in a sing-song way. During the rehearsals, the actors tried various devices for the characterization of their roles, and the director began to get a clear image of his future production. However, it became clear that when an actor tried to maintain the poetic rhyme and simultaneously keep up an active dialogue with their stage partner, in a realistic stage set with chairs and tables, everything seemed artificial and ridiculous. We had learned through experience that Calderón’s plays and the Golden Age in general do not correspond to the psychological or naturalistic theater in which we had been working up to that point. We realized that if we kept using stage devices that followed this psychological impulse, the performance of Calderón’s play would become a series of poetic recitations artificially adorned with intonations and gestures.

1 

Spanish-English translation: Professor Everest Dixon, Universidad del Valle.

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Once the problem was identified, our research led us to theater traditions which do not rely on psychological truth, but on performance mechanisms. We began by studying adaptations of the Eastern theater by great Western directors such as Meyerhold, Vakhtangov, Tairov and Brecht, who recovered diverse models of composition and principles of expression. One of their sources was Chinese traditional opera, whose central tenets were borrowed to create seminal Western theories such as Verfremdung and Biomechanics. After revising articles by Meyerhold and Brecht on their reflections about Chinese opera, especially after re-reading the speeches of Jiao Juying, a great Chinese director of dramatic theater, we became convinced that we should employ expressive devices such as stylization and symbolic imagery from traditional Chinese theater in order to discover a style for our staging. The first thing we noticed were similarities between Spanish Golden Age theater and Chinese opera in terms of the style of the verse composition and the structure of the text, which alternated between dialogue and monologue forms. For The Fake Astrologer we had to find nuances and rhythmic variation applied to the emotional states and tempo-rhythms of the xi pi (西皮) and er huang qian (二黄腔) styles of recitation, as well as forms of musical accompaniment typical of Chinese opera. To this end, we included a small musical ensemble in the production, which used cymbals, a gong, maracas, and the flute, which are very similar to the sound effects in Chinese opera. We also included the Western marimba and xylophone, which are not typical to that tradition. The musical ensemble did not interrupt the flow of the verse; on the contrary, this constant live musical accompaniment during the actors’ performance was an excellent way of punctuating the caesuras, and the musical score gave body and volume to the verse, as well as luster to the overall sound. Another surprising similarity between both theater traditions is characterization. In the theater tradition of the Han dynasty, mythological fables, legends, and stories were performed with masks, out of which came the first characterizations of the later ensembles, with characters such as the galán (leading man), dama (leading lady), and gracioso (comic servant). Later, in Nan Xi, the plays were longer with more complex plots, and the characters were subtler and more psychologically profound. The performance was divided into two types of text; verse for the main characters, who spoke in

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official language in rhyme, and prose for the secondary characters, with the features of everyday language, thus combining poetic excellence with natural expression. This dramatic form led to a standardization of the performance techniques for characterization, creating different types for one character; the leading ladies and leading men were diversified, becoming warriors, aristocrats, tradesmen, civil servants or peasants with a particular canon of expressive devices. Yuan Qu (13th century), the theater of the North, had a complex and rigid dramatic structure. The play was sung and divided into four acts with a short prologue and epilogue. The leading lady and man were the only characters who sang during the play, accompanied by other characters who recited, such as the Wai (the stranger), the Jin (the comic servant), and the Za (the servant). Thus, we began to compare the characters of Calderón with the masks of Chinese opera, where each character takes on a role for the performance with the features of the stock characters of this tradition. Upon observing the images of the masks, the actors could capture the personality of the role through various expressions of the facial mask: the symbolic depiction of the facial features, the angle of the brow, the depth of the eye sockets, the extension of the eye line, the wrinkles on the cheeks and the shadows of the beards. The play of colors and symbols brought out the actors’ creative intuition; facial expressions were imagined for the gestures and temperament of the future character. Curiously, when the actors identified the face of the character using Chinese opera masks, together with the specifications of the stock characters, it was as if the improvisations came to coherent life by magic. Upon reflection, it’s a very reasonable outcome, since Spanish classical theater had been influenced by the Commedia dell’Arte, and had its roots in stock characterization, with masks set for each character. The Commedia dell’Arte, according to Evangelina Rodríguez, is a performance technique with an expressive form that visualizes the story and externalizes the internal process of the actor. After taking on the identity of the facial mask and the tonality of the character’s temperament, the actors began their physical exploration. Here another problem arose: because of the physical habits and movements particular to their culture, the actors moved within very commonplace parameters,

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which worked against the expressions and movements of the facial masks; within the same figure one could see a very expressive facial mask, and a very ungainly physical presence. So, it became necessary to risk including other devices from the performance techniques of Chinese opera in the process. Why was it a risk? To attempt to apply devices from Chinese opera to the staging of a play means using a kind of theater of “representation,” which relies on external illustration, and on stereotyped, artificial and false forms, whereas our work method was usually connected with the Stanislavski system, a system based on “interpretation.” Is interpretation in the theater truth or fiction (falsehood)? To answer this question Jiao Juying (焦菊隐) made a comparison between a real eggplant and a painted one, and concluded: “Art is fiction; everyday life is real. However, the relationship between the two shows us that real life is the source of artistic creation, art reflects this reality. They are different, but can what comes from real life truly be called a falsehood?” (Jiao, 1985). Jiao makes a reflection on the performance by the famous actor Gai Jiaotian (盖叫天) in a scene from Wu Song and his Struggle with the Tiger, where the actor explains that his extraordinary expression during the struggle consisted of directing his gaze at the audience, and leaving his vision of the tiger in his heart. Jiao reflects: It’s impossible in real life not to look at the Tiger during a struggle, but is the interpretative sensation of the struggle of Master Gai not authentic? If not, why does the audience feel so moved, so convinced of its full truth? This is why I say that art reveals the spiritual world of the character, the features of the human soul and the essence of real life. (Jiao Juying, 1985, p. 19)

Before setting out on our adventure, we did research on the origins of Chinese opera as an art form, intending to discover those elements that connect the two styles of performance so that we could, much later, explore the Eastern techniques from the artistic vantage point of an experiential creation. Chinese traditional opera (Zhong Guo Xi Qu 中国戏曲) brought together 360 distinct styles or types of theater that made up the aesthetic or philosophical core of a complex system, where all these forms of performance came together. The traditional theater had its origins in activities for popular

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entertainment, coming from dance and folk song; it was born of rituals for the expulsion of plagues, the celebration of the agricultural calendar and the evocation of ancestral memories. The participation of peasant dancers in these rituals gradually got handed down through the generations and transformed into new artistic expressions. As a result of this transformation, traditional Chinese theater has countless sources and processes which have merged over the centuries to highlight the work of the actor. This performance technique has sought to discover the essence of human life through stylized performance and not as a direct imitation of everyday life. The concept was that in order to interpret a character, it was first necessary to approach the character internally, getting inside their skin, feeling and suffering their inner life. Afterwards, it was necessary to come out of this state and, maintaining a distance, design a stylized form of the character’s disposition, movement, style of walking, and style and tone of speech. Makeup and costume were then designed to synthesize this stylized form; then, the manipulation of all of these elements was developed so as to bring to the stage a virtuoso form. This performance style of Chinese traditional theater is similar to the aesthetic canon of traditional painting, where instead of an exact imitation of the object, the artist seeks a sensation which will lead to the contemplation of its beauty and feeling. It also has affinities with traditional poetry, where a word can fan out into multiple explanations and sensations which correspond simultaneously to the idea and the image. When the actors of The Fake Astrologer understood some elements of the techniques and aims of these traditional expressions, such as stylization and the symbolic image, they entered a new phase of creation. They gradually discovered character elements such as their facial features, their gaze and posture, the physical quality of their gait and movement, their tempo-rhythm, and then brought all of these elements together to build a character, using them to create improvisations within the situation. The actors also introduced devices from the Western theater such as the dramatic physical mime of Étienne Decroux, whose principals were similar to the pantomime of Chinese opera. These comparisons and explorations led us to the discovery that the theater conventions of Chinese opera and of Spanish Baroque theater had many similarities: neither theaters were realistic or naturalistic. What both theaters wish to convey is theater spectacle, where melodious voices

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recite verses with enjambments, rhymes and artificial resonators; where the body is swathed in luxurious costumes, as if they were part of the stage set or the totality of the symbolic design. Both theater traditions are also similar in their essence, their spirit, which is the expression of human passions. Our approach to the training of the acting technique began with the study of sequences from Taiji Quan, and later we worked on the basic acting techniques of Chinese traditional opera. The basic sequence of Taiji Quan from the Wu school offered the actors not only a way to move, but also the logic of the internal movement of Chinese culture, which is foreign to Colombian actors. The initial pose itself, with the legs curved, already runs counter to the upright body, a Western tradition influenced by ballet. The training in Taiji Quan introduces into the body and mind the image and its content: for example, the lifting of the arms means “the white stork spreads out its wings”; moving the right hand from the left shoulder to the right shoulder means “straighten the whip”; and when both hands are lifted into the air and slide downward, they “caress the horse’s tail”. When actors associate these movements with the metaphor, it is easier to bring other basic elements into the work. The acting technique of Chinese opera consists of five lines of expressive devices —using the voice, hands, eyes, body and gait— to respond to an aesthetic requirement such as finding the most beautiful way of standing on stage: the face should have two vantage points, the gaze and the chest should be facing in different directions. Gradually, the build upon forms for moving the eyes, directing the gaze, focusing energy by projecting the fullness of the shining eyes, and etcetera. Each stock character has their own gait or way of walking. The concept of the pause, or stillness, is also very important in traditional Chinese opera, where the characters are presented to the audience before the scene begins: the actor must design a sequence of movements for arriving at a sudden pose (liang xiang 亮相), a pose of utter stillness, which must give a strong impression to the audience, presenting the character as artistically unique. The stylized movements of Chinese opera produce unexpected effects during the performance; one of these effects is the creation of an imaginary setting for the action, and another is a strangeness in the psychological gesture. These movements come from everyday life, but they change into some-

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Image 2: Felipe Pérez as Don Juan (right) and Diego Robledo as Don Carlos (left) in El astrólogo fingido, Act I.

thing else; they frame a genuine human situation while they carry an artistic and aesthetic meaning which can surprise the audience. The moment had arrived to embark on a new phase of the staging, when the actors began to create their costumes based on sketches of the classical Spanish figures and using the colors and adornments of Chinese opera costumes that represent certain character types. From these sketches the actors began to experiment with how the character posed and walked, their postures and temperament, and their role in the structure of the play. For the main character of Don Juan, the figure of the Baroque galán was fused with that of Wu Sheng (the young warrior, 武生). Just as in Calderón’s text, Don Juan had feathers adorning his costume, Wu Sheng had ling zi (翎 子) or feathers, but in the warrior’s helmet. For Don Carlos, Don Juan’s friend, we assigned the characteristics of the student galán, called Xiao Sheng (小生), who has fled the war and secretly desires his friend’s beloved; this is why he wishes to destroy the love relation-

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ship between Don Juan and Doña María and plots to sabotage their bond. In order to highlight the character’s betrayal, the actor created a variation on the traditional mask of the student galán, who has a very pale face and effeminate characteristics. We added some devices from Jing (净) over a base of the galán’s tonality, highlighting the facial features with black lines, similar to characters with “painted faces” who have a complex temperament and who are generally plotters and traitors to their country. To the oldest character, Don Leonardo, Doña María’s father, we assigned devices from Lao Sheng (the old man, 老生) who has a ran kou (髯口, an artificial beard), and a pao dai (袍带, a suit with a belt), a symbol of a state functionary, that is to say, a member of the Court. Don Diego also considers himself to be the legitimate suitor to Doña María, but his extremely aggressive character, who goes through a number of vertiginous twists in the plot, obliges him to pretend to be an astrologer. We also proposed as a Jing (净) or painted mask, Hua Lian, but unlike in Chinese opera, Don Diego would not have a hat or a beard; we would replace them with long pointed hair which resembled a crown. Just as in Baroque theater, comic servants and rustics are very important in Chinese opera, as well as clowns, who can be identified by a white spot in the very center of their face, or on their nose. And it is precisely these rustics or clowns who take part in the comic scenes full of popular humor and wisdom. Morón is Don Diego’s servant, who is forever making plans for getting his master out of trouble. For this character we proposed clown makeup with a white spot on the nose, so that he looked like a butterfly or a white wasp; and since it was an Afro-Colombian actor, there was an attractive contrast in his look. Once we had established the character designs for the protagonists, we began to think out the secondary characters in a more free and creative way, taking the essential image of the character and mixing different symbols, arriving at a more original and expressive design. For example, for Otañez, Don Leonardo’s old servant, who dreams of abandoning Madrid for his home town to enjoy his retirement, we proposed a pale face, with exaggerated eyelines, large eye sockets and fallen eyes— after so many years of service, his face is somewhat distorted. The character took some character-

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Image 3: Jaime Castaño as Don Diego and Manuel Viveros as Morón in El astrólogo fingido, Act I.

istics from the payaso civil recitante, or the singing city clown, added to the temperament of the Hua Lian (a painted-face character), who is very strict with unfamiliar visitors to the house. However, since he is very melancholic because of his desire to return to his hometown to die in peace, he is often the object of ridicule for Morón and the other mischievous servants. These small characters, such as the servants and maids in Doña María’s house, who didn’t have any lines, were given characteristics of the Wu Chou (warrior clown, 武丑). As often happens, these characters are performed by the best acrobats in the opera, and so we designed some stage combat scenes, not only to show the actors’ training in acrobatic techniques, but also to help visualize the space in Doña María’s house, establishing the rigorous watchfulness demanded by the father to protect his daughter’s honor. The female characters in Chinese opera are divided between the Dan (ladies) and the Qing Yi (young ladies). Doña María was created as a Hua Dan, a sensitive and promiscuous woman who always has a large fan and

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Image 4: Margarita Arboleda as Doña María and Elizabeth Parra as Beatriz in El astrólogo fingido, Act I.

whose almost acrobatic movements reveal the tensions of the secrets of each moment; the Colombian actress, a good salsa dancer, added some swing to the Eastern physicality. Beatriz, Doña María’s servant, was resolved as a Qing Yi character, since she was an insatiable and demure woman. We gave her strong color in her cheeks, similar to a painted face, highlighting her audacity since it is Beatriz who defends her mistress to the ultimate consequences. Doña Violante, Doña María’s rival for Don Juan’s love, was identified as a ferocious, bad-tempered woman, with great force for carrying out her vengeance; we proposed a fusion between an Andalusian and an image of a Wu Dan (warrior) with a huge dress, reminiscent of Velazquez’s Meninas, and a large Sevillian hairdo which were likened to the warrior’s banners. Her features were colored in a fiery red, and we highlighted the line which goes from the cheek to the lips, insinuating that she was a loudmouthed woman. Violante was always with Quiteria, her servant, who was resolved as a Qing

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Image 5: Jaime Castaño as Don Diego and Adriana Bermudez as Violante in El astrólogo fingido, Act III.

Yi (young woman), with her face painted as a comic servant, which contrasted in its cowardly nature with the strong character of her mistress. The costumes and makeup were not the only expressive devices used to build the characters; the stylization of their movements was also a stimulating device for the actors. Curiously, this gestural codification of movement allowed the actors to express psychological gestures with different nuances for each stock type. For example, shiu xiu (water sleeves, 水袖), ling zi (long pheasant feathers worn in the warriors’ helmets), shuai fa (balancing the hair, 甩发), and ran kou (artificial mustache, 髯口), are important components in Chinese opera performances. They are used to create the pose, the image and the line of the movement. When the performer discovers the meaning and function of a gesture, capturing the birth and transformation of these gestures from everyday life into an artistic expression, it is as if the performer were opening a door to another world full of expressive devices. For example, one of Morón’s traits is his use of sayings, and for Morón’s asides, in order to

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create a distancing effect on stage, the actor proposed a pantomime to open an imaginary window to give advice directly to the audience, similar to the pantomimes servants use to open the door to the house and go outside to satisfy their curiosity. Don Diego, when he was in trouble and had to pretend, our actor would shake his hair until it were completely on end (怒发冲冠) like Huan liang characters shaking their feathers to show their rage and anger, like warriors manipulating their pheasant feathers to express their frustration. When the scandalous seduction of women by Don Juan, a war deserter, was exposed, the actor utilized the shuai fa movement, shaking long strands of his hair and making the audience understand the mortal danger he must face. The actor who performed Don Leonardo suggested always having a birdcage with him, since he had observed the custom of old Chinese people to walk around with their birds, their pets, early in the morning in parks. Whenever he was in trouble or happy, his old character would consult with his pet bird. While the male characters would seek out psychological gestures, a mixture of pantomime and clown technique, the actresses would explore reciting the verse accompanied by dance movements. Dance is an important expressive device in Chinese opera, an element that complements the text and the set, and completes the aesthetic of the theater devices mentioned above. Furthermore, it has the ability to move the audience, with symbolic images that draw the viewers into the atmosphere created. It has a narrative function; through images drawn in space, it visually clarifies the story of the play for the audience, by defining the setting of the action and the time of its events. Curiously, physical movement at a defined tempo and rhythm, accompanied by an object, makes the stylization more expressive and gives it fuller meaning. Doña Maria, in the first act, has long monologues which express her desire for Don Juan; with a dance sequence using her fan, the actress created a scene of a young woman pining for love but needing to safeguard her decorum. Beside her, the male actor responded with the same physicality, and a scene of secret lovers was created, like Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai leaving aside all fears and doubts to take flight locked within their walls. The spectacle of Chinese opera is created by stage combat scenes, where the performers demonstrate their acrobatic expertise. Though in The Feigned Astrologist there are no stage combats, we considered it important to create a

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moment of performance virtuosity, in order to highlight this spirit of popular tradition so that the audience could be carried away by the joy of the theater spectacle. At the beginning of the play, when the old servant Otañez is guarding the house with a long stick, two servants try to break protocol and a fierce combat begins between them, ending with the harsh punishment of both of the young men. The somersaults and the blows with sticks and fists create a spectacle of physical virtuosity and delight the audience. In this way, the setting of the action also becomes clear, conveying the strictness of Don Leonardo’s protocols surrounding the house’s protection. The stylized props further contributed to the creative effort, unifying the performance’s style. For example, when Doña María goes out for a ride in her carriage, we conveyed this carriage by simply using the servants to decorate it with colored banners creating a sensation of its roof and railings. The stage set also had an enormous folding screen. Simplicity was important as “the conception of space in the traditional Chinese opera makes the setting appear through the actors’ performance. The creativity and refinement of the atmospheres are achieved through stage conventions in the actor’s movement.”2 Traditional Chinese theater can be defined as a stylized and symbolic form of performance, which makes for a specific and diverse aesthetic canon for each character. All of these elements show us that it is necessary to research the Chinese theater from the perspective of this composite synthesis, where the true protagonist is the actor who creates a character and a complex performance through the use of an often-hidden tradition.

Bibliography Brecht, Bertolt. 2000. “On Chinese Acting.” Brecht Sourcebook. Edited by Carol Martin and Henry Bial, translated by Eric Bentley. London: Routledge,15-22. — 2004. Writings about theater. Barcelona: Alba Editorial. Calderón de la Barca, Pedro. 2012. El astrólogo fingido. Edited by Fernando Rodríguez-Gallego. Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert.

2 

ATEC Forum, Wang Bonan, 2015.

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Decroux, Étienne. 1963. Words on the mime. Paris: Gallimard. Jiao, Juying 焦菊隐. 1985. Essays on the Theatre. Beijing: Chinese Theatre Publishing House. Meyerhold, Vsevolod. 1968. Article, Letter, Lecture and conversation of Meyerhold. Moscow: Art. Tairov, Alexander. 1970. Director’s note, article, conversation, presentation, letter of Tairov. Moscow: BTO. Vakhtangov, Yevgeny. 2011. Documents and Testimony of Vakhtangov. Moscow: IHDRIK.

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Audience Reception

(Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s El astrólogo fingido, directed by Alejandro González Puche and Ma Zhenghong) María José Domínguez

No hay teatro sin público, ya que el signo teatral está constituido por una conexión entre actor y espectador. Teresa Valdivieso1 En El libro de los Estados, decía don Juan Manuel: “Todos los Estados del mundo se encierran en tres: al uno llaman defensores, et al otro oradores, et al otro labradores”. ¡Perdón, Infante; el mundo así resultaría incompleto! Yo pido en él un margen para el estado que llaman de los espectadores. José Ortega y Gasset2

Theater, mimesis of reality, simulates on a stage actions and sentiments that imitate human acts and emotions. This awakens a reaction in the spectator as an integral part of the theatrical game. The audience is theater’s raison d’etre, the final consumer of the performed product. We must remember that, apart from theater of a religious nature, we are before a principally commercial genre, governed by the tastes of the vulgate, as Lope de Vega said. Knowing the spectator, and contextualizing the works not only chronologically but also geographically, helps us to better understand an entire era. Many critical studies of dramatic texts have been carried out. In Spain in particular, Golden Age theater has been extensively analyzed, and one could even say restricted, within the well-known term Siglo de Oro, or Spanish 1  2 

See Valdivieso (2012, 259). See Ortega y Gasset (1966, 16-17).

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Golden Age,3 which many attribute to George Ticknor: “Ticknor’s History of Spanish Literature is an attempt to fit the literature of Spain into a framework of ideas” (Hart 1954, 76). The twentieth century broadened the field a little more, and interesting investigations were conducted in women’s studies and dramaturgy,4 and in the area of staging.5 In any case, the canon remains relatively exclusive, and there are many unpublished manuscripts and varied performance themes that still have not come to light. Many critics are working presently to resolve this problem, and studies and critical editions are being published that broaden the thematic panorama.6 Nevertheless, the audience is often overlooked as a source of inspiration to continue advancing our knowledge of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century dramatic works. What information can a twenty-first-century spectator offer when unraveling new aspects of theatrical practices in Spain during the Habsburg reign? How can a specific performance of one of Calderón de la Barca’s works serve as the key that opens the structured isolation of the Spanish Golden Age to a spatially globalized and interconnected world? What do classic Golden Age comedies have in common with Chinese opera? This article proposes to analyze the March 6, 2006 performance of El astrólogo fingido (The Fake Astrologer) from the International Siglo de Oro Drama Festival at El Chamizal National Memorial in El Paso, Texas, which coincided with the annual conference for the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater (AHCT). The peculiarity of this staging is that it utilized 3  The term comes from the marquis of Valderrama, Luis José Velázquez de Angulo, who used it in the eighteenth century to refer to the Renaissance. By the nineteenth century, Harvard professor George Ticknor would use it in his History of Spanish Literature (1859), expanding the period to between 1492 and 1665, although presently it has been extended by consensus until 1681, the year of Calderón’s death. 4  See Soufas (1997), Mujica (2004), among others. Also note that the term Siglo de Oro, or Golden Age, is giving way to a more open and global period, which would be the Early Modern. 5  See, for example, the monograph by Ruano de la Haza, La puesta en escena en los teatros comerciales del Siglo de Oro (2000), which uses sources such as the research by John E. Varey and Norman D. Shergold. 6  Among them we can cite Juan Pablo Gil-Oslé and his book about Tirso de Molina’s Los cigarrales de la privanza y el mecenazgo en Tirso de Molina (2016), on the topic of patronship, or Christina Lee and her edition of the work situated in Asia, Los mártires de Japón, which she attributes to Lope de Vega (Lope de Vega 2006).

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typical elements from traditional Chinese opera, and adapted them to the dialogue and to actors’ corporeal expressions, makeup, and costumes. The result, which at first could seem dissonant, ended up creating a full theater with the audience completely surrendered to the acting. This experiment represented the triumph of globality by combining the text of a Madrilenian author, Calderón, with the interpretation by a Colombian company, Teatro del Valle, under the direction of Chinese Ma Zenghong and Colombian Alejandro González Puche, within the setting of Chamizal, a place along the U.S. and Mexico border, performed in Spanish with Chinese scenography. In these pages, this unusual example of a performance of a Calderonian comedy will be utilized to answer the questions planted earlier. To accomplish that, the spectator’s point of view will be taken as the principal one, which in this case can help as much to decipher the play’s success in the early twenty-first century, as to reveal what type of popular reception it could have had in the seventeenth century. As the director of this same performance said: “Sólo se conoce una obra cuando tenemos la respuesta de los espectadores, el resto es especulación” (González Puche 2018). The etymology of the word “spectator” refers to the Greek verb “skopeo,” which means to observe, and to the Latin verb “spectare”: to contemplate, to await. In the third century BC, with Plautus, it gains the sense presented by the Diccionario de la Real Academia in its second entry, one who “contemplates a public spectacle,” which is usually theatrical, although other types of spectacle are not excluded. In any case, the word refers to the sense of sight over any other, including sound. There is no reference to reading since the spectator is not who reads the theatrical work, but who contemplates it. Visual aspects take precedence over what is said, over what is heard. The philosopher José Ortega y Gasset employs the title The Spectator to one of his essay collections, where he broadens the term and classifies spectators as their own social class, along with the known medieval classes composed of soldiers, clerics, and workers (1966, 16-17). In the realm of theater, Teresa Valdivieso follows Wolfgang Iser’s reader-response theory7 and indi7  Wolfgang Iser is one of the most important figures in the development of reader-response theory. Iser posited that any literary text contains blank spaces that the reader must concretize upon reading.

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cates that “la función del espectador consiste en descubrir y dar significación a esa conversación que se le entrega por partes mediante la interacción de los actores en el espacio escénico” (2012, 254). In this specific staging of El astrólogo fingido, the audience was principally composed of the Spanish-speaking residents of El Paso and a group of specialists, mostly university professors, who attend each year to see the works and celebrate their symposium on theater. In this case, it was the 31st convocation of the International Siglo de Oro Drama Festival, whose origin dates back to 1967, making it the oldest festival of this type in the United States. For 31 years, the citizens of this border area have attended multiple performances and have acquired a critical taste that has been refining itself over time. In fact, many companies pass through local schools first to present their work to students, leading to occasional younger audience members among the attendees. A point to be emphasized is that, with the exception of the university professors, the rest of the audience does not usually read the works, and is only familiar with them through their staging. For example, The Great Theater of the World (El gran teatro del mundo), also by Calderón, has already been performed ten times at the festival, while this was only the second occasion in which they adapted El astrólogo fingido.8 The majority of the spectators were unfamiliar with the comedy’s plot. It is not one of those works that usually form part of the required corpus in school curricula, nor has it awoken great interest in critics. Fernando Rodríguez-Gallego, who has carried out a meticulous textual study of the play, defends that two distinct versions exist, and in 2011 published a critical edition comparing the manuscripts. Rodríguez-Gallego asserts that Calderón probably composed this work when he was around 25 years old, thus making it his first comedia de capa y espada, or cloak and dagger comedy, and one of the first to be printed in 1632 (“Introducción” 2011, 14). The international expansion of this play is surprising, as up to fourteen different versions came out between the seven8  The first performance was in 1999 by a Venezuelan theater troupe under the direction of Costa Palamides. Fernando Rodríguez-Gallego compiles information on performances of the play since its debut in the seventeenth century until the year 2010 and concludes: “Esta no muy abundante presencia del Astrólogo sobre los escenarios en los últimos decenios se corresponde con la poca atención que ha despertado entre la crítica” (2011, 17).

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teenth and eighteenth centuries, only two less than Life is a Dream, including imitations by Madeleine Scudéry, Thomas Corneille, and John Dryden, among others (Rodríguez-Gallego 2011, 15). Although there is no tangible data on any performances of El astrólogo fingido during its time, the success of its printing and diffusion appears to confirm that it did not go unnoticed by the public. However, Rodríguez-Gallego cautiously indicates that “difícil resulta saber el grado de éxito que tendría en España por entonces” (2011, 14). Due to the lack of documentation that would demonstrate the reaction of the seventeenth-century public to this and other comedies, this article’s focus on the attitude of the spectators before the 2006 performance serves as an example to analyze the audience’s response to what occurs onstage. The comedy is set in Madrid and the plot centers on an amorous intrigue, or better yet, various intrigues. On one side, Doña María is in love with Don Juan and rejects Don Diego, who is also courting her. On the other, Doña Violante is also in love with Don Juan, while Carlos pines away for Violante. On a secondary level, the romantic relationship between Morón, Don Diego’s servant, and Beatriz, who serves Doña María, is developed. The theme that gives the play its title begins with the action already progressed, when Don Diego, who has found out that María and Don Juan are secretly seeing each other, pretends to be an astrologer and to know that and other secrets, thanks to his science. The characters communicate information to their friends or masters, asking that the other keep the secret, but the news travels mouth-to-mouth until it reaches all of Madrid. From there, the astrologer’s fame spreads like the wind and generates numerous misunderstandings and comical moments. Nevertheless, at the opening of the performance, the spectators remained silent, despite the fact that the actors carried out comical pantomimes. Adhering to the characteristics of Chinese musical theater, the play started with sounds from the percussionist, acrobatics, and symbolic movement from the characters onstage. The lights first focused on the musician, Mauricio Nieto, then illuminated the minimalist stage with a large, red folding screen in the center, without needing to lift the curtain.9 There, a man with a false white 9  “...the stage in Chinese opera is not hidden behind a large, heavy curtain. ...A large curtain hangs at the back; the players enter and exit through side openings in the curtain. This bare setting gives no indication of what will take place” (Yang 2009, 3).

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beard and dressed like a Chinese peasant came out doing acrobatics with a stick to the rhythm of the xylophone. Soon, other characters, still unknown to the public, joined him, and pretended to hide, fall, did somersaults and cartwheels, passed under the old man feigning sleep, and one even managed to rob a kiss from an actress. However, all of this passed without any applause, nor laughter, nor even a murmur. The first words uttered by María and Beatriz were also met by a mute public. The declamations often had marked endings to each verse, and the enjambments did not continue in a natural way. It seemed as if the rhythm of the tune were more important than the content. In every moment, small musical chords that emphasized, interrupted, paused, or concluded phrases accompanied the spoken words. The music also accompanied the movements of the actresses on stage, who continually went from one side to the other, represented with marked gyrations, with which they created a spatial sensation that surpassed the physical limitations of the proscenium: Just as it is difficult to tell where gesture ends and dance begins for a Chinese actor, so the spoken and the sung word mingle, accompanied and emphasized by the music. The music is not only the accompaniment to the arias, recitative, gestures, steps and movements, but creates with extraordinary sensitiveness the atmosphere of the whole plot and the mood of each scene. (Kalvodová 1957, 15)

Adorned in brightly colored outfits and with profuse makeup, one could not tell at first sight which one was the mistress and which the servant, except maybe by the fact that Doña María always carried a sheer fan10 that moved with elegance. One would have to know more details of the play and know the rest of the characters to comprehend their respective idiosyncrasies. The costumes really stood out, purposefully, since in the tradition of Chinese theater “Peking Opera is an art based on symbolism... Clothing and make up are also symbolic. The beautiful costumes are actually objets d’art alleg-

10  As an example of the use of the fan, suffice it to mention the opera A Thousand Pieces of Gold for a Smile, whose female role was played by the famous Mei Lanfang: “Fans function as the main prop in this opera and Mei Lanfang meticulously choreographed a dance piece for the main character Qingwen” (Wang 2006, 124).

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edly patterned after apparel worn during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644)” (Yang 2009, 3). It is worth pausing a moment to review the historical context of this epoch and look for points of contact between China and Spain. The Ming Dynasty reigned for more than a century in parallel to the Habsburgs in Spain, and their realms, although geographically distant, maintained a strong connection, principally economic, and began to decline around the same time.11 “A pesar de que el comercio de la plata entre América y China estaba ––a excepción del Galeón de Manila–– dominado por otras potencias europeas como los ingleses o los holandeses, las altas cotizaciones supusieron un nivel de desarrollo elevado” (Rivas Moreno 2014). Thanks to galleons, also known as La Nao de China, which traversed the route between Manila (the Philippines) and Acapulco (Mexico), the “Flotas de Indias” brought sought-after Chinese products to the ports of Seville or Cadiz (Spain): porcelain, perfumes, spices—even the fans mentioned previously, currently representative of Spanish localness—, came from China, as well as the Madrilenian Manila shawls. This demonstrates that the seventeenth-century world enjoyed fully globalized commerce. Returning again to the topic of dress, we can see this admiration for foreign textiles in the words of Calderón himself, when at the beginning of El astrólogo fingido Beatriz describes Don Juan: Llevaba un vestido airoso sin guarnición ni bordado, que con lo bien sazonado no hizo falta lo costoso; 11  Historian Juan José Rivas Moreno explains the economic link between Spain and China. During the Ming Dynasty, China became the prime economic power with a quarter of the world’s population. The Chinese based their transactions on the value of gold and silver, so when the silver mines began to work in Zacatecas and Potosí, the Spanish contributed to maintaining equilibrium between population growth in China and upholding the quality of life. 50% of American silver ended up in the Asian empire. But, the high production of the metal caused a reduction in its value, a recession in Spain, and a fiscal crisis in China. The decline of the Habsburgs would begin in 1643, with their defeat at the Battle of Rocroi against the French, and the later signing of the Treaty of Westfalia in 1648. Meanwhile, in 1644, the Manchu conquered Peking and defeated the Ming, installing the Qing Dynasty (Moreno 2014).

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cabos blancos sin cuidado, valona y vueltas muy grandes con muchas puntas de Flandes; en fin, muy a lo soldado. (2011, Z. vv. 5-12)12

Even if the silk came from China, the thread came from Holland, which is to what those “puntas de Flandes” are referring.13 The dress, makeup, objects carried, and even ways of speaking and moving are distinctive of each actor.14 The actors designed and created their own costumes in the workshop from which this performance originated. Despite the fact that, as has been explained, the aesthetic inspiration for the play came from Peking opera models, it’s worth observing in the costume of Doña Violante, for example, echoes of the hoop skirt from Spanish Baroque paintings, and of the mantilla (more common in the nineteenth century). In an interview conducted by Christopher Gascón, the play’s directors clarified that they considered various ideas, trying to show Baroque disproportionality and exuberance, always keeping the audience as a reference point: El propósito principal era rescatar el espíritu del teatro del Siglo de Oro como un teatro popular... Cada personaje tenía que identificar una imagen, vestuario y resonador específico para que todos los elementos fueran coherentes entre sí, y claro, termina siendo muy popular y exótica la convención. Se retomó la idea que los espectadores asistían a los corrales a ver bellos atuendos conjuntamente con la acrobacia y poesía. (Gascón 2007, 207)

In effect, although we do not have concrete information on this play’s performances in the epoch in which it was written, we do know that the spectators came looking for entertainment more than anything: “Estos diversos 12  In this article, the citations from El astrólogo fingido are taken from the Zaragoza (Z) manuscript edited by Rodríguez-Gallego (2011), as this text is the most extensive and closest to the adaptation performed by Teatro del Valle. 13  For a detailed commentary on the clothing described in these lines, see the notes in Rodríguez-Gallego’s edition (2011, 338-39). 14  The directors confirm this: “Al principio la idea fue elaborar personajes muy barrocos, es decir con una obsesión particular (casi neurótica) y una imagen del mundo que inclusive excluyera a otros personajes, alejándonos de la uniformidad de estilo” (Gascón 2007, 206).

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públicos del Siglo de Oro acuden al teatro sin duda con espíritu de diversión” (Arellano 2002, 109). In that sense, they weren’t much different from Chinese audiences, who didn’t care about the story being told, but the interpretations of them by their favorite actors, and the entertainment of watching them act: “Chinese theater is one hundred per cent entertainment” (West 2016)15. In these popular roots of Chinese theater, we find certain connections with the audiences of Golden Age comedies. Another point worth noting is that within this affinity for diversion, there is no place for tragedies: “To ask about tragedy in Chinese drama is like to ask for hamburgers in a Chinese restaurant” (West 2016). The performance of El astrólogo fingido analyzed here expressed very well that absence of tragic elements, and kept the spectators’ eyes glued to what was happening onstage. After a few timid minutes, perhaps provoked by that “exotic convention” mentioned by the directors, the audience began to laugh with the actors’ movements and expressions. For example, in the eighth minute, a ridiculous Don Juan began to connect with the audience through his artificial personality, and the initial silence began to fill up with murmurs and laughs. It is difficult to mention the word exoticism without associating it with the studies of theorist Edward Said. Even though his theory of Orientalism cannot be applied to this theatrical adaptation in particular (remember that the play’s director instills her own vision of the “other” from the same perspective of that “other,” since she was born and studied the dramatic arts in China), the idea expressed by Said is interesting: that the initial strangeness of foreignness provokes a defensive response, but that one form of dealing with the difference is by becoming familiar with it, and recognizing versions of what is already known in the radically new.16 This could explain the audi15  Stephen West, who studies theater during the Ming Dynasty, situates the origins of Chinese opera in the daily histories that come from the streets, where the whole world at once observes and is observed. People want to see the things that happen, they want to contemplate, and thus become spectators of what occurs onstage. 16  “Something patently foreign and distant acquires, for one reason or another, a status more rather than less familiar... that allows one to see new things, things seen for the first time, as versions of a previously known thing... If the mind must suddenly deal with what it takes to be a radically new form of life... the response on the whole is conservative and defensive” (Said 1979, 58-59).

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ence’s muteness at the beginning of the play. This was the first time that the four principal techniques representative of traditional Chinese opera ––singing, reciting, dance-acting, and acrobatics–– were presented to the festival’s audience at El Chamizal in this particular unconventional way. Nevertheless, once they made the pertinent connections and understood the characteristics of each actor interpreting their roles, the audience became receptive and awarded the theatrical group with their laughter and ovation. One of the connections with the audience worth highlighting was the use of asides, so often employed in Golden Age theater as a mode of direct communication with the spectator. The actor speaks to the audience and communicates something that the other actors don’t hear. In this case, the musical chords and actors’ gestures went together perfectly, so that each time an actor pantomimed opening an imaginary zipper, the audience knew that an aside was beginning. And when the zipper was closed with a distinctive sound, the aside ended. This technique for asides is also used in Peking opera: “the aside is used only by the clown or the frivolous female. This device allows the character to speak to the audience from the stage and is done for humorous effect” (Yang 2009, 11). This brings us to another connection, the comedic one, which normally is found in the role of the servant. In The Fake Astrologer, Morón plays this role. Wearing a type of fez, or Turkish hat, and with touches of white paint on his dark skin, he emulates his own name by representing a Moorish servant, and causing continual laughter in the audience with his jokes. Otáñez: Mentís, que no soy judío. Morón: Pues ¿qué? ¿Moro? Otáñez: Vos sois moro, y aún morón, pues es lo mismo que moro grande. Morón: En efecto (2011, Z. vv. 2811-2814)

In fact, it is Morón who has the ingenious idea to fake that his master, Don Diego, is an astrologer, with the goal of concealing Beatriz so she wouldn’t be blamed for having told of the secret relationship between Doña María and Don Juan. The effect of continuously improvising the lie was emphasized by the percussion, which added suspense and comicality to the scene.

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Calderón’s text helped the audience follow the story’s plot with little effort, as the actors narrated to one another what had happened and repeated information that should have been private, until it became vox populi. This continual reiteration, in the seventeenth century, would have served the more distracted spectators who may have been talking or spatting with their neighbors, so that they could pick up on the plot, thanks to the summaries provided by different characters throughout the play. In any case, the importance is placed more on actions than words, on laughter more than content. This is told through the actors’ wrist movements, which make the hanging extremities of their sleeves fly around,17with their eye movements, or with the simplified use of a stick and cloth that represent the carriage in which a lady is travelling. A noteworthy example of the use of simple elements to generate powerful imagery appears in the third act, when Calderón nods to the well-known episode of Clavileño, narrated in the second part of Don Quijote (Cervantes 2004, 40-41). Onstage, the scene produces a high comedic effect on the audience. In this case, instead of a wooden horse, an imaginary mode of transport is employed: a simple box, a stick used as an oar, and the actor’s pedaling leg movements create the sensation that the character believes himself to be sailing through the air, while around him the pieces are being set about that will lead into the comedy’s end. Despite the play’s long duration of two hours without an intermission, the audience did not leave, and energetically applauded the actors’ work.18 The term aplauso (applause) appears in Covarrubias’ dictionary as “la aprobación del pueblo, y de todo ser común, con semblante risueño, y voz de alegría, y dando una palma con otra,” but also expresses the danger of letting oneself be carried away by the vanity of applause and becoming an actor, making it understood that this was not a prestigious profession: “...y muchos buenos ingenios han dejado sus estudios, y seguido la compañía de los come17  “These snow-white silk cuffs covering the hands finish off the sleeves of the costume. They float and wave... “rippling water sleeves” is their name. Their movement is full of fascinating charm. The sleeves speak... In short symbols they express grace, passion, contempt...” (Kalvodová 1957, 8). 18  “El astrólogo fingido lasted exactly 120 glorious minutes. The only regret was that it had to end at all” (Lauer 2007, 191).

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diantes, porque saliendo al teatro, los oyentes los reciben con señal de gusto y contento” (1674, 55). The final applause, in this case, was also accompanied by a standing ovation. This serves to confirm the success of the performance, but there are also testimonies corroborating it. Robert Lauer reviews all of the performances from the festival, and highlighted El astrólogo fingido as having the best acting: “This was a magnificent spectacle that will be long remembered by the El Paso and Ciudad Juárez19 audiences. . . . The acting was sterling. In fact, this reviewer does not recall better acting anywhere else in the world” (2007, 190). Lauer expands upon the globalizing aspects of the performance. He sees beyond the Chinese aesthetics, and explains how the staging incorporated some gestures and dress of India as well as German lighting techniques from Brecht dramas,20 and even touches of Brazilian capoeira integrated into choreographed fight scenes. He points out the declamatory labor of the actors, which he classifies as “crystal clear and perfectly timed,” but he also recognizes that the audience is not accustomed to such marked line endings, something that according to him only occurred at the beginning of the performance.21 As explained in this essay, the initial shock of the audience to this type of unusual representation of Golden Age theater was palpable, but it is understood that this is more owed to the initial strangeness of the exotic talked about by Said, than to the declamatory emphasis of the actors. At the end of the play the actors also sustained the marked pause at the end of the verses, but the spectator was already familiar with it, accommodated the sounds to the general rhythm of the story, and set aside that initial fear toward the unknown and different, finding the connections through which it became familiar.

19  The companies that put on plays at the festival in El Chamizal, in El Paso (United States), also do a performance the next day in the bordering city of Ciudad Juárez (Mexico). 20  The directors negated having consciously used Brechtian techniques, with the exception of the implicit commentaries in the actual text by Calderón, “quien a veces detiene la acción dramática para establecer un careo o una aclaración a los espectadores sobre las reglas del arte que está observando” (Gascón 2007, 212). 21  “...although at the beginning of the play much emphasis was placed on final rhymes, a practice that modern audiences find objectionable” (Lauer 2007, 190).

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As Christopher Gascón postulates, this performance is a clear example of intercultural theater.22 Gascón recognizes that there is a reigning skepticism among critics when it comes to embracing these intercultural performances, and at the same time, that the directors and actors are who really push these projects forward. In his deliberations, he posits more questions than answers, but illuminates possible paths that critics could follow: “Intercultural theater is not one-size-fits-all. Perhaps critics and theorists would be better served by assessing plays on the criteria they appear to set for themselves, and by setting realistic expectations” (2009, n.p.). As a spectator of this intercultural performance of The Fake Astrologer, Gascón also gives a positive evaluation of it, praising the corporeal work of the actors: As a spectator, I witnessed actors who had taught their bodies the habitual movements of another culture and genre so well that they seemed natural, comfortable, expressive and enchanting. Their movement was evidence enough for me that a profound intercultural transformation had taken place on the level of each of their bodies. I saw no evidence of cultural exploitation or reduction, but rather a performance that highlighted the beauty of both cultural texts involved. (2009, n.p.)

And Kerry Wilks emphasizes the play’s warm acceptance by the public: I was impressed by this production and believe that the company produced a vibrant production that resonated with the audience. True, the Peking Opera style was not a part of the majority (any?) of the audiences’ cultural background, yet the world of the play created seemed to emphasize (for me) many of the wonderful qualities of a comedia de capa y espada that unfortunately are too often lost in the productions seen at this annual festival. (2009, n.p.)

22  Intercultural theater could be defined as: “performances which have a cultural identity that does not coincide with that of their intended audience (Bennet), or that create hybrid forms drawing upon a more or less conscious and voluntary mixing of performance traditions traceable to distinct cultural areas (Pavis), or representations where a style or aesthetic is borrowed from another culture” (Gascón 2009).

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These testimonies are especially important because they come from scholars specialized in Golden Age theater, and from what we have seen, the most reticent group in terms of theoretically accepting these globalizing or intercultural projects as a type of performance. An exotic and successful adaptation like this one remains not only in the memory of the spectators, but can also open the doors to studies that are more attentive to the audience, within the analyses of onstage performances. The twenty-first century spectator, like the seventeenth-century one, lives in a globalized world, with cultural and economic connections among geographically distant countries. Contemporary audiences value the entertainment received upon contemplating a play, just as those who attended seventeenth-century performances did. Both types of spectators are surprised when observing the actors’ opulent costumes, which add exuberance and Baroqueness to the performance. Little wonder that in the seventeenth century, Baroque festivities were put into practice, and people went into the streets to see the parade of nobles, who passed in procession showing off their regalia. Their dress and movements converted a formal scene into a spectacle. In these pages we have touched on various examples of connections between Golden Age comedies and Chinese opera; for example, the spectacle’s primacy over the written text. In classic Chinese musical theater, the stories are known beforehand by the audience, which does not need to follow what is said word-for-word, but instead delights in contemplating and comparing the actors’ talent. In the seventeenth century, theater was the primary mode of diversion for people, which created a demand for new stories, but all of them coming from the same patron. The comedia de capa y espada, full of amorous intrigues, confusions, and comical moments, served as the infallible formula for attracting a crowd. In terms of staging, Kalvodová explains that Chinese opera “is not encumbered with awkward stage properties, a false imitation of reality, and that it lets the audience give free rein to their imagination and concentrate only on the actor” (1957, 14). Equally, in the comedy corrals there weren’t many methods for decorating the performance, therefore the actors’ movements and dress, and the audience’s imagination, were left to complete the scene (something different would happen with theater in palaces and the performances of autos sacramentales, where a complicated rig system onstage created impactful machinations and effects to awaken the

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audience’s fascination). The music, dance, and acrobatics that are essential to Peking opera were very important in the seventeenth century, since an afternoon at the theater was extended with songs, dances, even juggling, small hors d’oeuvres, and masquerades that kept the audiences entertained. Even the play’s versification, mixed with percussive sounds typical of Chinese opera, seems to find a more amenable rhythm that becomes familiar to the ears of a contemporary spectator, initially surprised by the recitation’s artificiality. Finally, the testimonies of critics who were also spectators of this specific performance serve as evidence that just one representation can revive the elements that were lauded in successful Golden Age comedies. And that same performance can also awaken new questions among scholars. In a globalized world like that of the twenty-first century, governed by the power of images, the humanities have entered in crisis, and Spanish Golden Age studies appeal to fewer and fewer students. It is the onus of new generations to broaden the field and find new ways to explain and revitalize classic theater.23 Andrew Kircher, a young theater producer and doctoral student in theater history, reacted with a comment online to Gascón’s article about intercultural theater: Can you talk more about the intercultural elements of this production and how it affected the reception/understanding of the text? I think this is an important part of our study in Spanish Golden Age reception in modern times––a few specific examples would help to highlight why the Peking Opera stylings restored (or failed to restore) relevance or gave new meaning to the text for a modern audience. (2009, n.p.)

So, as spectators and specialists, there is an interest in incorporating new elements that give vitality back to Baroque theater. This article is an attempt to respond to the questions that, like Kircher, many of us formulate today, with the intention of looking beyond the text and making the audience back

23  It’s curious to see that while in the West, Spanish Golden Age studies are in decline, in China they are booming, and, for example, the University of Najing (in Eastern China) created the theater group Quijote in 2015, the first in Spanish in their country. Interestingly, their first performance was a play by Calderón, La vida es sueño, directed by Hispanist Chen Kaixian (“Crean en China primer grupo de teatro en español,” El Mundo 1 June 2015).

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into a protagonist, as the spectators are, in the end, the ones who demand the product and pay to see it. Works Cited Arellano, Ignacio. 2002. Historia del teatro español del siglo xvii. Madrid: Cátedra. Calderón de la Barca, Pedro. 2011. El astrólogo fingido. Edited by Fernando Rodríguez-Gallego. Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert. — 2016. El astrólogo fingido. Directed by Alejandro González Puche and Ma Zhenghong. Festival Teatro Clásico El Chamizal, El Paso, Texas. DVD. Cervantes, Miguel de. 2004. Don Quijote de la Mancha. Edited by Francisco Rico. Barcelona: Círculo de Lectores. Covarrubias, Sebastián. 1674. Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española. Madrid: Melchor Sánchez. “Crean en China primer grupo de teatro en español.” 2015. El Mundo, June 1, 2015. https://elmundo.sv/crean-en-china-primer-grupo-de-teatro-en-espanol/. “Espectador.” 2014. Diccionario de la lengua española. Real Academia Española. 23 ed. Gascón, Christopher D. 2009. “Innovation through Intertextuality, Multiculturalism, and Costuming.” New Approaches. Wikispaces Classroom. https://spanishgolden-age-plays.wikispaces.com/Innovation+through+Intertextuality%2C+M ulticulturalism%2C+and+Costuming+%28Gascón%29. — 2007. “Calderón y la ópera pekinesa: El astrólogo fingido del Teatro del Valle. Interview with Ma Zhenghong and Alejandro González Puche.” Comedia Performance 4 (1): 199-216. Gil-Oslé, Juan Pablo. 2016. Los cigarrales de la privanza y mecenazgo en Tirso de Molina. Madrid: Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert. González Puche, Alejandro. 2018. “Memory of Pedro de Urdemalas Play: Staging Cervantes in Beijing.” Paper presented at a Conference on comparative perspectives of Early Modern Theater. Chicago University Center in Hong Kong. Hart, Thomas R. Jr. 1954. “George Ticknor’s History of Spanish Literature: The New England Background.” PMLA 69 (1): 76-88. Kalvodová-Sís-Vaniš. 1957. Chinese Theatre. Translated by Iris Urwin. London: Spring Books. Kircher, Andrew. 2009. Wikispaces Classroom. Comment in response to Christopher Gascón’s article “Innovation.” Lauer, Robert A. 2007. “Chamizal.” Bulletin of the Comediantes 59 (1): 187-218.

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Lope de Vega, Félix. 2006. Los mártires de Japón. Edited by Christina H. Lee. Newark, Delaware: Juan de la Cuesta. — 1609. Arte nuevo de hacer comedias. Biblioteca virtual Miguel de Cervantes. Mujica, Barbara. 2004. Women Writers of Early Modern Spain: Sophia’s Daughters. London: Yale University Press. Ortega y Gasset, José. 1966. El espectador. In Obras completas Vol. II. Madrid: Revista de Occidente. Rivas Moreno, Juan José. 2014. “El Imperio Español y la China de la Dinastía Ming, unidas por la plata.” El Mundo, December 2, 2014. Rodríguez-Gallego, Fernando. 2011. “Introducción” and “Estudio textual.” In El astrólogo fingido by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, 11-197. Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert. Ruano de la Haza, José María. 2000. La puesta en escena en los teatros comerciales del Siglo de Oro. Madrid: Castalia. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. 1979. New York: Vintage Books. Soufas, Teresa Scott. 1997. Women’s Acts: Plays by Women Dramatists of Spain’s Golden Age. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. Ticknor, George. 1849. History of Spanish Literature. New York: Harper and Brothers. Valdivieso, Teresa. 2012. Aproximaciones al estudio de la literatura hispánica. New York: McGraw Hill. Wang, Wenzhang, et al. 2006. Mei Lanfang, the Art of Beijing Opera: An Illustrated Record of Mei Lanfang’s Performance. New York: Better Link Press. West, Stephen H. 2016. “Ming Dynasty Theater.” Unpublished lecture, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, September 20, 2016. Wilks, Kerry. 2009. “El astrólogo in context.” Wikispaces Classroom. 21 jul 2009. Comment in response to Christopher Gascón’s article “Innovation”. Yang, Richard Fu-Sen. 2009. Mei Lanfang and Peking Opera. Beijing: Foreign Language Press.

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From Novel and Theater

(Pedro Calderón de la Barca, La vida es sueño, directed by Chen Kaixian) Matthew Ancell

Little is known about Zhaung Zhou (ca. 369-286 BC), the author of the text that bears his more common name, called Zhuangzi or “Master Zhuang.” The first seven books of the Zhuangzi are attributed to the historical Zhaung Zhou and are usually considered to form a coherent whole. Appearing in what are referred to as the “Inner Chapters,” Zhaung Zhou’s dream is found at the end of chapter two: Once Zhaung Zhou dreamt he was a butterfly, fluttering about joyfully just as a butterfly would. He followed his whims exactly as he liked and knew nothing about Zhaung Zhou. Suddenly he awoke, and there he was, the startled Zhaung Zhou in the flesh. He did not know if Zhou had been dreaming he was a butterfly, or if a butterfly was now dreaming it was Zhou. Surely, Zhou and a butterfly count as two distinct identities! Such is what we call the transformation of one thing into another. (Zhaungzi 2009, 21)

This famous account from the Zhaungzi has entered popular culture in the U.S. One example, from Episode 1 of the second season of Legion, a science fiction drama on the FX Network that forms part of the Marvel comic universe, interpolates the legend of Zhaung Zhou’s dream into a story—narrated by Jon Hamm (of Mad Men fame)—about mental labyrinths and madness. After the traditional tale from the Zhaungzi, the sequence transitions into a series of repulsive images, beginning with an oil-black monstrous bird that hatches from an egg, which then proceeds to consume a chick. Moments later a boy saws off his own leg after he perceives it to be alien to him. Initially, this move seems to be a non-sequitur, and while anyone familiar with the Spanish sphere would think of Calderón’s La vida es sueño during the Zhaungzi seg-

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ment, how the amputation and other elements of the vignette fit in is not as apparent. In its framing, intertextuality, and allusiveness, a 2015 adaptation and production of La vida es sueño in China parallels this Hollywood appropriation and brings disparate traditions together in a modern context. Central to the relationship between these works are the issues of adaptation and transformation. As Linda Hutcheon and Siobhan O’Flynn theorize, “As a creative and interpretive transposition of a recognizable other work or works, adaptation is kind of extended palimpsest and, at the same time, often a transcoding into a different set of conventions” (2013, 33). As we will see, this work grafts a quintessentially Chinese story in the Zhuangzi onto both La vida es sueño and Don Quijote in a palimpsestic and, I argue, grotesque adaptation. Some connections exist between Calderón, in particular La vida es sueño, and cultures east of Europe, but only in the most general terms. It is probable that the kernel of La vida es sueño’s plot came from a tale compiled in the Thousand and One Nights. An aspect that the Romantics observed in, or rather projected onto, Calderón was a sense of Orientalism produced by the fusion of Moorish and Christian cultures, reinforced by the chivalric image of Spain in the romances. For Goethe, Calderón became, as he had for August Wilhelm Schlegel, a bridge between Western and Eastern cultures (Kramer and Ancell 2008, 335). In 1813, Schopenhauer saw a production of La vida es sueño directed by Goethe, inspiring a section of The World as Will and Representation, in which he wrote: [I]t must remain forever undecided whether an event was dreamt or whether it really occurred. Here indeed the close relationship between life and the dream is brought out for us very clearly. We will not be ashamed to confess it, after it has been recognized and expressed by many great men. The Vedas and Puranas know no better simile for the whole knowledge of the actual world, called by them the web of Māyā, than the dream….Calderón was so impressed with this view, that he sought to express it in a kind of metaphysical drama, Life is a Dream. (1969, 17)

Regarding this passage, Henry Sullivan concludes, “Calderón is thus identified as…the metaphysician of Schopenhauer’s own theories on the veil of Maya” (1983, 225). The notion of maya, or the magical deific power used to create the cosmos and then used to hide behind that very creation, develops in Schopenhauer’s thoughts to become, as Douglas Berger explains:

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an epistemological category of falsification and an existential fetter that causes human beings to comport themselves…in an ethically pernicious way. More specifically Schopenhauer believes maya to be a way the world appears to us as something it is not. . . Epistemologically, maya entails an erroneous perception of things and a fallacious assessment of their nature; axiologically, it is the inauthentic valuation of world and other; metaphysically, it is the mere phenomenal appearance of a noumenal reality; and ethically, it leads to an unjustifiable alienation of other from self. (2004, 63)

Schopenhauer’s fascination and linkage of Calderón with Upanishadic and Vedic ideas is perhaps as fanciful as the Romantics’ exoticism of Spain, but the philosophical content in his dramatic corpus does seem to invite these comparisons, which in turn can be productive. There is a direct encounter between China and Calderón in a 2015 production of the second act from La vida es sueño, directed by Chen Kaixian, Emeritus Professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Nanjing. The English department at Nanjing organized a festival in 2014 to commemorate a Shakespearean theater festival from 1964 put on by Chen’s father, who was the head of English at the time. Following this precedent, Chen organized a student theater troupe in 2015, called El Grupo Teatral Estudiantil Quijote. The group adapted the second act of La vida es sueño and Chen wrote a short first and third act to complement the second by Calderón, in which appear Cervantes, Don Quijote, Sancho Panza, and in the third, Zhaung Zhou. El Grupo Teatral Estudiantil Quijote is the first troupe in China, and the only student group in Asia, to only perform Spanish plays. Encouraged by the former Spanish consul in Shanghai, and current ambassador to South Korea, Gonzalo Ortiz Díez-Tortosa, the group premiered at an annual university event, the ninth Semana de la Cultura Española e Hispanoamericana of the Instituto Jinling, to an audience of Spanish-American diplomats. The event gave rise to the first Festival Teatral en Español of the Institute, likely the first of its kind in Asia. Chen indicates he was following the example of García Lorca and his student theater group, La Barranca. Subsequently, the group has performed Bodas de sangre and La casa de Bernarda Alba in Mexico and Buenos Aires. After these successes, the Instituto Jinling announced it would create a course of study in Spanish Theater Theory and Practice at the University of Nanjing that could be combined with other majors. These

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events resulted in, predictably, better oral expression and communication skills, student collaboration, and greater understanding despite linguistic and cultural differences, marking a milestone for university-level Spanish education in China (“Una universidad” 2015). The first act of Chen’s adaptation of La vida es sueño begins with Cervantes seated at a table, pen in hand, with traditional Spanish music in the background. Rising, he soliloquizes, quoting initially from his text: Cervantes: ‘En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor’. Después de sus dos viajes fracasados, nuestro querido Don Quijote, acompañado por su criado, Sancho Panza, decidió hacer su tercera peregrinación, al lejano país oriental donde yo sería el Rector del Colegio de la lengua castellana, designado por su Majestad, el Emperador de la China. (Chen 2015a, 24)

塞万提斯：不久以前，在拉曼恰 地区的某个村镇，地名我就不提 了，住着一位绅士。

在经历过两次失败之后，我们的 骑士堂吉诃德，还有他的侍从桑 丘·潘萨，决定第三次出征。这次 他们要去的是遥远的东方，去赴 任中国皇帝敕封的西班牙文书院 院长。

Cervantes and his protagonists appearing in Calderón’s play is motivated by 2015 being, of course, the quadricentennial of the second part of the Quijote. The appointment of Cervantes as Rector of Spanish by, one assumes, the Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, seems to be a bit of self-indulgent fun by Chen as the author of the current text and former occupant of a similar position. It is not clear if Cervantes is reciting the words he has just written, or if he is in the middle of composing Chen’s additions. The quotation obviously serves as a prologue and bridge to the new material, while demonstrating the kind of interpolative play exploited in this production. As the light fades on Cervantes, Don Quijote and Sancho Panza appear, and discuss a third campaign that Chen invented for Don Quijote, in which the caballero and Sancho travel to China and arrive at the Instituto Jinling to witness the production of La vida es sueño.

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Quijote: Oye, mi querido Sancho, tenemos que hacer nuestra tercera salida. Esta vez vamos a un lugar lejano y te prometo una gran fortuna para ti y para los tuyos.

堂吉诃德：嗨，桑丘，咱们得开始 第三次出发了，这次要去的地方可 有点儿远，但我保证会给你和你的 家人一大笔财富的。

Sancho: ¿No será una broma, mi señor caballero andante? Mire vuestra merced, en la salida pasada yo llegué a ser el gobernador de la ínsula, sin embargo, fue todo una ilusión urdida por el tramposo duque.

桑丘：我的骑士大人，这次不会又 是玩笑吧？您瞧，上回我是当上了一 个岛的总督，但那一切都是狡猾的公 爵的捉弄。

Quijote: Has de saber, amigo Sancho Panza, esta vez el reino será muy grande y tú serás un rey todopoderoso. (2015a, 25)

堂吉诃德：桑丘，你得知道，这次 的王国疆土更大，你将是至高无上 的国王。

Quijote lures Sancho on the quest, once again, with the promise of wealth and power. A rightfully suspicious Sancho reminds him of the illusion and deception of his last stint as governor. In turn, Quijote doubles down with the promise that Sancho will rule a great kingdom. None of this would seem to be true, at least not in this text, except for the journey itself, for, as we will see, they do indeed, within the frame of the text, travel to a distant land. Sancho: ¿Es verdad, señor mío? “De esta manera, si yo fuese rey por algún milagro de los que vuestra merced dice, por lo menos, Juana Gutiérrez, mi oíslo, vendría a ser reina, y mis hijos infantes.”

桑丘：“照这么说，要是真像您所说 的神显灵似的叫我当上国王，那我老 婆胡安娜·古帖列斯不就成了王后， 我的儿女们也算是王子公主了？”

Quijote: “Pues ¿quién lo duda?”

堂吉诃德：“难道还有谁对此怀疑 吗？”

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Sancho: “Yo lo dudo, porque tengo para mí que, aunque lloviese Dios reinos sobre la tierra, ninguno asentaría bien sobre la cabeza de Mari Gutiérrez. Sepa, señor, que no vale dos maravedíes para reina; condesa le caerá mejor, y aún Dios y ayuda.” (2015a 25-26)

桑丘：“我看不一定，我心里琢 磨着，就算上帝他老人家把大小 王国像雨点一样洒在地上，也没 有 一 个 对 我 那 个 胡 安 娜古 · 帖列斯 合适的。告诉您吧，老爷，她可 不是当王后的料。要是上帝可怜 她，给她个伯爵夫人当当，倒还 凑合。”10

While Cervantes’ lines from the beginning of the first chapter of Don Quijote are subject to a certain ontological flexibility, Sancho’s verbatim lines from the Quijote are now firmly in a new context yet remain in the former. These two characters clearly remember the first two ventures, thus Sancho’s initial disillusioned response. Sancho’s repetition of the passage, then, displaces his initial utterance into a new context, albeit one where he might be on the verge of making the same mistake as before. He asserts, once again, that if he were to be king, his wife would be ill-suited as queen. As many have noted, the fact that he refers to her as both Juana and Mari in just a few lines could be an error on Cervantes’ part. The passage gains significance, however, in Part II after Don Quijote examines Avellaneda’s sequel to the 1605 Quijote. His third objection is that the spurious Part II misnames Sancho’s wife as Mari: “aquí dice que la mujer de Sancho Panza mi escudero se llama Mari Gutiérrez, y no llama tal, sino Teresa Panza” (1998, 1112). The complex relationship between the works of Cervantes and Avellaneda had been explored in detail elsewhere (see Iffland 1999, for example), but suffice it to say that perhaps Cervantes is selfaware here, and ironically using this passage as proof of the falseness of the sequel’s events, even as his own text, in Part I, refers to Teresa Panza as Mari and Juana Guitiérrez, among other names. Avellaneda, then, is repeating the “error,” as is Chen, of course, but only in directly citing Cervantes. In any case, a subtext of Sancho’s lines is the metafictional problem of adaptation. If Avellaneda can write a sequel, then Chen can as well, fusing the Quijote with La vida es sueño. Crossing the threshold into dream, the protagonists arrive at the Instituto Jinling:

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Quijote: “Encomiéndalo tú a Dios, Sancho”. En el sueño todo será posible. No ves, que ya estamos entrando en el Instituto Jinling de la Universidad de Nanjing de la China.

堂吉诃德：“那你就听上帝安排 吧，桑丘”。11在梦里一切皆有可 能，你看，我们都已经到了南京 大学金陵学院。

Sancho: Es verdad. Profesores y estudiantes está [sic] representando La vida es sueño de Calderón de la Barca.

桑丘：真的，老师和学生们在表 演卡尔德隆的《人生如梦》。

Quijote: Entonces, vamos a entrar en este sueño que todos podemos tener. (2015a 26)

堂吉诃德：那么，我们也进入这 人生的梦境吧。

After the text collapses back on itself with the previous citations, time and space now fold into the oneiric sphere, with Quijote and Sancho in China in 2015, in the presence of students enacting the Calderonian drama. Chen’s text refers to the second jornada in La vida es sueño as the “Segunda escena,” and then, as any good dramaturge, redacts the text. Some of the longer monologues are shortened, a few lines trimmed in some scenes, and the subplot about Estrella and Astolfo (scenes XI-XVII), which has no bearing on the theme of dream and reality, is omitted. Unsurprisingly, Segismundo’s soliloquy at the end of Act II is performed in its entirety. The third scene of the adaptation begins after the representation of La vida es sueño, as Quijote and Sancho enter into a conversation about, arguably, the most famous lines in Spanish literature, which baffles Quijote: Quijote: Ah, amigo Sancho, estoy totalmente confundido, ¿los sueños sueños son? ¿Ha sido la ilusión o la realidad?

堂吉诃德：桑丘，我完全糊涂 了，这真的是梦吗？是虚幻还是 现实？

Sancho: Señor mío, ésta no es la ilusión ni la realidad, es como un insomnio en el sueño y un sueño en el insomnio.

桑丘：大人，这既不是虚幻也不 是现实，好像是噩梦中的失眠， 或者是失眠时的噩梦。

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Quijote: Eso es, mi querido Sancho. En la obra de El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, nuestro querido autor, Miguel de Cervantes no ha revelado lo que realmente me ocurrió en la Cueva de Montesinos. Ahora te lo voy a contar. Cuando me hallaba en la cueva, vi a un señor que se llamaba Zhuangzhou quien me reveló un cuento chino. (2015a 59)

堂吉诃德：正是如此，桑丘。在 《奇思妙想的绅士堂吉诃德》 中，我们的作者塞万提斯并没有 透露我在蒙特西诺斯洞穴里的情 节。现在让我来告诉你，当我走 在洞穴中时，遇到了一个名叫庄 周的老先生，他给我讲了一个奇 妙的中国故事。

Sancho’s chiastic response quickly clarifies the matter for Quijote, although not likely for the reader. Being in neither illusion nor reality, but rather dream in sleeplessness, and the reverse, is akin to the very problem of adaptation. Familiar elements combine with new ones which, in turn, transform the former ones. The characters are no longer in their text of origin, but textually relocated into a dramatic work and incarnated by actors. While this metafictional issue is explored in the Quijote itself, the link here to La vida es sueño ffolds the adaptation back into the novel. The adaptation, then, not only interpolates itself into the novel, but creates a cocoon of textual associations in the Cueva de Montesinos. Intrigued, Sancho probes further: Sancho: Dígame por favor lo que le ocurrió realmente en la cueva, vuestra merced, mi señor.

桑丘：大人，那就请您给我说说 洞穴里到底发生了什么。

Quijote: ¡Sabes a qué extraño lugar he llegado! “Se me ofreció a la vista un real y suntuoso palacio o alcázar, cuyos muros y paredes parecían de transparente y claro cristal fabricados; del cual abriéndose dos grandes puertas, vi que por ellas salía y hacia mí se venía un venerable anciano, vestido con un capuz de bayeta morada, que por el suelo le

堂吉诃德：你知道我到了什么神 奇的地方吗！“我看到一座富丽 堂皇的宫殿或城堡，城垣墙壁似 乎是光洁的水晶筑成。两处殿门 打开了，出现了一位庄严的老 者，向我走来。他穿一件深紫 色粗呢长袍，一直拖到地上，绿 缎子学士绶带紧紧扎在肩头和胸 前，头上戴着黑色的米兰圆帽，

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arrastraba; ceñíale los hombros y los pechos una beca de colegial” [203]; cubríale la cabeza una gorra chinesa. Al verme, me saluda de una manera muy cortés y venerable. (2015a 59-60)

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雪白的胡子垂到腰间”13。他一看 到我就非常礼貌地向我致意。

Quijote’s response, modified slightly from the original in Part II, offers in place of “una gorra milanesa” (1998, 818), a Chinese version, signaling the arrival of Zhuang Zhou. This citation, however, is not mere allusion, but as Quijote has just announced “lo que realmente me ocurrió” in the cave. In this version, Quijote was untruthful in Part II, and the ontological force of Zhuang Zhou on the stage displaces the oral account of the figure being the Montesinos from the eponymous cave. In Don Quijote’s original telling, the encounter took place after falling asleep and waking, implying the possibility of a dream, or perhaps more accurately, an oscillation between states, of “un insomnio en el sueño y un sueño en el insomnio” (2015a 59). While the description of the palace seems to remain purely verbal (although the set could include it in the production, the text does not indicate anything other than “Luz para Don Quijote y Zuangzhou”) (2015a 60), the presence of Zhuang Zhou is undeniably real on the stage. Zhuangzhou: ¡Hola, distinguido amigo, muy bienvenido a nuestra querida tierra china!

庄子：你好，我的朋友，非常 欢迎你来到中国！

Quijote: ¡Muy buenas! ¿Acaso me conoce usted?

堂吉诃德：您好，您难道认识 我？

Zhuangzhou: ¡Cómo no! A través de un túnel del tiempo y del espacio, vuestra merced ha llegado a esta tierra. De acuerdo con la predicción que me ha proporcionado la Deidad, es usted el muy famoso caballero andante de la Triste Figura, Don Quijote de la Mancha, salido de la

庄子：当然认识您！您通过时 间和空间隧道来到了这里，能 够预知未来的神灵告诉我，您 就是鼎鼎大名的拉曼恰的骑士 堂吉诃德， 声名远扬的作家米 盖尔·塞万提斯被中国皇帝封为 西班牙文书院的院长，用的教

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pluma del famoso escritor Miguel de Cervantes, quien es designado por nuestro Emperador como el rector del Colegio donde se leyese la lengua castellana y cuyo manual es el Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha. (2015a 60)

材就是《堂吉诃德》。

Zhuang Zhou, both an historical and literary figure, recognizes Don Quijote as a textual being, born from the historical Cervantes, who now incidentally is rector of a Ming Dynasty college. Within the multiple frames created by the original novel, combined with those of the current production, the levels of reality, dream, and fiction are almost exponential at this point. Don Quijote marvels: Quijote: ¡Ah, el viaje a la cueva de Montesinos es inimaginablemente maravilloso!

堂吉诃德：啊，这真是奇妙的 蒙特希诺洞之旅！

Zhuangzhou: Esto es así porque en el sueño todo es posible. Mi nombre es Zhuangzhou, un humilde viejo chino. Ahora, aprovechando esta oportunidad única, quisiera decirle un humilde sueño mío.

庄子：是的，在梦中一切皆有 可能。鄙人庄周， 一个中国的 老叟。我来给您讲述一下我的 一个梦。

Quijote: Dígamelo por favor, señor caballero.

堂吉诃德： 老先生请讲。

Zhuangzhou: Una vez, soñé que me convertí en una mariposa que volaba tranquila y alegremente. Al despertarme, descubrí que era Zhuangzhou, pero no sabía si era Zhuangzhou quien había soñado ser la mariposa, o una mariposa que había soñado ser un hombre.

庄子：有一次，我做了一个 梦。我梦见我变成了一只蝴 蝶，惬意快乐地飞翔。一觉醒 来才发现，我是庄周，但我却 不知道是庄周梦见自己变成了 蝴蝶还是蝴蝶梦见自己变成了 庄周。

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Quijote: Mi querido caballero, comparto su fabuloso sueño, porque la vida es un vaivén entre la vida y el sueño, ni siquiera se sabe si la vida es real o ficticia, nosotros estamos hechos de una substancia que traspasa el tiempo y el espacio. (2015a 61)

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堂吉诃德：老先生，我完全可以 想象得到你的这个梦， 生活就是 在现实和梦境之间游弋的，人们 往往不知道生活是真实的还是虚 幻的，因为我们都是由跨越时间 和空间的物质铸成的。

Upon hearing Zhuang Zhou’s dream, Quijote asserts that life oscillates between life and dream. By definition, it is difficult to say that life is what it is and also that it alternates with something else, namely dreams. Then again, this is no more enigmatic than “toda la vida es sueño, / y los sueños, sueños son.” Indeed, it seems to be its mirror, where now the tautology lies in dream instead of life. By next asserting that “ni siquiera se sabe la vida es real o ficticia,” even the redundancy loses its ground. Finally, Quijote claims that the two of them are made of a substance that transcends time and space. At this point there is an unfortunate lacuna in the text of the memoria, in both the Spanish and the Chinese. The final lines (which follow immediately after a page break from the previous quotation) read as follows, indicating a probable error in typesetting: Coleridge14 o como los de El Sueño del Pabellón Rojo. Amigo Quijote, “tú eres un sueño del hidalgo Alonso Quijano y Alonso Quijano es un sueño mío. El doble sueño os1 confunde.

柯勒律治的梦或《红楼梦》中人 物的梦。堂吉诃德，“你是阿隆 索·吉哈诺绅士的一个梦，而他 又是我的一个梦，是两个梦把你 们搞混了。

Quijano duerme y sueña: Una batalla: Los mares de Lepanto y la metralla”.

吉哈诺睡着了，梦见莱庞托海面 上的枪林弹雨”。

Entonces, muy queridos amigos, toda la vida es sueño y los sueños, sueños son.

亲爱的朋友们，人的一生就是个 梦，梦终究是梦。

1 

The text reads “los confunde” in the original poem (Borges 1998, 445).

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Cervantes, Quijote y Sancho: ¡Oh, nunca dejemos de soñar para tener un futuro mejor! (2015a 62)

塞万提斯、堂吉诃德和桑丘： 啊，我们总是梦想要有个更加美 好的未来！

Zhuang Zhou is possibly the speaker, given the reference to The Dream of the Red Chamber, as well as the fact that the next lines come from Cervantes, Quijote, and Sancho in unison. Then again, we are missing the reappearance of Cervantes on stage, who is clearly present during the final lines (while Zhuang Zhou is not). While the speaker’s reference to Coleridge is elided, footnote fourteen reads as follows: “Si un hombre atravesara el Paraíso en un sueño, y le dieran una flor como prueba de que había estado allí, y si al despertar encontrara esa flor en su mano... ¿entonces, qué? dice Coleridge” (2015a, 62n). This quotation from Coleridge’s notebook reinforces the nebulousness between life and dream, fiction and reality, with the flower impinging on the waking world like an artifact from Tlön. Indeed, Borges is invoked, slightly modifying a few lines from “Sueña Alonso Quijano,” from La rosa profunda. The double dream, “El hildalgo fue un sueño de Cervantes / y don Quijote un sueño del hidalgo” (Borges 1998, 445), is not just reciprocal, but allows for slippage between characters and authors. If Cervantes is the speaker, this passage repeats “doble sueño” in the Borges poem. If Zhuang Zhou is the speaker, then he has displaced Cervantes as the dreamer of Alonso Quijano. In any case, without the missing text, it is hard to determine, but both possibilities recreate the logic of the double dream. The multiple frames of the text have collapsed and have been at least partially reconfigured in a Cervantine spirit. Save the missing section, I have reproduced nearly all the text from the first and third scenes from the Nanjing production. Not only is it interesting in the mere fact of its existence as a Chinese-Spanish adaptation, but even as an amateur student production, there is a kind of baroque, yet coherent, messiness to it that, in its interpolative moves and philosophical stance, repeats the logic of the Quijote and La vida es sueño while suggesting an affinity with the Zhuangzi. Chen characterizes this as “collision and spark between two cultures, east and west” (Chen 2015b). A conference paper published by Chen a couple decades ago for the quadricentennial of Calderón’s birth,

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wherein he contrasts reality as dream or vice versa in La vida es sueño with Chinese concepts, in particular Yin and Yang in Daoism, gives a sense of Chen’s take on La vida es sueño and the Zhuangzi (the Quijote does not factor in, at this point). Collision and spark perhaps sum up this adaptation, because despite the commonality of the life-is-dream trope, these are vastly different constellations of ideas (true even Calderón and Cervantes, but to a lesser degree). Rehearsing some basic Daoist concepts with the Spanish Baroque is sometimes more collision than spark, but as the 2015 adaptation demonstrates, there are productive resonances between the Spanish texts and the aesthetics that govern them, and the notion of non-duality found in some forms of Hinduism, Buddhism, and especially Daoism, and suggested by the theme of transformation in the butterfly tale. The “hueco misterioso” of the Cueva de Montesinos, as Chen calls it, is a space where different cultures and epochs intersect, where elements, images, words, and experiences are thrown together and force us to make meaning, as we do in dreams. Segismundo’s situation and famous monologues regarding his ontological and epistemological uncertainty in La vida es sueño (Calderón 1998, 123239; 1532-ff; 2098-2107; 2156-57) are too familiar to recite here, but regarding Segismundo’s dilemma, Chen is right to note that for Zhaungzhou there is a further level: transformation (Chen 2002, 535). It is possible, at the end of La vida es sueño, that Segismundo will go on as an ethical ruler, having learned the power of ethical deliberation, forgiveness, and justice. It is also possible, unsure as he is about his existence, and caught in the frame of one of two tangible realities, that the newly crowned king, dressed in pelts, will start assaulting ladies at court and tossing men from balconies. Due to Segismundo’s precarious epistemological position, it seems less a metamorphosis and more another state of emergency. The audience and other characters in the play, of course, have no doubt about Segismundo’s place in reality, but are just as in the dark about the next life as the rest of us. In the butterfly tale, however, existences as both dream and wakefulness have the same ontological reality for everyone. In the commentaries of the Zhuangzi we read: Wang Xianquian: Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly must have some distinction between their two identities, but in the dream and just after awakening, this

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distinction is unknown. You can say that it is Zhuang Zhou being the butterfly, or that it is the butterfly being Zhuang Zhou. Either is acceptable—and just this is their oneness, their transformation into each other. (Zhuangzi 2009, 163)

In the context of his own work, Zhuangzi’s purpose seems to be a Daoist assertion about the difference between “things,” and not about the difference between sleeping and waking as such (Schwenger 2012, 110). Western preoccupation with this distinction dates at least to Plato, in whose Theaetetus Socrates asks “How can you determine whether at this moment we are all sleeping, and all our thoughts are dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?” (158b qtd. in Schwenger 2012, 110). The question has persisted until today, and has been taken up in research on cognition, which has shown that the brain responds to the stimuli of dreams and of waking perceptions in the same manner (2012, 111). The difference between “things” in the Zhaungzi resides in the tradition of the Daoist sages. The Tao—or “way” or “naturalness,” or ultimate reality—is the source. Out of the one, the many. Tao produced the two (yin and yang) and the two produced the three (the unity of y a y) and the three produced the ten thousand things (that is, everything). Yin and yang, literally “shaded and sunny,” are complimentary opposites, which together promote harmony from chaos. While different, all things have a common source in the Tao, or the One, and the Zhuangzi emphasizes change, flux, and mysterious reversals among the many. And so, we can see some points of connection with La vida es sueño. Zhaung Zhou was famous for not mourning the death of his wife. The Daoist sage shouldn’t mourn, as change is inevitable. In the Tao, the shift from death to life shouldn’t trouble us as it does. To return to the passage with which we began, the Zhaungzi concludes: “Surely, Zhou and a butterfly count as two distinct identities! Such is what we call the transformation of one thing into another” (Zhaungzi 2009, 21). The episode of Legion omits this phrase, but picks up on the idea of transformation to describe the movement from delusion to psychosis. Its slickly produced, repellent imagery aestheticizes the violence, rendering the unthinkable into an uneasy, but digestible fable. Moreover, the boy sawing off his own leg would seem to be an appropriation of a “counter image of Confucius,” the fictional Wang Tai, a “deformed criminal ‘with a chopped

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foot” (Moeller 2015, 78) who appears in the Inner Chapters of the Zhaungzi. Throughout the Inner Chapters, as Sing-Chen Lydia Chiang explains, “death and bodily deformities were accepted, without pity, horror, or undue fascination, as part of the regenerative process of the universe. In its original Daoist context, the anomalous body was accepted with a good-natured smile” (2005, 159). Such grotesque images in the Zhaungzi, unlike in the episode of Legion, are taken in stride. Difference, then, only marks the transformative nature of existence. I use the term grotesque intentionally, not only because that is the way criticism on the Zhaungzi often refers to parts of that text, but also because of the production by the Instituto Jinling. The superimposition of La vida es sueño, the Quijote, and the Zhuangzi, would seem to be esoteric, contradictory, paradoxical, and nonsensical, in the manner of the Daoist text itself. And it all happens in a cave. As is well-known, the term grotesque derives from sixteenth-century Italian descriptions of paintings in cave-like Roman ruins that depicted doubled, transformed, and hybrid figures. Upon awaking when lifted from the cave, Don Quijote paints only an ideal picture of his experience and although the story is fantastic, does not admit any of it as illusion. Concerning what actually took place in this part of the story, E. C. Riley finds that “The really prudent reader knows that he can never know,” but “that it was a dream or some kind of visionary experience” is the most probable explanation based on the evidence (1986, 141). Don Quijote’s word is certainly not to be taken at face value. His delusions are constant and allow others, for the simple sake of mocking him, to stage elaborate hoaxes. However, the transformative qualities of the experience, along with common sense, suggest that while Don Quijote did physically enter the grotto, the sights and events were psychic in nature. Several critics describe the ‘realistic’ elements of the episode as “grotesque” (Wilson 1993, 78; Percas de Ponseti 1980, 148). This designation, like many other catch-all categories, suffers from over-use while never really enjoying a clear definition. According to Wolfgang Kayser, the grotesque also has associations with the oneiric: By the word grottesco the Renaissance … understood not only something playfully gay and carelessly fantastic, but also something ominous and sinister in

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the face of a world totally different from the familiar one—a world in which the realm of inanimate things is no longer separated from those of plants, animals, and human beings, and where the laws of statics symmetry, and proportion are no longer valid. This meaning ensues from a synonym for grotesque which came into usage during the sixteenth century: the dreams of painters (sogni dei pittori). This term also names the sphere in which the dissolution of reality and the participation in a different kind of existence, as illustrated by the ornamental grotesques, form an experience about the nature and significance of which man has never ceased to ponder. (1968, 21-22)

While Kayser has been appropriately taken to task for his characterization of the grotesque by Cervantist James Iffland, Kayser’s account is instructive in the assertion about the effects of the grotesque: that it contradicts the laws that rule our world as we understand it (1968, 31). Intimately connected to satire and caricature, the “grotesque world is—and is not—our own world. The ambiguous way in which we are affected by it results from our awareness that the familiar and apparently harmonious world is alienated under the impact of abysmal forces, which break up and shatter its coherence” (1968, 37). Chen’s Nanjing production takes some liberties to explore connections between Calderón, Cervantes, and the Zhuangzi, as I have with his text and Legion. As with the German Romantics, for example, the historical connection is lacking, but the juxtaposition and superimposition of these works serves as a playful adaptation that can illuminate them through transformation, by making the familiar strange and forcing us to see them anew. The Cueva de Montesinos, does seem to function grotesquely, as an oneiric space in which heads of familiar characters are grafted onto foreign bodies. As an interpretive cipher, the cave allows for a katabasis into the realm of the grotesque, where the familiar is made strange through the convergence of these characters and texts, as they are recombined, transposed, and superimposed. We are in the realm of the surreal and the Baroque, but also, in 2015, that of globalized exchange. Among Salvador Dalí’s 1966 illustrations of La vida es sueño, one image stands out, the Caballero con Mariposas. A rather conventional knight is mounted on a horse, flanked by giant butterflies. We might expect a hippogriff, grotesque, or even a woman dressed as a man. Instead, Dalí, whose illustrations do not always have an ostensible connection to the text, offers

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a wholly new creation, with some resonances to Calderón’s play, but with a nod, perhaps unconsciously, to the Zhaungzi and the tale of the butterfly, as if he too were witness to the Nanjing production. Perhaps what the Cueva de Montesinos enacts is an expansion of the liminal space between waking and dreaming, a dissolution of the threshold between them. Our dreaming and waking worlds are as different as the worlds of Zhuan Zhou’s China and Golden Age Spain, Daoism and the Baroque, Modern China in transition and the West, but, as the Nanjing adaptation demonstrates, the space of art allows us to see the possibilities of transformation through intercultural exchange.

Works Cited Berger, Douglas. 2004. “The Veil of Maya:” Schopenhauer’s System and Early Indian Thought. Binghamton: Global Academic Publishing. Borges, Jorge Luis. 1998. Obra poética. Buenos Aires: Emecé. Calderón de la Barca, Pedro. 1998. La vida es sueño. Edited by Ciriaco Morón Arroyo. Madrid: Cátedra. Cervantes, Miguel de. 1998. Don Quijote De La Mancha, edited by Francisco Rico, et al. Barcelona: Crítica. Chen, Kaixian. 2002. “La vida es sueño a los ojos de un lector chino.” In Calderón 2000: Homenaje a Kurt Reichenberger en su 80 cumpleaños, edited by Ignacio Arellano Vol. 2, 533-38. Kassel: Reichenberger. — 2015a. La vida es sueño by Grupo Teatral de Quijote. Unpublished. — 2015b. “‘La vida es sueño’-Nace en China un primer grupo teatral aficionado sólo en español.” Interview by Wu Shuoyu. Puntos de vista, CCTV.com Español, November 29, 2015. Video, 29:56. http://cctv.cntv.cn/2015/11/29/ VIDE1448769364448240.shtml Chiang, Sing-chen L, and Songling Pu. 2005. Collecting the Self: Body and Identity in Strange Tale Collections of Late Imperial China. Leiden: Brill. Hutcheon, Linda, and Siobhan O’Flynn. 2013. A Theory of Adaptation. London: Routledge. Iffland, James. 1999. De fiestas y aguafiestas: Risa, locura e ideología en Cervantes y Avellaneda. Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert. Kayser, Wolfgang. 1968. The Grotesque in Art and Literature, translated by Ulrich Weisstein. Gloucester: Peter Smith.

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Kramer, Nathaniel, and Matthew Ancell. 2008. “Heiberg, the Golden Age, and the Danish Afterlives of Pedro Calderón de la Barca.” In Johan Ludvig Heiberg: Philosopher, Littérateur, Dramaturge, and Political Thinker, edited by Jon Stewart, 327-56. Danish Golden Age Studies, vol. 5. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. “Legion – Chapter 3 / Delusion – The Butterfly Dream (Zhuang Zhou) [CC]” YouTube, Uploaded by TheDoct0r, April 6, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=DYcyw3r8SeU. Moeller, Hans-Georg. 2015. “Paradoxes of Health and Power in the Zuangzi.” In New Visions of the Zhuangzi, edited by Livia Kohn, 70-81. St. Petersburg, FL: Three Pines Press. Percas de Ponseti, Helena. 1980. “La Cueva de Montesinos.” In El Quijote, edited by George Haley. Madrid: Taurus. Riley, E. C. 1986. Don Quixote. London: Allen and Unwin. Schopenhauer, Arthur. 1969. The World As Will and Representation, translated by E. F. J. Payne. New York: Dover. Schwenger, Peter. 2012. At the Borders of Sleep: On Liminal Literature. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Sullivan, Henry W. 1983. Calderón in the German Lands and the Low Countries: His Reception and Influence, 1654-1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. “Una universidad china crea el primer grupo de teatro del país solo en español.” El mundo, June 1, 2015. http://www.elmundo.es/cultura/2015/06/01/556c4738c a4741f7798b4581.html. Wilson, Diana de Armas. 1993. “Cervantes and the Night Visitors: Dream Work in the Cave of Montesinos.” In Quixotic Desire: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Cervantes, edited by Ruth Anthony El Saffar and Diana de Armas Wilson. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Zhuangzi. 2009. Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings with Selections from Traditional Commentaries, translated by Brook Ziporyn. Indianapolis: Hackett.

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Christian sacred plays and Nō Style1 Javier Rubiera

In 1598, the year of Felipe II’s death, a long work comprising an extensive collection of Jesuit missionaries’ letters from China and Japan was published in Evora, Portugal.2 Read attentively, these letters —and others of the same type printed in earlier years— offer a multitude of information regarding the use of music and dramatic representation as a means of evangelization in Japan. Expanding our knowledge of these practices emerges as one of many possibilities available to us through the comparative study of the theatre of sixteenth-century Europe under the Habsburgs and the Eastern theatre of the same period, in the time of Nobunaga (1534-1582) and Hideyoshi (1537-1598) in Japan, which coincides in part with the Ming Dynasty in China. The encounter between Japan and the Western world in the sixteenth century3 was a rich but problematic phenomenon that can be approached from different perspectives: political, anthropological, religious, commercial or artistic. My current research project4 focuses on the description and consequences of the cultural-religious exchange that was achieved by the Jesuit Order in its effort to evangelize Japanese lands and peoples. The focal point of the project is to demonstrate the use of religious theatre as a vehicle of contact and communication between the Iberian Catholic and Japanese Translation by Jake Levin. Cartas que os padres e irmãos da Companhia de Iesus escreverão dos Reynos de Iapão & China aos da mesma Companhia da India & Europa, desdo anno de 1549 ate o de 1580. Évora: Manuel de Lyra, 1598. 3  On the nature of this encounter or meeting, see Boxer (1951), Ebisawa (1971) and Pacheco (1971). 4  Le théâtre et la rencontre des cultures ibérique et japonaise au 16 e siècle. This is a project funded by The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2016-2020). 1  2 

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cultures —the latter of which possessed Buddhist and Shintoist roots as opposed to Christian origins. In so doing, I will attempt to cast new light on the episode of transculturation and accommodation carried out by the Jesuit missionaries in Japan. Through the interpretation of different documents from the sixteenth century —especially through letters that were sent by the Jesuits’ mission in Japan—, the aim of this project is to illustrate the way in which the missionaries, mainly Spanish and Portuguese, used theatrical representations as a way of reinforcing their evangelistic campaign. In this sense, we will ask ourselves, for example, if scenic techniques already familiar to the native Japanese people saw regular use in the adaptation of the Catholic message to appeal to the Japanese mentality. The mission in Japan began in the year 1549, when Francisco Javier —the future St. Francis Xavier of the Jesuit Order— first landed in Kagoshima (Kyūshū Island), on the Japanese coast. In addition to the interpreter Anjirō, considered to be the first Japanese Christian, Francisco Javier was accompanied by two other Spanish Jesuits: Brother Juan Fernández, from Córdoba, and the Valencian priest Cosme de Torres, the latter of whom would take charge of the Catholic mission from November 1551, when F. Javier departed Japan, to 1570. During these years, a form of cultural exchange emerged that was not without controversy, in which the theatre played a role both important and suggestive. To give appropriate context to this rich encounter between East and West, fostered by attempts at evangelization from the Spanish and the Portuguese, I believe that we should place the Japanese mission and its theatre in relation to the greater tradition of catechistic drama developed on the Iberian Peninsula, as well as the evangelistic theatre in the colonial Americas (see Aracil Varón, 1999). By means of this approach, I will propose several observations regarding the study of theatre as a medium of intercultural contact and exchange. The sixteenth-century theatre in Spain, much like other styles of performance in medieval and early modern Europe, carried with it a purpose far more profound than mere entertainment or public spectacle. Drama was a powerful means of catechesis, or religious instruction, and productions were meant to reinforce the audience’s faith through the reenactment of Old and

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New Testament stories. Dozens of short theatrical pieces —known by such names as farsas, coloquios, and autos, among others— dramatized the bestknown tracts of biblical scripture: works portraying Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; Abraham’s sacrifice of his son Isaac; Moses; or the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, to cite four standout examples from the ninetysix pieces comprising the Códice de autos viejos.5 As can be seen throughout Latin Europe, such plays were written to propagate and extend the message of Catholic faith among the people, combining elements from both the sacred and the profane. Prayer mixes in with jokes and other comic content in a production that also features music, so as to create as much overall appeal and enjoyment for the audience as possible. The didactic and moralizing components of theatre became especially important during the evangelization and catechesis campaigns carried out by the Spanish and Portuguese missions in the sixteenth-century Americas —first in 1523 with the Franciscans (New Spain), and then with the Jesuits beginning in 1549 (Brazil). By way of either Spanish or one of the many native American languages such as Nahuatl or Topí, religious theatre exported the same Bible stories and hagiography popular with European audiences to the New World, where dramatic content underwent adaptations for a new indigenous spectator in a very different set of social, ideological, and linguistic contexts. The Nahuatl-language theatre used to proselytize to the natives in the 1530s and 1540s provides a particularly good example of this phenomenon: within its representations of Judeo-Christian tradition and history, Catholic teachings and Western methods of stagecraft appear alongside elements of Nahuatl linguistics and rhetoric, joined by other pre-Columbian components such as stages that take the form of a forest, burning incense, offerings to the native gods, and traditional Nahua clothing and dance (see Horcasitas, 2004). This process of interculturation can indeed be understood in a more lax fashion as a phenomenon of simple cultural exchange and adaptation. However, contemporary critics have not hesitated to point out the negative ideologies and concepts that appear as a result of two cultures entering into 5  On the importance of this collection of dramatic works, see Reyes Peña (1988) and Hermenegildo (1994).

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conflict. An excerpt from Shelly and Rojo’s chapter on colonial Hispanic theatre, part of Luis Íñigo Madrigal’s Historia de la literatura hispanoamericana, illustrates this approach rather well: We cannot say for certain whether one can associate a ‘mestizo’ character to this genre of theatre. While it deals with two cultures in contact with one another, it does so from neither an egalitarian perspective nor anything resembling one. What does hold true, without a doubt, is that one of these cultures utilizes the other as a means of self-imposition, which becomes the essential building block of the missionaries’ theatre. From content to presentation, all of its aspects depend on this clear ideological function, one which holds the subjugation of the natives as its ultimate end goal. Any mestizaje, if we can even call it that, is artificial. Here there is no ‘intermediate’ culture. There are merely two cultures, one of which attempts to overpower the other ‘from the inside’. (1982, 323)6

What we see here is a varying perspective on the relationships between two cultures, sometimes viewed as an equal partnership and other times seen as the asymmetrical result of colonization or foreign invasion. Any attempt to think through these intercultural processes and the results they entail must, naturally, exist in close contact with additional lines of inquiry: to begin with, the difficult task of defining what constitutes the liminal space «in between» cultures, and how one goes about passing —or trespassing— from one culture to another. “Mestizaje”, “hybridity”, “syncretism”, “cultural transplantation”, “symbiosis”, “transculturation”, “induced acculturation”, “exfoliation”, “disguised reconciliation”, “cultural translation”, and “passage between cultures” are some of the different categories through which modern critical theorists seek to sketch out the details behind these phenomena. Yet perhaps the best description of this inquiry’s dual nature —the reflection on cultural encounters through the theatre and the simultaneous obligation to question its precise mode of classification— comes to us in the form of a well-known article by Armando Partida Tayzan, whose title aptly presents this difficulty in question form: “The Sacrifice of Isaac: Colonization, or the Scenic Integration of Two Cultures?”

6 

Our translation.

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1. Theatre in the Jesuit Mission of Japan7 The evangelistic theatre in colonial New Spain, written and staged by members of the Franciscan order, has undergone extensive study over the last forty years. The same variety of works presented in the Far East by the Jesuits, on the other hand, is much less known than its American counterpart, despite the two existing in almost perfect parallel to each other. During the time of the Jesuit missions there, Japan would see the same type of theatrical productions aimed at evangelizing foreign peoples, adapted this time to an audience far more likely to oppose religious propaganda given the lack of prior military invasion and domination. While the Franciscans in New Spain only staged their sacred stories after a long campaign of conquest and subjugation, the Jesuit theatre in Japan had no such precedent, and did not take place in a location already under the control of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns. Unlike the Spanish colonies, which covered an immense area of land, Japan was a small and insular nation, and one whose people possessed a degree of cultural and linguistic unity far surpassing that of Mesoamerica. The main source of knowledge regarding the progress of the Catholic missions during the latter half of the sixteenth century is without a doubt the litterae annuae, a body of letters composed by the missionaries of the Society of Jesus.8 These letters, which were required writing for the General of the Order in Rome and for the brothers of the society in Asia and in Europe, were intended to relate the progress of the mission. To date, some of these writings have remained unpublished, but in the sixteenth century many of them were printed to great success in Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Latin, and other languages, allowing the letters and their contents to circulate amongst a public readership spanning entire countries. Far beyond the walls of the Jesuit colleges and seminars in Europe, “hommes des lettres” waited with great anticipation for the arrival of more news from the Far East, a land so different and perhaps even strange in its customs and ways of thinking. 7  On the Jesuit mission in Japan, see Bourdon (1993 [1951]), Cabezas (1994) and Fujita (1991). 8  On this complex system of communication, see Friedrich (2008).

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Without entering into the specifics of Fray Toribio de Benavente’s magnificent History of the Indians of New Spain —where one may find an extraordinary account of the 1538 and 1539 Corpus Christi festivities in Tlaxcala—, we can find similarly informative facts and anecdotes in the missionaries’ letters from Japan regarding the goings-on of the evangelistic theatre there. These letters take the form of regular reports, and as such, it is not difficult to locate excerpts that demonstrate the extent to which the Jesuits adapted their dramatizations, often with great flexibility and regular use of Japanese-language words and phrases. We may find, for example, such expressions in the script as the Spanish “sus motetes en japam”, or the Portuguese “ao modo do Iapão”, “a sua maneira”, “a qual [historia] esta traduzida em lingoa do Japão”, “na mesma lingoa do Japão”, and “tudo tirado na lingoa da terra” to confirm the frequency with which Japanese was expected to feature in the productions. In general terms, this phenomenon of adaptation to the Other has been rigorously studied by the anthropologist Carmelo Lisón Tolosana in his book The Fascination of Difference: The Jesuits’ Adaptation to the Japan of the Samurai, published in Spanish in 2006. Through the biographies of three key figures from the Jesuit mission to Japan (Francisco Javier, Cosme de Torres, and Alessandro Valignano), Lisón Tolosana utilizes an approach somewhere between historical and anthropological to explain the missionaries’ intent to de-Europeanize the evangelization of Japan and adapt their efforts to the nature and customs of the Japanese, albeit not without resistance from both the Catholic Church and even other members of the Society of Jesus. Neither the Church nor the Order were ever in complete agreement with presenting songs and rites in the Japanese language or utilizing native methods of scenic representation to set the stage. There is no doubt that the Jesuit missionaries carried out an extraordinary effort to accommodate themselves and their art to the Japanese culture. What is more problematic, however, is to present the attitude most representative of the Jesuit evangelistic spirit —the method of accomodatio— as systematically and diametrically opposed to that of the Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustinian mendicant orders, the latter often being expressed in crude terms as a philosophy of tabula rasa. As often occurs in instances of oversimplification, generalization, and speaking in absolutes, such a com-

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parison produces more misconceptions than truths. Even Jesuit theatre itself was subject to variation: if we carefully observe the many decades spanning the attempted Christianization of Japan, we must admit the differences in method and practice in the periods following the departure of Francisco Javier, during which time subsequent directors of the mission had diverse visions of the best way to carry out their evangelistic campaign and bring it to fruition. Cosme de Torres, from Valencia, proved highly supportive of adaptation to the native culture;9 the Portuguese missionary Cabral, meanwhile, was opposed to accommodation, resulting in a conflict with the Inspector for the East Indies, the Italian Visitador Alessandro Valignano. There exists, therefore, a need to place the Jesuits’ commitment to accomodatio, and any automatic attribution of one to the other, in relative terms. At the same time, we must also be aware of the tendency to associate the mendicant orders with the tabula rasa approach. As various critics have insisted over the last few years, the example of Franciscan missionary theatre in the Americas should be more than enough to disprove such an assumption: The Franciscans effectively destroyed what the Western audience considered the most repulsive aspects of the American pre-Hispanic religions —human sacrifice, cannibalism, and polytheism— along with the material and institutional support structures that sustained them: their temples, idols, codices, and holy men. But they did not destroy other religious practices that seemed to them irrelevant and thus of little consequence, because above all, they could not comprehend the true function of these rites as an integral part of the native cosmovision, a holistic and profoundly polysemic body of knowledge that to the Franciscans was completely foreign. [...] Impotence allied itself with necessity, assisted by the vast differences between indigenous and European modes of representation, and produced similar [inevitable tacit transactions and negotiations] in central Mexico. (Alberro 2000, 36)10 9  Torres’s work plays a very significant role in the policy of adaptation to Japanese customs. I submit as a hypothesis that this Spanish missionary, who lived in Mexico (Nueva España) between 1539 and 1541 as Chaplain to the Viceroy, acquired an understanding of Franciscan evangelistic theatre at a key moment in its development. This argument will allow me to relate, in concrete terms, the role of the missionary theatre in New Spain with the role of that in Japan. 10  Our translation.

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In the second half of the sixteenth century, Japan already had its own form of highly evolved theatre, called Nō or Noh drama. For decades, it served not only for entertainment purposes, but also as a means of transmission for Shintoist and Buddhist teachings through a peculiar combination of music, dance, and poetry. As B. Ortolani has explained, citing a significant work by Thomas Leims, “as part of their effort of communicating with their converts, [the Jesuits] became very well versed in the contemporary forms of Japanese theatre, especially the nō and kyōgen, and adopted in their educational shows some of the indigenous techniques and dances” (1995, 155). Yet simultaneously, the missionaries also introduced new theatrical techniques from the West meant to surprise the Japanese and attract a larger audience, as Arnoldus Montanus recounted in a passage from his Atlas Japanensis (1670): The Jesuits sometimes used their own churches and stages to present Old Testament stories, such as the Israelites’ flight from Egypt and the destruction of Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea. For this particular play, the missionaries utilized rather odd stage techniques that the Japanese had never seen before, or indeed even heard described. Similarly, curious choices in scenery also informed their staging of the Book of Jonah, involving oddly-presented seas, waves, and ships, and further surprised the faithful who gathered round to view the disobedience of Adam, the sacrifice of Isaac, Joseph and Mary’s flight into Egypt, and the death of Samson. (Wassermann 1987, 100)

Nonetheless, what few scholarly attempts exist at approaching this Jesuit theatre as an instrument of evangelization have all come up short, partially due to their authors’ ignorance regarding Iberian dramatic history during the second half of the sixteenth century, and also from ignoring the relation between the plays presented in Japan and the more general, broad use of theatre as religious propaganda in other parts of the world, such as the Americas. That is the case for the very important book Die Entstehung des Kabuki (1990) by Th. F. Leims, whose real aim is to argue for the introduction of European theatre to Japan as one of the driving forces behind the creation of Kabuki theatre —the latter theatrical form considered by the Japanese to be entirely autochthonous and free from any outside influence.

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2. Two Letters from Japan The best approach is for the researcher to return to the original documents themselves, a body of work already well used and analyzed by those in religious studies, philosophy, anthropology, political science, and business relations. Even so, the missionaries’ letters still await a new reading from the most underutilized perspective of all: that of theatre studies. The letters offer stories and descriptions such as the following two examples, which are particularly illustrative of the subject matter and writing style of this kind of text. A letter from Juan Fernández to Antonio de Quadros (Funai, October 8, 1561):11 Some twenty days before Christmas, the Priest spoke to two or three Christians and asked that they stage some sort of play on Christmas Eve, so that all might rejoice in the Lord; and speaking thus, he left them no direction as to what he wanted them to do, placing the matter instead in their hands. And so it was that when Christmas Eve came, they came up with a great many inventions based upon their knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, with which they hoped to please the Lord. They first presented the fall of Adam and the hope of redemption, for which purpose they placed an apple tree with golden apples in the middle of the church, and showed Lucifer deceiving Eve beneath it. And this with motets sung in Japanese, and though it was indeed a festive day, there was neither great nor small who did not weep at the sight. And after the fall of man, an angel cast out the both of them from Paradise, which was also cause for much weeping and wailing, for there were none unmoved at the sight of such a tragedy befalling so beautiful a man and woman. And shortly thereafter Adam and Eve departed, clothed in the vestments God gave unto them. And then there appeared an angel to comfort them and give them hope that in the end, both would be redeemed, whereupon both Adam and Eve departed singing, no longer with tears of grief but with happiness, and left the audience with much joy. And thereafter they presented the story of the two women seeking justice from King Solomon, in demonstration of the power of the primal love between

11 

Original in Spanish. Our translation.

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mother and child, which was most confusing to the women in this land who kill their own children. And thus proceeded many other episodes from the Holy Scriptures. And later there came the shepherds to whom the angel appeared and announced the blessed news, and told them to go and hasten to the adoration of Jesus Christ. And they showed how Jesus Christ is to come again in His infinite glory to judge the good and the wicked. And for this one person sang entirely in canticles, to which the Christians also responded in song with the same canticles. With God’s divine help and favor, these events were carried out to such pleasing completeness that I would have been most gladdened, my dear brothers, to have you in attendance so that you might see for yourself instead of merely hearing this account. (Ruiz-de-Medina 1995, 422-23)

A letter from Aires Sanches to the Jesuits of India (Funai, November 11, 1562):12 On Easter Day, during the procession of the Resurrection, some of the events in the Holy Scriptures were represented, namely, the flight of the children of Israel out of Egypt. For this purpose, there was no lack of ingenious devices created to form a Red Sea in front of our church, which parted to allow the Israelites to pass and closed back in on itself when Pharaoh and his army tried to cross. They also put on the story of the prophet Jonah when he escaped from the belly of the whale, and other tales similar to this. With the procession ended, there then occurred a warning to the people in the way of a dramatization, in which the sadness of the Passion was combined with the happiness of the Resurrection. Plays were also put on during various other festivals this year, such as Christmas Day. They showed the flooding of the world in Noah’s time, prior to the birth of Christ, and his entrance into the ark. Following this, the captivity of Lot and the victory of Abraham. In all of these cases, circumstances were such, and the matter was treated in such a way, that instead of seeming farcical, the effect of the plays was to provide for a lively occasion to praise God. The arrival of the shepherds at the manger, the Virgin’s conversation with the shepherds; in all of these were invested emo-

12 

Original in Portuguese. Our translation.

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tion, tears, and weeping, as much from the actors as from the audience. (Ruizde-Medina 1995, 526-27)

Through testimonies of this nature, which we shall have to systematically organize, and with diligent analysis of the missionaries’ correspondence, we can create a comprehensive catalogue of theatrical works, including their titles and dates of production, as Leims began to do in 1990. By the same token, an attentive reading of these letters can reveal the facts necessary to complete our knowledge of the festive context surrounding these plays, from the costumes worn by performers to scenography, types of actors, musical instruments and audience response. This type of didactic-religious theatre is intricately linked to the festive calendar, with particular emphasis on the Christmas, Epiphany, and Easter cycles. As was the norm for the Iberian Peninsula in the late sixteenth century, what we might call strictly “plays” or “dramatic representations” —the feigned imitations of certain actions within a predetermined spatial and temporal framework— sport different names: representaciones, misterios, pasos, autos, coloquios, farsas. This theatrical core should be integrated, furthermore, into a greater notion of “theatricality” that encompasses all types of festive displays, grand entrances and receptions mixing together liturgy, religious rites, ceremonies, processions and song and dance, all in more or less equal proportion. 3. Sacred Plays and Nō Style In numerous texts derived from the missionaries’ letters, we can quite easily find proof of how the Jesuits adapted the theatre to the customs and mannerisms of the Japanese. As we have seen, the introduction of songs and texts in the Japanese language provided the best means to carry out this adaptation, and unsurprisingly, it remains the method most frequently observed. However, others have put forth additional arguments regarding the influence of dramatic techniques from the Nō style on the same religious theatre, and we must therefore inquire as to what texts would permit us to corroborate these

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positions, especially given the lack of explicit proof to be found in the literature.13 I shall conclude this piece by considering the answers to this question. In her 1973 milestone work A History of Japanese Music, Eta HarichSchneider reserves several chapters for the encounter between Western and Japanese musical traditions. One of these sections concerns “The Misterios”, wherein we can read excerpts such as the following: The Fathers therefore suggested arranging the religious theatrical plays as a blend of European and Japanese music. The text was in the vernacular; the general form corresponded to the European religious mystery play. The dramatic action was in spoken dialogue, like the recitativo secco or the sashi in nō. ‘Cantigos’ were interspersed with accompaniment in European style, or current Japanese folk-songs to which a biblical text had been added. The subjects were the Creation, Adam’s Fall, Noah, Abraham, the Passion, the Resurrection, the Birth of Christ, etc. […] On Easter 1566 boys and girls in Shimabara acted a Resurrection mystery play, to which a certain Paolo Yohō had written the text in classical Japanese verse and the staging of which was in nō style. (1973, 455-56)

We can certainly appreciate the fundamental similarities between Harich-Schneider and Ortolani (citing Leims) in their commentaries regarding the adoption of Japanese dramatic and musical techniques into the Christian misterios, while Montanus deals more with the European styles of scenebuilding brought to Japan by the Jesuits. But where does the rest of our information come from? Harich-Schneider provides us with no concrete source for this supposed Easter play in nō style performed in 1566,14 although the rest of her references proceed, as expected, from the litterae an13  Other researchers, with neither proof nor consistent arguments, also insist that this hybridization between Nō and Christian theatre did not ever take place. Sachi Amano concludes in his article on the Japanese performing arts as known by missionary priests: “That is to say, there were no Christian Noh plays. If, however, we are to say that there were intercultural plays born of the encounter of Europe and Japan, they would have to be in terms of Jesuit drama, the well-known Ukon Takayama (and other lords) ‘Japanese Christian as Hero’ plays held in Europe in the 17th century” (2014,138). 14  In fact, we can find it in the Letters (Cartas que os padres e irmãos …) that were printed in Evora in 1598, f. 225r.

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nuae, that long-standing reference on the state of the Christian missions in the latter half of the sixteenth century. Mário Martins, in his 1986 study of the theatre of the “Christiandades Quinhentistas” of India and Japan, actually passed directly by the very testimony that would indicate a relationship between Nō and missionary theatres, though Martins never was able to see the missing link himself: the letter he used in his book was incomplete and lacking components crucial to the reader’s understanding, and furthermore, the author erroneously connected the text to the Greek theatrical tradition instead of the Japanese. In reproducing a section of a letter from Melchior de Figueiredo, dated September 27th, 1567, Martins claims to see in the text “clear reflections of the chorus in the Greek tragedy” [“fortes reflexos do coro da tragedia grega”] (1984, 125), which seems to be “the clearest testimony we can find of the similarities between the traditional autos of the missions and the classical theatre of ancient Greece” [“o testemunho mais claro que nós encontramos da semelhança entre os autos tradicionais, nas missões, e o teatro clássico da velha Grécia”] (126). Nevertheless, if we examine the letter in its entirety, keeping in mind the techniques and features characteristic of the Nō drama, Figueiredo’s text takes on a very different meaning. A letter from Father Melchior de Figueiredo, in Bungo, September 27th, 1567: I shall say nothing of the celebration held this past Christmas, as what is written about this matter every year is sufficient to understand what we did this year. To this festival came many of the Christians from the surrounding villages with their wives and children. During the festival, always on the night of Christ’s birth, we always stage a representation of several passages from the Scriptures in the middle of the church, using people to act out what took place. These passages are such as the fall of Adam, the sacrifice of Abraham, the story of Lot, and the great flood and Noah’s ark, to which were added this year the story of Joseph and his brothers and his father Jacob, up to the point of their entry into Egypt. In these representations the Japanese are accustomed to using actors for the main scenes, and what appears to be most convenient for them is to have the actors speak in their own tongue. As for the lines belonging to the chronicler or evangelist, several people instructed for such a purpose sing these outside in a chorus, thus introducing some bit of doctrine to help the Christians understand the story and its message. And as these are admirable mysteries of our Holy

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Faith, and are so new to this amicable people, and are presented in such a fashion that has been adapted to their own ways, there are many who come to this festival, not only Christians, but their many kindly relatives as well, who attend to ask for intercession in secret. And were it not held inside, to this celebration would come every last person, as it gives them all much pleasure, which would be good, in part, if it were so, such that all around, everyone would receive notice of something so important taking place for the salvation of the soul. (Cartas que 1598, f. 243r).15

Martins and his imagination immediately veer toward ancient Greece upon seeing the word “chorus” in Figueiredo’s description of the missionaries’ theatre. It seems more correct, however, to place the word in relation to the socio-historical context in which it appears, and to connect it with the sort of theatre already used by the “Iapões” to relate and present stories —often times with religious or sacred content— which is none other than the Nō drama. In these works, one can frequently locate passages in which two voices —that of the main character, or shite, and that of the chorus— alternate in speaking, the latter acting as an ever-present narrator for each scene. Figueiredo’s account speaks of a scene in which accommodations have been made to better suit a Japanese audience, with the dialogue reworked for a viewer accustomed to hearing the on-stage actors speak with their own voices while a chorus sings the lines belonging to the narrator or evangelist. It seems logical, therefore, to envision this play as an adaptation of Christian scripture just as one would expect to see in the Japanese style —that is, the Nō style that already existed prior to the Jesuit missions— and not as an extension of the ancient Greek tradition.

15  Our translation of the original text in Portuguese. The main section says in the original text: “[...] Custumão os Iapões nestas representaçãos mostrar os principaes passos por figuras, & o que mais convém he praticado polas mesmas figuras por seus ditos, & o que pertence ao escritor cronista, ou evangelista, cantão em hum coro alguns de fora ordenados pera isto, com se entremeter alguma doutrina que faz ao caso pera declaração da cousa e edificação dos Christãos, & por estas cousas serem misterios de nossa Santa Fe admiraveis, cousa tan nova nesta gentilidade, e acomodada a representação de seu proprio modo acode a esta festa muita gente, [...].”

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Staging Sacred scripture in such a fashion, one that the audience could immediately recognize as their own, Figueiredo tells us that many people become interested in seeing the play in the church, and through the use of dramatic representation already known to the Japanese viewer, the missionaries are able to present new stories of the “mysteries of [the] Holy Faith” to the people, to great success and acclaim. As such, it will soon be necessary to move the plays from inside the church to outside, as the great numbers of people in attendance, from the converted Japanese to the throngs of interested spectators and other potential new Christians, will require a larger space better suited for their needs, where one and all can come to both enjoy the show and receive moral instruction. Works Cited Alberro, Solange. 2000. “Los franciscanos y la tabula rasa en la Nueva España del siglo xvi: un cuestionamiento.” In El teatro franciscano en la Nueva España. Fuentes y ensayos para el estudio del teatro de evangelización en el siglo xvi, edited by M. Sten, 21-38. México: UNAM-CONACULTA. Amano, Sachi. 2014. “Japanese Performing Arts known by Missionary Priests within the Intercultural Milieu of the 16th Century: Did Fróis encounter Christian Noh?” Dedica: Revista de Educação e Humanidades 5: 123-38. Aracil Varón, Beatriz. 1999. El teatro evangelizador: sociedad, cultura e ideología en la Nueva España del siglo xvi. Roma: Bulzoni. Bourdon, Leon. 1993 [1951]. La Compagnie de Jésus et le Japon (1547-1570). ParisLisbonne: Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian-Comission Nationale pour les Commémorations des Découvertes Portugaises. Boxer, C. R. 1951. The Christian Century in Japan, 1549-1650. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Cabezas, Antonio. 1994. El siglo ibérico del Japón. La presencia hispano-portuguesa en Japón (1543-1643). Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid. Cartas que os padres e irmãos da Companhia de Iesus escreverão dos Reynos de Iapão & China aos da mesma Companhia da India & Europa, desdo anno de 1549 ate o de 1580. Evora: Manuel de Lyra, 1598. Ebisawa, Arimichi. 1971. “The Meeting of Cultures.” In The Southern Barbarians. The First Europeans in Japan, edited by M. J. Cooper, 125-44. Tokyo and Palo Alto: Kodansha.

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Friedrich, Markus. 2008. “Circulating and Compiling the Litterae Annuae. Towards a History of the Jesuit System of Communication.” Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 77: 3-39. Fujita, N. S. 1991. Japan’s Encounter with Christianity: The Catholic Mission in PreModern Japan. New York: Paulist Press. Harich-Schneider, Eta. 1973. A History of Japanese Music. London: Oxford University Press. Hermenegildo, Alfredo. 1994. El teatro del siglo xvi. Madrid-Gijón: Júcar. Horcasitas, Fernando. 2004. Teatro náhuatl. México: UNAM. Leims, Th. 1990. Die Entstehung des Kabuki: Transkulturation Europa-Japan im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert. Leiden/New York: E. J. Brill. Lisón Tolosana, Carmelo. 2005. La fascinación de la diferencia. La adaptación de los jesuitas al Japón de los samuráis, 1549-1592. Madrid: Akal. Martins, Mário. 1986. O Teatro nas Cristiandades Quinhentistas da Índia e do Japão. Edições Brotéria e Livraria A. I. Ortolani, Benito. 1995. The Japanese Theatre. From Shamanistic Ritual to Contemporary Pluralism. Princenton: Princeton University Press. Pacheco, Diego. 1971. “The Europeans in Japan, 1543-1640.” In The Southern Barbarians. The First Europeans in Japan, edited by M. J. Cooper, 35-96. Tokyo and Palo Alto: Kodansha. Partida Tayzan, Armando. 2000. “El sacrificio de Isaac: ¿colonización o integración escénica de dos culturas.” In El teatro franciscano en la Nueva España. Fuentes y ensayos para el estudio del teatro de evangelización en el siglo xvi, edited by M. Sten, 265-80. México: UNAM-CONACULTA. Reyes Peña, Mercedes de los. 1988. El ‘Códice de Autos Viejos’. Un estudio de historia literaria. Sevilla: Alfar. Ruiz-de-Medina, J. 1995. Documentos del Japón 1558-1562. Roma: Instituto Histórico de la Compañía de Jesús. [Monumenta Histórica Japoniae III]. Shelly, K. and G. Rojo. 1982. “El teatro hispanoamericano colonial.” In Historia de la Literatura Hispanoamericana. Tomo I. Época colonial, edited by L. Íñigo Madrigal, 319-52. Madrid: Cátedra. Wasserman, M. 1987. “Rideau en scène et scènes sans rideau. De la France au Japon.” Musical 5: 99-105.

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Depicting Japan: Lope de Vega and Los primeros mártires del Japón Claudia Mesa Higuera

All of Western faith and good faith was engaged in this wager on representation: That a sign could refer to the depth of meaning, that a sign could exchange for meaning and that something could guarantee this exchange—God, of course. But what if God himself can be simulated, that is to say, reduced to the signs which attest his existence? Then the whole system becomes weightless, it is no longer anything but a gigantic simulacrum. (170) Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulations (1981)

Los primeros mártires del Japón (ca. 1621), attributed to Félix Lope de Vega Carpio, holds a special place in the corpus of Spanish Golden Age theater. Of the approximately two thousand dramatic pieces written in Spain during the 16th and 17th centuries, not more than seventeen are set in the New World (Lee 2006, 12). Five of those were written by Lope de Vega and only one, Los primeros mártires del Japón, takes place in the “Land of the Rising Sun”— Nippon, which Marco Polo in the accounts of his Travels referred to as “Cipango.”1 1  Donald F. Lach provides a few striking examples suggesting that there is not only a relative absence of Spanish texts about Japan, but also an absence about the East in general. Although these statistics refer to the 16th century, they are symptomatic of the 17th century as well: “Of 134 titles printed at Alcalá during the decade 1560-69 not one, strictly speaking, was about the East. From 1575 to 1599, the same press published 240 titles, of which just three are unmistakably about the East and are translations of works published earlier in Portugal. For the same period, 160 items were printed at Seville, of which only three relate

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Why were relatively few plays concerned with the Indies, which extended both east and west from the Spanish peninsula across the oceans? One could argue that it was the location, the distance between the empire and its margins, that hindered, among other factors, the process of representation. I draw on the concepts of “simulacra and simulations” associated with Jean Baudrillard, to problematize the notion of divine representation in Los primeros mártires del Japón. Set in early modern Japan, the play stages the conversion of a Japanese couple prompted by the spectacular martyrdom of three friars and a Japanese child. Baudrillard challenges the distinction between object and representation by taking the study of religious imagery as a point of departure. His analysis results in a simulacrum, a model that has no ground in reality outside itself (Poster 1988, 6). Baudrillard’s critique of the structure of representation in general, and of divine representation in particular, helps to articulate the ideological underpinnings connected to a play that was not only intended to defend the Dominican mission in Japan, but also to portray a successful, yet idealized vision of the imperial pattern of colonization overseas. I argue that Los primeros mártires del Japón is structured around a hyperbolic metaphor of visual and verbal display in which the language and architecture of theater itself confers immediacy and materiality to a series of elusive referents, from miraculous manifestations of the divine to the establishment of a Catholic Spanish Kingdom in Japan.2 This dramatic construction appeals to the collective imaginary as a form of entertainment guided by state ideology and Christian doctrine. It is worth mentioning that Lope’s authorship of Los primeros mártires has been contested.3 Yet, the topic of the Christian martyrs in Japan clearly to Eastern affairs. Of the 203 titles published in Aragon during the decade 1590-99, one is unmistakably about the East—Buxeda de Leyva’s work on Japan published in Saragossa in 1591. […] A number of Spanish works of the latter half of the century, particularly Jesuit letters, were translations of Portuguese originals…” (1965, Vol. I, Book I, 184). 2  The term “metaphor of visuality” (130) or “the metaphor of visual display” (131), derives from Leonard Barkan’s challenge of theater as a predominantly visual art. 3  Christina H. Lee, who published the only critical edition of Los mártires del Japón (2006), favors the judgment of Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo and Alois R. Nykl in support of Lope’s authorship. Menéndez Pelayo finds a very close resemblance between Lope’s Barlaán y Josefat (1611) and Los mártires “tiene parentesco, y muy estrecho, con la comedia de Barlaam

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interested him. A few years before the play was completed, Lope published El triunfo de la fe en los reinos del Japón (1618), a historiography that records the martyrdom of five male and three female Japanese converts on the island of Kyushu between 1614 and 1615.4 In a 1617 letter to the Duke of Sessa, Lope refers to his motivations for working on this particular topic: “Mi estudio estos días ha sido una historia de mártires, ó digamos Relaçión a que me ha obligado haberme escrito unos Padres desde el Japón; serán çinquenta ojas, que boy ya en los fines; pienso que agradará, que también sé yo escribir prosa historial cuando quiero” (1941, 317). The passage explains that El triunfo started as a commission. Its intended outcome was to promote and validate the Dominican order in Japan vis-à-vis the Jesuits. The letter also hints to Lope’s intention to cast himself as a religion historian in an intellectual environment marked by virulent attacks against his work. One example is Pedro de Torres Rámila’s Spongia, a satire published in Paris in 1617.5 The y Josefat [sic] (1611), á la cual se parece tanto en algunos trozos, que es imposible negar que ambas obras hayan salido de la misma mano” (1890-1913, LI). Furthermore, Nykl notes that in the second part of La Filomena (1621), Lope claims that he “sang”— as opposed to “wrote” or “recorded”—the unfortunate events that happened to the martyrs in Japan and thus alluding to the existence of the play (1925, 308): “Yo cantè, finalmente, / los Martires Iapones, / Porque mi voz no agradeciesse solo / El mar que el Duero, el Tajo, el Betis beue, / Sino el que tiene por zenith el Polo / Mas Oriental” (Lope 1621, 55). J.S. Cummins, however, claims that the discrepancies between the descriptions of the Japanese landscape in Los primeros mártires and the ones in the historiography are sufficient to argue that there is more than one author (1965, 98-100). Based on a study of the stylistic aspects, Roberto Castilla Pérez, proposes Antonio Mira de Amescua as the real author of Los mártires. In the chronology of Lope de Vega’s comedias compiled by Morley and Bruerton, it is listed among the “Plays of doubtful or not certain authenticity” (1966, 328-329). 4  The specific localities were Arima, Arie and Cochinotzu (Lope de Vega 1965, 20). In El triunfo, Lope states that he was not an eye-witness of the event, but that he learned about this subject from a third party: “escrivo los martyrios, no testigo de vista, que no fue mi dicha tanta, pero por relaciones de algunos Padres, que me las embiaron desde Manila…” (1965, 16). Among other sources, Lope’s prose closely follows the contents of a 1615 letter that the Dominican missionary Jacinto Orfanel sent to the Prior of Manila and that later reached Lope. See Cummins’ introduction to Triunfo. 5  It is well-known that behind Torres de Rámila was Cristóbal Suárez de Figueroa, one of Lope’s many literary rivals. At the time, Lope was also being criticized by Góngora’s followers who were proponents of the so-called “nueva poesía.” For this topic, see Bradbury (2012).

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original text, now lost, denigrated Lope’s poetic gifts, referring to him as “el metrificador” and trying to make the case to wipe out his entire body of work with a sponge (Entrambasaguas 1946, 309; 283).6 In the prologue to El triunfo, Lope ironically refers to the accusations made in the Spongia declaring that as the “wild-ass satyr in his ridiculous Sponge,” said, should he so choose, he would be able to write the entire Martyrology in verse.7 Although his letter to the Duke of Sessa does not state that he is working on Los primeros mártires del Japón, Lope cleverly remarks on his own talent as a historian and defines a rhetorical strategy to handle his detractors.8 In fact, Lope’s efforts to fashion himself as a chronicler in a literary war against his enemies coincides with the desire to establish a triumphant history of the Spanish Empire that validated the wide-spread notion of Spanish providentialism. Despite the fact that the political project of conquering Japan and China had already been dismissed, there was still the hope to successfully carry out a spiritual conquest in the Far East (Cummins 1965, 98). An anonymous romance that circulated during Philip II’s reign, celebrates the extent of the Spanish possessions and creates the expectation to acquire new territories under the banner of Christianity: Pues, en Japón y la China, Se espera otro nuevo estado Con que para siempre sea El nombre de Dios loado; Y así nuestro Rey invicto Quiere estar siempre ocupado 6  An unknown author who went by the pen name of Julio Columbario, assembled an apology for Lope in the Expostulatio Spongiae (Madrid 1618). In this work, Lope includes a self-made emblem intended to fight back. The pictura represents a dung beetle (Torres) that perishes as soon as it encounters the aroma of a fragrant rose (Lope). For this emblem see Cull (2009, 63-64). 7  “Bien pudiera dar esta relación a las Musas, y hacer a Clio Metrificadora, como dixo el Onagro Silenio en su ridícula Espongia” (Lope de Vega 1965, 9). 8  As early as 1611, Lope expressed interest in becoming a cronista. This intention is revealed in a July 13-18 letter to the Duke of Sessa: “mi pretension antigua de Cronista” (qtd. in Sánchez Jiménez 2006, 72). In 1621 after the death of Philip III, his hopes to occupy the post of cronista real are revived but they will never come to fruition.

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En sembrar por todo el orbe El Evangelio sagrado, […] Con religión verdadera Con que Dios sea agradado, Y el estandarte de Cristo, Triunfe en todo lo poblado… (“Extensión de los dominios españoles...” 1851, 190)

The romance appeals to the metaphor of the Spanish monarch as a farmer spreading the seeds of the gospel across the globe. It emphasizes that an earthly paradise populated with Christian souls would be made possible by the Spanish monarchy and its policies overseas. In El triunfo, Lope employs a comparable image of religious colonization. He claims to have in his possession an actual ear of wheat—una espiga de Heredad—that one of the Japanese martyrs planted just a few days before his death (1965, 68). The espiga should be taken as an indication that the harvest initiated by the evangelical missions will eventually result in this new church in Japan: “No lo afirmo por milagro, pero quede escrito por cosa maravillosa, y como pronostico de la cosecha, que se espera en aquellos Reynos del fruto de su nueva Iglesia” (1965, 69).9 The symbolism implied in the ear of grain resembles the functions associated with agricultural practices of growth and fertility. As the yield of the crop satisfies the needs of the people, the new church will satiate their spiritual needs while expanding its dominion and that of Imperial Spain. With respect to Lope’s idealistic vision of the kingdoms of Japan, Ricardo Padrón proposes that in El triunfo, Lope reshapes the history of the martyrdoms into a “document of Hispanic imperial utopianism” in which “Japan, the scene of brutal persecution, ironically becomes a site from which the universal monarchy of Catholic Spain can be imagined, and from which it becomes an object of longing” (2006, 519). One could add that if in the historiography, the paradigm of a triumphant Catholic Spain is advanced— Hispania Victrix—in the play, these ideological concerns are magnified to 9  It is believed that the ear of grain was sent by Orfanel to the Provincial in Manila and “through him, came to the hands of Lope de Vega” (Cummins 1965, XXXV).

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build a more persuasive example in defense of the Dominicans. The decapitation in Nagasaki of four padres in 1617, each from one of the religious orders in the missions in Japan, creates an even more compelling case than the 1614-1615 martyrdoms of the Japanese converts recorded by Lope in El triunfo.10 If the 1614-1615 martyrdoms were considered persuasive examples to extol the mission of the mendicant orders in Japan, the tragic events of 1617 accentuated already dramatic tenor of the situation. The news of the friars’ martyrdom would not only allow the audience to identify themselves with their suffering, but also inspire patriotic sentiments to help the Dominican cause before the authorities in Spain. A line from El triunfo emphasizes the connection between religious zeal and nationalistic values. After the respective stories of the Japanese martyrs had been told, Lope incorporated the even earlier martyrdoms of 1597 into the narrative. His goal was to assure that this episode in the history of the missions also recorded the blood sacrifices made by his fellow Spaniards at an earlier point in time: “Pero porque este fragmento no se vaya sin alguna sangre de nuestros Españoles…” (1965, 73). The well-known maxim, “the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church,” inspired by a passage of Tertullian in the Apology and repeatedly invoked in the letters that the Jesuits wrote about Japan, also echoes the imperial pattern of colonization abroad, in which the spiritual conquest is connected to the consolidation of the state [Fig. 1].11 Thus, whether or not one accepts the premise that Lope is indeed the author of this comedia, it can be argued that the vision of a universal monarchy 10  On June 1, 1617 the Dominican Alonso Navarrete and the Augustinian Hernando de San José Ayala, died as martyrs. Their martyrdom was voluntary. A week before, both the Franciscan Pedro de la Asunción and the Portuguese Jesuit Juan Bautista Machado were decapitated. Padre Machado, however, is conspicuously absent from the play, thus exemplifying the animosity between the mendicant orders and the members of the Society of Jesus. 11  The original quote by Tertullian reads: “His disciples also scattered throughout the world obey the command of God their Master, and they themselves, too, endured many things at the hands of the persecuting Jews, suffering willingly indeed from their reliance on the truth; and lastly by the cruelty of Nero they sowed the seed of their Christian blood in Rome” (Chapter XXI, 73) and, “We spring up in greater numbers as often as we are mown down by you: the blood of the Christians is a source of new life” (Chapter L, 147). There is a comparable image in El triunfo: “Los Martyres son columnas de la fabrica de la iglesia” (1965, 87).

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Figure 1. Schelte Adamsz Bolswert, The Martyrs of Japan, engraving 1628-1659. Rijksmueum, Amsterdam.

of Catholic Spain that Lope seeks to convey in El triunfo, is amplified, made visible, and re-enacted in Los primeros mártires del Japón. Theater as an art of imitation attempts to simulate reality, even at the cost of widening the distance between the object and its representation. In spite of that, the experience of the drama, and the immediacy of the performance aided by the state

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machinery, was intended to provoke an emotional response and facilitate the public’s tendency to relate to the characters. One of Baudrillard’s interests is the inquiry into the nature of representation. As he states, representation begins with the assumption that “the sign and the real are equivalent (even if this equivalence is Utopian)” (1988, 170). This assumption denotes a certain instability of the sign with respect to the real. However, when it comes to the representation of the divine, the utopian principle of equivalence becomes more unstable, because even if the sign exists, it does not represent its object. In other words, for Baudrillard the divine can be represented, but cannot be known. There is simply no referent in such a representation and yet a “spectacular manipulation of consciences” (1988, 169) takes place. Subsequently, the difficulty does not rely on the representation itself, but rather on the platonic or metaphysical assumption that there is an archetype, a perfect idea from which representation could be derived. If we accept with Baudrillard, that “the death of the divine referential” (1988, 169) has taken place, the production and consumption of divine imagery is now “reduced to signs” (1988, 170), it has turned itself into a simulacrum: “The transition from signs which dissimulate something to signs which dissimulate that there is nothing, marks the decisive turning point. The first implies a theology of truth and secrecy […]. The second one inaugurates an age of simulacra and simulation, in which there is no longer any God to recognize his own…” (1988, 170-171). Nevertheless, simulacra and simulation, may help to fill the void of divine representation through spectacle and storytelling. There is indeed a visual and verbal narrative but “the death of the divine referential” (1988, 169) has already occurred because it is a world populated by self-referential signs. Following Baudrillard, one could superimpose this notion of simulacrum with utopian spaces, myths of origin, and visions of lost paradises, such as the Christian Kingdom in Japan. To illustrate the idea that images are neither innocent nor straightforward, Baudrillard lists what he calls “the successive [four] phases of the image” (1988, 170). For him, images possess the paradoxical ability to unmask and at the same time to reveal the real. This dialectical process starts with an image as a “reflection”, unfolds into the “masking” and “perversion” of this reality, and culminates with an image that “bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum” (1988, 170), with no referent beyond its own. I

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consider that the dynamic transformation of an image of the real into a simulacrum, takes place throughout Los primeros mártires del Japón and has been motivated by the ideological religious and political underpinnings outlined above. However, before I move to that interpretation, I would like to further discuss the circumstances surrounding the composition of the play. These circumstances emphasize the attempt to draw on both an emotional narrative and visually suggestive signs to gain political and financial support from the authorities in Spain in order to fund the Dominican mission in Japan. Like El triunfo, Los primeros mártires del Japón was also developed as a commission prompted by the decapitation of the Dominican Alonso Navarrete and the Augustinian Hernando de San José Ayala on June 1, 1617, who had offered themselves as martyrs.12 The notice of the martyrdom in Omura, a prefecture of Nagasaki, arrived in Madrid in a letter dated March 12, 1618. It was addressed to Canon Pedro Fernández de Navarrete, royal chaplain for Philip III, and Alonso Navarrete’s brother.13 The author of the letter, fray Francisco Morales, founder of the Dominican mission in Japan, after close examination of Navarrete’s plans, gave his consent for Navarrete to offer himself as martyr and later witnessed his agony. The radical gesture of self-sacrifice was meant to promote the cause of mendicant orders on the island whose work had not been properly recognized in Spain. Morales’s letter recounts the circumstances surrounding the martyr’s death, but also, and perhaps more importantly, conceives the idea to turn the news of Navarrete’s martyrdom into a play: “Your Reverence can have a tragedy composed upon this subject if there is anyone who feels inspired to undertake the task: it 12  Cummins and Lee both think that the play is the result of a commission. However, while Lee considers that Fernández Navarrete chose Lope to perform this task, Cummins disagrees (1965, 93-94). For Lee’s response to Cummins’ objections, see both her introduction to the play (2006, 35-36) and her article on the same subject (2014, 232). 13  According to Cummins there is a copy of Morales’s letter to Pedro Fernández de Navarrete in the Dominican Archive in Manila, v. 301, ff. 1-30 (Cummins 1965, notes 3 and 4, pp. 92). There is also notice of two other letters from Japan that inform of the passing of friar Alonso to his family. They were written by Fray Alonso de Mena, cousin to the Navarrete brothers. The first is a February 8, 1618 letter addressed also to the Canon Fernández de Navarrete and the second one, dated March 20, 1618, was sent to Mena’s mother, doña Gerónima de Navarrete (Pagès 1870, 187-188). For a French reproduction of the three letters see Leon Pagès (1870, 187-190).

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would be a subject of great edification to all” (qtd. in Cummins 1965, 93).14 First, Morales congratulates Navarrete’s brother for the “glorious death of our blessed martyr,” whose mutilated body was thrown into the sea. To compensate for the absence of the corpse, he includes a drop of the martyr’s blood together with the sword used by the Japanese authorities to decapitate him (Pagès 1870, 189). Aside from these “relics”, Morales mentions the existence of an image detailing the martyrdom, drawn by other members of the order in Japan. He claims to have sent it to the convent of the Dominicans in Valladolid with the hope that “excellent artists” in Spain would be able to immortalize the event “with more art” (Pagès 1870, 189). The martyrdom itself along with its setting on an island in the Far East offer dramatic possibilities. The relics could be seen as props and the picture as a tableau vivant intended to provide a graphic account of the martyrs’ suffering. As stated above, the intended outcome of the letter was to promote the mission of the Dominicans and to counterbalance the attacks of the Jesuits who at least in theory, had been given control over the missions in Japan. The actual implementation of the monopoly, granted in 1584 by Gregory XIII in the bull Ex pastorali officio, had created tensions among the confraternities, as they found themselves in constant quarrel regarding their role in the evangelization of the Japanese.15 The rivalry between the mendicant orders and the Jesuits had grown increasingly tense, and Navarrete’s oblation only made matters worse. Although it created an outburst of devotion among the Japanese converts, for the Jesuits it reinforced their poor opinion of the Dominicans as “frailes idiotas,” imprudent fanatics, prone to excess (Cummins and Boxer 1986, 17).16 The unintended consequence of Navarrete’s martyrdom is ironic, 14  Cummins considers that the idea behind this suggestion came to Morales from having been exposed to the very popular representations in the Philippines at both religious and official events (92). 15  The Christian century in Japan begins in 1549 with the foundation of the Society of Jesus in Kyushu by Francis Xavier. It ends approximately in 1639, when the Japanese authorities issued a ban —sakoku— on all foreign interference. Franciscans, Dominicans, and Augustinians established their own missions in the 17th century, thus, the existence of conflicts between the mendicant orders and the Jesuits. 16  The case of Navarrete became notorious. Even centuries after his death, Dominican apologists writing in the nineteenth century defended Navarrete against the accusations of

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in light of the letter that he wrote to the Jesuits’ first Superior before his passing, urging him to cease the divisions among the different Orders and instead work together in harmony (Cummins 1965, XXVII). As friar Morales saw how the legitimacy of the Dominican mission became discredited, he tried to intervene with the suggestion to compose a theatrical piece based on the event. The letter to friar Navarrete’s brother, a person close to King Phillip III, was the key to showcasing the effectiveness of the Dominican mission and to receiving the much-needed recognition and monetary assistance. In addition to the martyrdom of Alonso Navarrete and other friars in 1617, the play draws on an earlier historical event that attracted the imagination of missionaries and commoners alike (Lee 2006, 15). The incident involved the exile of Toyotomi Hideyori (1593-1615), the 6-year-old heir to the Japanese throne who, after the death of his father Toyotomi Hideyoshi, encountered opposition by his five regents. In an effort to protect her son from Tokugawa Ieyasu, one of the regents, Hideyori’s mother Yodo-dono sought refuge with the prince in the fort of Osaka. Yodo-dono’s efforts were futile, as Ieyasu gained full control of the government. Rather than suffering humiliation before their subjects, the mother and son committed suicide in 1615. The story of the Japanese prince who had been confined to the fortress quickly made its way across the oceans through the letters and relaciones that friars and explorers wrote. For example, in El triunfo Lope alludes to the precarious political situation of Fidrai (1965, 44), as he calls Hideyori. Moreover, in his extensive Relación composed around 1614 and directed to the viceroy of la Nueva España, Sebastián Vizcaíno, a merchant in the commercial exchange between Mexico and Asia, devotes a few lines to the fate of the unfortunate prince. According to Vizcaíno, prince Hideyori is in a pitiful state. He is trapped inside one of the best fortresses of the empire and forbidden to have contact with the outside world. He is only in his 30’s but he is so obese that he can barely move. The prince lives surrounded by women who distract him with parties and dramatic performances in order to alienate him.17 Jesuits such as Crétineau Joli, who claimed that Navarrete’s death should not be considered a real martyrdom, but instead a form of suicide (Cummins 1965, 91). 17  “En la [fortaleza] de Usaca está el hijo de Taicosama, que es yerno del príncipe. Lo tienen ençerrado en la fortaleza, que es una de las mejores del imperio; no consiente que

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Following these two events and taking several poetic licenses regarding chronology and historical accuracy, the play intertwines religious motives with a rather secular curiosity towards the fate of the Japanese prince. As Carmen Hsu remarks, Los primeros mártires del Japón “rewrites the history of Japan not only to commemorate the missionary work of the Spanish Dominican [Alonso Navarrete], but also to elucidate the Christian intentions of the Spanish Empire” (2016, 227). Along with a number of anachronisms and juxtaposition of disparate events, the play distances itself from the facts of history not only because the Japanese prince survives, but also because he will convert to Christianity. The final image of the comedia stages the conversion of the prince and his beloved Quildora, and leaves the audience with the promise of a Christian Japan that would never materialize.18 In Los mártires, the portrayal of the Japanese and the miraculous occurrences that persuade them to convert become a matter of imaginative reflection structured around the verbal and the symbolic. What did Spaniards of the time know about the Japanese? Lope remarks about the remoteness of the place both in geographical distance and in social mores— and yet, there are records of the spectacular arrival of the Japanese delegation, dressed in traditional attire, in Madrid on January 30, 1615.19 The Japanese ambasnadie le able, porque no le digan cossa de lo que tienen usurpado, y no aspire a hazer guerra al emperador; y así le sirven mujeres qu’están haziéndole saraos y comedias, que es lastima lo ver por ser hijo de un tan baliente soldado estar afeminado, qu’ está tan gruesso que con tener más de treinta años no se puede menear” (Vizcaíno qtd. in Gil 1991, 372). 18  Carmen Hsu suggests a reading of the play that explores the process behind Tayco’s conversion and its relation to Navarrete’s self-sacrifice in the light of love and its various manifestations: “The martyrdoms, occurring right after Tayco’s emotional crisis prompted by love, disclose a truth: the triumph of the Christian religion over all impediments” (2016, 226). 19  “Dióle la Naturaleza [al Japón] un sitio tan apartado del resto de la tierra, que no se sabe qual es más remoto de nuestro trato, el sitio, o las costumbres” (Lope de Vega 1965, 18). The Japanese delegation from 1615 was not the first to arrive in Spain. Under Alessandro Valignano’s initiative, an earlier diplomatic mission conformed by four Japanese noble youths left Nagasaki in February 1582 and reached Lisbon in August 1584. The Japanese ambassadors arrived from the Portuguese village of Evora into Toledo on October 1, 1584 and by October 20, they entered Madrid. On November 14, 1584, Philip II gave an audience to the envoys. A celebration and a meeting with various high-ranking personalities followed the event. The Japanese ambassadors finally reached Rome on March 23, 1585 (Lach 1965, Vol. I, Book 2, 692-91).

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Figure 2. Claude Deruet, Portrait of Hasekura Rokuemon (1615). Galleria Borghese, Rome. Public Domain.

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Figure 3. Unknown author. Portrait of Hasekura Rokuemon Tsunenaga (1615). Sendai City Museum, Miyagi, Japan. Public Domain.

sador, Samurai Rokuemon Hasekura, led the parade through the streets of Madrid. With the help of Fray Luis Sotelo, who served as translator, Hasekura paid his respects to Philip III and asked him to send more missionaries to Japan “para que el pertrecho de conocer a Dios y a su Santa Ley, no solo fuesse suyo, sino de todos sus vasallos“ (Institute of Historical Compilation 142, qtd. in Lee 2006, 9) [Fig. 2]. A few weeks after his arrival, Hasekura was baptized in the chapel of the Descalzas Reales on February 17, 1615. The Duke of Lerma, Francisco Gómez de Sandoval, and the Countess of Barajas became the ambassador’s godfather and godmother, respectively. The widespread practice of re-naming native places in the conquest and colonization of the Indies was applied to the people as well. After the baptism, the

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Japanese ambassador adopted the Christian name of don Felipe Francisco Hasekura after the Spanish king and his privado [Fig. 3]. Although written accounts about the Japanese existed and were produced mostly by missionaries and travelers to the area, it is likely that aside from a superficial awareness of attire, language, and distinctive physical appearance, common Spaniards of the time had limited knowledge about Japan and its people.20 Indeed, the challenge of artistically representing the other and of staging the representation in the context of a spiritual enterprise is at the core of the play. As mentioned earlier, for Baudrillard an image begins, perhaps innocently, as a reflection of the real. Yet, he also seems to suggest that the very nature of representation will necessarily imply a distortion of the referential: “Perhaps at stake has always been the murderous capacity of images: murders of the real; murders of their own model as the Byzantine icons could murder the divine identity” (Baudrillard 1988, 170). It is not surprising that the representation of the Japanese identity in Los primeros mártires conforms to well-established topoi and types of the comedia nueva. As Lee observes, the “Japanese characters behave, feel emotions, and speak as if they were Spanish characters” (2014, 240). The author of the play uses a distorted image of the self as a point of reference, to represent the other. 20  For detailed information about European accounts of Japan and the Japanese during this time period, see Lach Chapter VIII on “Japan” (1965, Vol. I, Book Two, 651-729). I would highlight the following: 1) García Escalante Alvarado’s 1548 second-hand report based on the information provided by Pero Diez, a Galician from Monterrey who went to Japan in 1544; 2) Jorge Álvarez’s narration based on his experiences as a merchant on the island and commissioned by Francis Xavier in 1547; 3) the collection of Xavier letters detailing his mission to Japan including the letter dated January 29, 1552 and directed “to The Society in Europe” which was printed multiple times over the course of the sixteenth century; 4) and the robust epistolary of the Portuguese Luis Fróis who acquired a command of the language. Fróis “sent at least one missive each year, and usually more, during the sixteen years before the arrival of Valignano in 1579” and until Fróis’ death in 1597 (Lach 1965, Vol. I, Book Two, 686). During the seventeenth century the following historiographies addressed the subject of Japan: Luis de Guzmán’s Historias de las missiones […] en los reynos de Iapon (Alcalá de Henares, 1601), Marcelo de Ribadeneira’s Historia de las islas del archipielago Filipino y reinos de la Gran China, Tartaria, Cochinchina, Malaca, Siam, Camboxa y Iappon (Barcelona, 1601), and Antonio de Herrera y Tordecillas’s Historia general del mundo… (Madrid, 1599-1612). See also Lach (Vol. II, Book, 2, 192-192).

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In that sense, we know that those images are forgeries, deformed representations and as such they belong to the order of simulacrum. The plot unfolds around the psychological and emotional development of Tayco, the fictional Toyotomi Hideyori, from an almost primitive state into a reasonable ruler as he strives to regain his throne from Daiso Sama— the historical Ieyasu—the Emperor and antagonist in the play. Anticipating the character of Segismundo in Calderón’s La vida es sueño, Tayco has spent all his life imprisoned inside a tower and was raised in isolation. Unaware of his true identity, Tayco’s knowledge of the outside world comes from alcalde Lepolemo, the guardian of the tower who educated him to the best of his ability. However, there is political unrest in the kingdom. The play starts with the king of Siguén challenging the legitimacy of the Emperor’s rule. Siguén urges the other three kings—Bomura, Singo, and Amanqui—to overthrow the Emperor and recognize Tayco as their lawful ruler. As a result of Siguén’s rebellion, the Emperor decides to visit Tayco to determine whether he is fit to rule. The Emperor finds the diminished Tayco confined to the tower, dressed in animal skin and struggling to understand his own shadow. After the visit, the Emperor’s fears are put to rest even though Tayco, in spite of his simplicity, is not a fool: he is only feigning it. Once the Emperor leaves, el Alcalde reveals to Tayco that he is the rightful successor to the throne of Japan. From that point on, the prince struggles between pursuing his right to rule his kingdom and the inexplicable feeling that he cannot name yet: “Dime, [alcalde], [Tayco asks], ¿qué es este temor / y esta animada osadía, / esta pena y alegría, / esta vida y muerte?” (Lope de Vega 2006, Act II, 87).21 Tayco’s love, as well as the Emperor’s lust, is directed toward Quildora, a humble Japanese huntress whose dramatic persona closely resembles that of Diana in the Roman pantheon. Quildora promised her son Tomás —the child neophyte who together with the mendicant friars dies as a martyr at the end of the comedia— to convert to Christianity in the unlikely event that she became the Empress of Japan. The lives of the Japanese become intertwined with those of the friars when the King of Bomura, a renegade himself, convinces the Emperor that 21  I quote from Christina Lee’s edition. The roman numeral corresponds to the act, followed by page numbers.

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the Spanish missionaries are to blame for the uprising of Siguén and that they plan to overthrow his rule. In a speech that stresses the rhetorical devices used by the missionaries, Bomura warns the Emperor: Son, señor, estos cristianos, en su condición terribles; soberbios, locos, altivos, y que fingiéndose humildes, solicitan tus vasallos con apariencias visibles, hasta que dejan su ley y la de Cristo reciben. (Lope de Vega 2006, Act I, 52-53)

Bomura’s speech points to the use of images, “visible appearances,” as an effective tool in the conversion of the native people. Infuriated, Daiso Sama issues an edict expelling all Christians from his land.22 The three friars Alonso Navarrete, Francisco, and Agustín agree to leave although their plan is to return disguised as Japanese to continue with their mission. In this fashion, a pagan plot of lost power, love, jealousy, and mistaken identities becomes entangled with the miracles that Navarrete performs, and through which the Japanese would be persuaded to become part of the Christian Church. The incorporation of miracles and supernatural occurrences into hagiographical plays, seem to have been a favorite subject among the audiences of the comedia.23 Not without irony, the priest in Don Quijote (Part I) complains to the canon about the proliferation of miracles with the sole purpose of attracting people to both religious and secular plays: Y si es que la imitación es lo principal que ha de tener la comedia, ¿cómo es posible que satisfaga a ningún mediano entendimiento que, fingiendo una acción que pasa en tiempo del rey Pepino y Carlomagno…? […] Pues ¿qué, si venimos a las comedias divinas? ¡Qué de milagros falsos fingen en ellas, qué de 22  In 1614, the historical Ieyasu passes an edict persecuting Christians and expelling the missionaries from Japan. 23  For hagiographical plays see Dassbach.

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cosas apócrifas y mal entendidas, atribuyendo a un santo los milagros de otro! Y aun en las [comedias] humanas se atreven a hacer milagros, sin más respeto ni consideración que parecerles que allí estará bien el tal milagro y apariencia… (Cervantes 1995, 486-87)

According to the priest, the comedia should follow a mimetic principle of representation. Theater should imitate reality and in this respect the inclusion of “milagros falsos que fingen en ellas” is not permitted. Although the priest seems to accept the existence of miracles, he refuses to engage in an adventure of the imagination and to accept them as a false representation, as a simulacrum. Los primeros mártires could be understood, then, as a hybrid between a comedia humana and a comedia divina. The author of Los mártires leaves out the poetic considerations that the priest in Don Quijote outlines, and instead he stages four miracles: two in the second act and two in the third. In the first miracle, Navarrete, “con secretos impulsos” manages to paralyze the Emperor’s arm when the latter attempts to sexually assault Quildora in a meadow (Lope de Vega 2006, Act II, 108-09). After rescuing her, Navarrete insists on explaining to Quildora how she was spared from the tyranny of the Emperor. He asks: “Tú, mujer, ¿quién imaginas que te libra?” (II, 110). Since Quildora has no answer beyond the obvious, Navarrete is quick to reply: “El Dios de los españoles” (II, 110). In this passage, Navarrete challenges Tarski’s definition of truth as direct correspondence with reality by asking Quildora who is responsible for her release. The logical answer is Navarrete himself, whom she saw stopping the emperor from taking advantage of her. Yet in the play, that “reflection of a basic reality” as Baudrillard would say, is challenged by his response to her: “It was the God of the Spaniards,” an entity she has not seen. To compensate for this absence of a concrete referent, Navarrete provides her with a portrait of her alleged savior that depicts an image of Christ on the cross (II, 111). In the second miracle, the image that Navarrete had given to Quildora bleeds after Tayco, in an outbreak of jealousy, mistakes the identity of Christ for that of his amorous rival. Consumed with resentment, the impetuous Tayco pins it to a tree and stabs the face of the image with his dagger causing it to bleed (Lope de Vega 2006, Act II, 113). This miracle marks a turning

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point for Tayco. Even though he is not yet convinced that Christ is his savior— “Ni os niego, no yo os creo” (II, 114)— he is moved by the unexpected bleeding of the image to think that “el Dios de los españoles” is capable of performing inexplicable tasks. In secret, Tayco decides to ask the Christian god to help him get back his kingdom. In return he promises to convert: Dios del cristiano, en secreto un don os pienso pedir. Si me hacéis restituir este Imperio soberano, tengo de hacerme cristiano. (II, 114)

The third miracle takes place after the emperor resolves to sentence Navarrete to death and subsequently burn all images and objects associated with the Christian faith. Navarrete, who is present at the burning, decides to throw himself into the flames and collect the precious objects. He comes back on stage unharmed by the flames with all the images and rosaries intact. The stage direction reads: “Tocan. Sale Navarrete con una tunicela blanca sembrada de flores y guirnalda, cargado de imágenes y rosarios” (Lope de Vega 2006, Act III, 130; emphasis in the original). The magic performed on stage symbolically situates Navarrete as a representative of the order dressed in a white tunic and surrounded by rosaries and flowers, attributes associated with the Dominican confraternity. The last miracle is enacted with great dramatic effect. It occurs during the martyrdom of friars Navarrete, Agustín, and Francisco, each symbolizing one of the mendicant orders present in Japan. Instead of a Jesuit padre, the comedia stages the crucifixion of Tomás, Quildora’s child, whose presence seeks to enhance the emotional impact on the audience. The calculated omission of a representative of the Jesuit order in the play’s key scene was meant to undermine the role of the Society in the evangelization of the region. The stage directions for this scene paint a gruesome scene in which the child is crucified, and Navarrete appears decapitated and holding his head in his hands. The chest of the Franciscan friar has been pierced with an arrow and the Augustinian struck with a spear: “[A]parece entre peñas Tomás crucificado; a los pies, Navarrete con la cabeza en las manos y un hacha que la parte; el franciscano al lado derecho de la cruz con una flecha en el pecho, y el fraile agustino

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Figure 4. “The Boiling Water in Singock.” Imaginary description of the Unzen Martyrdom. Engraving from Arnoldus Montanus, Gedenkwaerdige gesantschappen der Oost-Indische Maetschappy in ‘t Vereenigde Nederland, aen de Kaisaren van Japan. Amsterdam: Jacob van Meurs, 1669. Courtesy of Japan 26 Martyrs Museum.

al lado, atravesado con lanza” (Lope de Vega 2006, Act III, 146; emphasis in the original). At this point the audience is able to hear an armed revolt of men and women calling for the death of the tyrant. As the emperor prepares to jump off a cliff, he expresses relief that at least Navarrete, who predicted his end, is not able to witness it. But Navarrete, or more precisely his talking head, laconically replies: “No te alegres, /que sí lo veo” (III, 148) [Fig. 4]. At the end of the play, the last lines uttered by the character Tayco have the potential to shake the elaborate construction that is now on stage. As I mentioned before, at an earlier point in the plot, the Emperor and Bomura decided to “condemn” all religious images to the fire. The gesture was symbolic and yet, by destroying all of the images, these Japanese iconoclasts expected to obliterate signs of Christianity from their land. In the moment in which the real and the symbolic intersect, Tayco asks Bomura: “¿En qué

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ha podido ofenderos / gente que ni come ni habla?” (Lope de Vega 2006, Act III, 127). The prince is referring to the people represented in the images that the Emperor and Bomura tried to destroy with such vigor. Despite his simplicity, Tayco understands that art is only a semblance, that the representation is not the object itself. This insight becomes key as the audience encounters the final scene when it becomes apparent that the greatest miracle is that Tayco has been able to regain his throne. He announces that both he and Quildora will keep their word and convert to Christianity. Yet, there is a slight sign of discomfort with the situation: Tayco adds that his conversion has to be kept secret until he is about to reign, maybe because after all, he also understands that everything has been a simulacrum, that the world that has been constructed had no referent outside its own: “Pero el secreto [de mi conversión] se quede / hasta reinar; y con esto / el perdón y el fin se deben / al suceso del Japón” (III, 148).

The Divine Irreference of Images Baudrillard’s understanding of the dialectics of representation brings an awareness with respect to the production of models that lack “origin or reality” and belong to the realm of simulation or hyperreality. Thus, embedded in the topic of representation is the awareness that symbols and communicative conventions often fail to represent the real. The already existing gap between the sign and the signifier is intensified when the object of representation is subject to the advancement of ideology. The two distinctive episodes in history of the martyrdoms that took place in Japan in 1614-15 and 1617, respectively, were recorded, among other documents, in Lope’s sacred history El triunfo de la fee en los reinos del Japón and later in the play Los primeros mártires del Japón. The thematic continuity between the historiography and the play, helps to further contextualize the rhetorical strategies used in both texts to advance a common expansionist ambition of a Catholic Spanish kingdom in Japan. Aside from the subject matter, both were commission pieces intended to publicize the Dominicans, and by extension other mendicant orders in Japan, against the Jesuits. Written in Spain and for Spanish audiences, they appeal to rhetorical strategies in order to narrate a persuasive

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story of the validity of the Dominican enterprise that triggers religious and nationalistic fervor. In Los primeros mártires in particular, the most effective tool to convey ideals of evangelization and imperial expansion consists of staging supernatural events. The sequence of miracles performed in the play is intended to persuade the Japanese to convert, and indirectly predispose the audience of the effectiveness of the religious enterprise. The alleged superiority of Christianity, and by extension of the Spanish god, is constructed around visual and verbal displays that tap into the imagination as a tool to move and manipulate the audience. After the spectacular performance of four miracles that range from the sudden acquisition of inexplicable physical force, to the bleeding of a religious image, the preservation of devotional objects from the burning flames, and the liveliness of Navarrete’s talking head even after he had been decapitated, Tayco and Quildora’s conversion finally takes place. Keeping their word, the young pagan couple turns into the new Adam and Eve. Eventually, they will populate Japan and reign under the paradigm of Christianity in political alliance with Spain, whose god they now accept. Throughout the play, the audience had witnessed the utopian creation of a Christian Japan made possible through the fictional enacting of a recent past that aligns the real with the ideal through the use of simulacrum. Works Cited Barkan, Leonard. 2013. “The Theater as a Visual Art.” In Mute Poetry, Speaking Pictures, 127-60. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Baudrillard, Jean. 1988. “Simulacra and Simulations.” In Selected Writings, edited by Mark Poster, 166-84. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bradbury, Jonathan David. 2012. “Some considerations on a new edition of the Expotulatio Spongiae.” In Anuario Lope de Vega. Texto, literatura, cultura 18: 274-90. Castilla Pérez, Roberto. 2001. “Los mártires del Japón. Lope de Vega o Mira de Amescua.” In La teatralización de la historia en el Siglo de Oro, edited by Roberto Castilla Pérez and Miguel González Dengra, 129-45. Granada: Universidad de Granada. Cervantes, Miguel de. 1995. Don Quijote de la Mancha I. Edited by Martín de Riquer, 486-87. Barcelona: Editorial Juventud.

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Cull, John T. 2009. “‘Its such an Embleme of bondage hereafter:’ Emblematic Imagery in Swetnam the Woman Hater.” Relaciones. Estudios de Historia y Sociedad XXX (119): 57-79. Cummins, J. S. 1965. “Introduction” and “Appendix I.” In Triunfo de la Fee en los Reynos del Japon by Lope de Vega, edited by J. S. Cummings, XV-XLVIII; 91100. London: Tamesis. Cummins, J. S, and C. R. Boxer. 1986. “The Dominican Mission in Japan (160222), and Lope de Vega,” in Jesuit and Friar in the Spanish Expansion to the East, 5-88. London: Variorum Reprints. Dassbach, Elma. 1997. La comedia hagiográfica del siglo de oro español. New York, Peter Lang. Entrambasaguas, Joaquín de. 1946. “Una guerra literaria del Siglo de Oro: Lope de Vega y los preceptistas aristotélicos.” In Estudios sobre Lope de Vega. Vol. 1. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. “Extensión de los dominios españoles en tiempo de Felipe II, y esperanzas de adquirir nuevos Estados.” 1851. In Romancero general, o, Colección de romances castellanos anteriores al siglo xviii, edited by Agustín Durán, 189-90. Vol. 2. Madrid: Imprenta de la Publicidad, under the charge of D.M. Rivadeneyra. Gil, Juan. 1991 “Embajada y descubrimiento: el viaje de Sebastián Vizcaíno.” In Hidalgos y Samuráis: España y Japón en los siglos xvi y xvii, 268-383. Madrid: Alianza Universidad. Hsu, Carmen. 2016. “Martyrdom, Conversion and Monarchy in Los primeros mártires del Japón (1621)”. In Zwischen Ereignis und Erzählung: Konversion als Medium der Selbstbeschreibung in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, edited by Julia Weitbrecht, Werner Röcke, and Ruth von Bernuth, 217-234. Berlin: De Gruyter. Lach, Donald F. 1965, 1977. Asia in the Making of Europe. Vols. 1 and 2. Chicago and London: Chicago University Press. Lee, Christina H. 2006. “Introduction.” In Los mártires del Japón by Lope de Vega, edited by Christina H. Lee, 9-44. Newark: Juan de la Cuesta. — 2014. “Lope de Vega and The Martyrs of Japan.” In A Companion to Early Modern Hispanic Theater, edited by Hilaire Kallendorf, 229-46. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Menéndez y Pelayo, Marcelino. 1890-1913. “Introduction.” In Obras de Lope de Vega publicadas por la Real Academia Española. Vol. 5, LI-LV. Madrid: Real Academia Espanola. Morley, Sylvanus Griswold and Courtney Bruerton. 1966. The Chronology of Lo­ pe de Vega’s Comedias. New York: Modern Language Association. Nykl, Alois Richard. 1925. “‘Los Primeros Mártires del Japón’ and ‘Triunfo de la fe en los Reinos del Japón.’” Modern Philology 22 (3): 305-23.

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Padrón, Ricardo. 2006. “The Blood of the Martyrs Is the Seed of the Monarchy: Empire, Utopia, and the Faith in Lope’s Triunfo de la fee en los reynos de Japón.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 36 (3): 517-37. Pagès, León. 1870. Histoire de la religion chrétienne au Japon depuis 1598 jusqu’à 1651: comprenant les faits ... Vol. 2. Paris: Charles Douniol. Poster. Mark. 1988. “Introduction.” In Selected Writings by Jean Baudrillard, 1-9. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Tertullian. 1890. Apology of Tertullian for the Christians. Trans. T. Herbert Bindley. London: M.A. Parker and Co. Sánchez Jiménez, Antonio. 2006. “La vega llana, el poeta del pueblo.” In Lope pintado por sí mismo, 80-132. Woodbridge: Tamesis. Vega, Lope de. 2006. Los mártires del Japón. Edited by Christina H. Lee. Newark: Juan de la Cuesta. — 1941. Epistolario. Edited by Agustín G. de Amezúa y Mayo. Vol. III. Madrid: Real Academia de la Lengua. — 1621. Filomena, con otras diversas rimas, prosas y versos. Barcelona: Sebastian de Cormellas. — 1965. Triunfo de la fee en los reynos de Japón. Edited by J. S. Cummins. London: Tamesis Books Limited.

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Contributors

Bruce R. Burningham is Professor of Hispanic Studies and Theatre at Illinois State University where he currently serves as Chair of the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. Since 2011, he has served as Editor of Cervantes, the official journal of the Cervantes Society of America. He is also the current President of the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater. His research and teaching interests include medieval and early modern Spanish and Latin American literature, Hispanic theater, and performance theory. He is the author of two monographs: Radical Theatricality: Jongleuresque Performance on the Early Spanish Stage (Purdue University Press, 2007) and Tilting Cervantes: Baroque Reflections on Postmodern Culture (Vanderbilt University Press, 2008). He has also published articles in Theatre Journal, Cervantes, Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Bulletin of the Comediantes, Comedia Performance, Romance Quarterly, and eHumanista/Cervantes. He received his PhD from Yale University, and has taught at Florida Atlantic University and the University of Southern California. He is also the recipient of an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Humanities grant. His theatrical directing credits include a recent production of Griselda Gambaro’s The Walls. Jorge Abril Sánchez is an independent early modern scholar who focuses his research on the literature of England and Spain, often from a comparative perspective: Miguel de Cervantes, Calderón de la Barca, Tirso de Molina, Lope de Vega, Andrés de Claramonte, John Dryden, Aphra Behn, Elkanah Settle, William D’Avenant, Sir Robert Howard, Thomas Shadwell, etc. His scholarly interests range widely, from the study of divination and the immortality of the soul in the Middle Ages (Martín de Braga, Lope de Barrientos, Alfonso de Espina, Rodrigo Fernández de Santaella, etc.); and, heresy and treatises of demonology (Martín de Arlés, Pedro Ciruelo, Martín de Castañega, Francisco de Vitoria, Martín del Río, Pedro de Valencia,

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James I of England, etc.) in Renaissance England and Golden Age Spain; to the description of idolatry, paganism and demonolatry upon the exploration and conquest of America and Asia by Spaniards (Andrés de Olmos, Miguel de Luarca, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, etc.). He is the co-editor of A Novel without Boundaries: Sensing Don Quixote 400 Years Later (Juan de la Cuesta 2016) and Immature Playboys and Predatory Tricksters: Studies in the Sources, Scope and Reach of Don Juan (Juan de la Cuesta 2019), the author of several book chapters and articles on Cervantes, books of chivalry and war, ekphrastic sexuality and prostitution, and an active theatrical performance reviewer. Frederick A. de Armas is Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, where he has also served as Chair of the Department and Director of Graduate Studies. He has been President of the Cervantes Society of America and President of AISO. He received his PhD from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (1969) and has been honored with a doctorate honoris causa from the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland) in 2018. His more recent books and collections include Cervantes, Raphael and the Classics (1998); Writing for the Eyes in the Spanish Golden Age (2004); Ekphrasis in the Age of Cervantes (2005); Quixotic Frescoes: Cervantes and Italian Renaissance Art (2006); Ovid in the Age of Cervantes (2010); Objects of Culture in the Literature of Imperial Spain (2013), El retorno de Astrea: astrología, mito e imperio en Calderón (2016), etc. His book Don Quixote among the Saracens: Clashes of Civilizations and Literary Genres (2011) was recognized with honorable mention for the PROSE Award in Literature 2011. He has also authored two novels set in Cuba in the late 1950’s: El abra del Yumurí (2016) and Sinfonía salvaje (2019). Juan Pablo Gil-Osle completed his doctorate at the University of Chicago. Currently he is Professor of Spanish Golden Age literature at Arizona State University, Tempe, after having held positions at the University of Michigan and Arkansas State University. His recent books focus on the representations of friendship and networking in early modern culture. Many of his articles deal with the relationship between word and image, gender studies,

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and digital humanities. Gil-Osle’s interest in visual and digital portrayals of the Golden Age has resulted in his presidency of the Early Modern Image and Text Society (EMIT Society), and his editorship of the Laberinto Journal. In the School of International Letters and Cultures, he leads the Spanish Initiative in China, which seeks teacher and student exchanges with Spanish departments in China. Right now, his two big projects are: finishing his next book Early Global Modernity and organizing a conference on early modern Chinese and Spanish chronicles, in the Beijing Center of the University of Chicago in June 2020. Carmela V. Mattza Su is Associate Professor of Spanish at Louisiana State University and the Graduate Advisor of Hispanic Studies. She is also a Modern Language Association (MLA) Field Bibliographer Fellow, 2016-2019. Her current research focuses on the language of emotions and flowers in Ming and Habsburg (Spanish Golden Age) Theater. She has recently published Hacia La vida es sueño como speculum reginae: Isabel de Borbón en la corte de Felipe IV (Verbum, 2017). Other publications include “A Stage for Isabel de Borbón: From Paris to Aranjuez” (Beyond Spain’s Borders: Women Players in Early Modern National Theaters, New York: Routledge, 2017) and “Écfrasis de autoridad, género y poder en la La gran Cenobia” in Theatralia: Revista de Poética del Teatro, (20: 2018, 109-22). Alejandro González Puche. Director and Professor of Dramatic Theatre. Ph.D. and master’s degree in Spanish advanced studies, University of Valencia, Spain (2006-2009). Bachelor of Fine Arts, (graduate with honors) specialty in directing, State Institute of Theatre Arts of Moscow (GITIS) (19861991). Full Professor, Department of Performing Arts, University del Valle, Cali, Colombia (1996-2019). Visiting Professor at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh (2016), Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, China (2008) and the Catholic University of Chile (2001). Actor with Anatoli Vasiliev (1989-1991). Directed several plays in theatres of the Russian Federation (Moscow, Kazan, Yekaterinburg and Ulan Ude). Specialist in Hispanic Classical Theatre, with performances: The Conversation of the Dogs by Cervantes (2014), The Eclogue Placido and Vitoriano by Juan de la Encina, (2011), Life is a Dream by Calderón, in Kazan, Russia (2008).

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马政红 Ma Zhenghong Theatre Director and Professor. MA and PhD in advanced Spanish studies at the University of Valencia, Spain (2006-2009). Graduate of the State Institute of Theatre Arts of Moscow (GITIS) (19871992). Full Professor at the Department of Performing Arts of the University del Valle, Cali, Colombia (1996-2019). Co-Artistic Director of the Laboratorio Escénico Univalle (1998-2019). Visiting Professor at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, China (2008) and the Shanghai Theatre Institute, China (2013, 2014, 2015). She has directed several plays, among them: As You Like It by Shakespeare (2016), Alférez Irreal by Alejandro González (2015), The Conversation of the Dogs by Cervantes (2014), Turandot by Carlo Gozzi (Kamal Theatre, Kazan, Russia, 2013), Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov (2005), The Feigned Astrologer by Calderón (2000), Damned for Despair by Tirso de Molina (2004) and The Seagull by Anton Chekhov (1998). She has also published theatre texts, including a volume of Chinese translations of contemporary plays by Spanish and Latin American playwrights. María José Domínguez is a PhD candidate in peninsular literature at Arizona State University, where she teaches both lower- and upper-level Spanish classes. She received her bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and worked as a journalist for the Spanish newspaper El Mundo. She was assistant to the editor of Letras Femeninas and she co-edits the electronic journal Laberinto. Her research focuses on women writers as well as female fictional characters such as Dulcinea del Toboso. Other research interests include film studies, performance studies, and the representations of women in theater, narrative, and identity in Early Modern Spain. Her academic articles and reviews have been published in Comedia Performance, Espéculo: Revista de Estudios Literarios, Ámbitos Feministas, and Crítica Bibliographica, among others. Her most recent publications include a co-written chapter about La Revista Blanca in the book Writing Revolution (University of Illinois Press, 2019). Matthew Ancell received his PhD in comparative literature from the University of California, Irvine, and is now Associate Professor of Humanities and Comparative Literature at Brigham Young University. His research interests include the Baroque in Spain and Italy, early-modern skepticism, and

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deconstruction. He has published articles on Luis de Góngora, Calderón de la Barca, Diego Velázquez, and Jacques Derrida in venues such as Oxford Art Journal, Hispanic Review, Renaissance Drama, The Comparatist, and Revista de Estudios Hispánicos. Currently, he is writing a monograph on Calderón de la Barca and visual art. Javier Rubiera is professeur titulaire in the Département de littératures et de langues du monde at the Université de Montréal. He holds a PhD from Universidad de Oviedo (Spain), where he specialized in Spanish literature and comparative theatre. He is particularly interested in issues of dramatic theory in Japanese and Western Theatre and has more recently focused his research on the Jesuit theatre as a form of evangelization in Japan in the sixteenth century. His publications include Zeami. Fūshikaden-Tratado sobre la práctica del Teatro Nō, y Cuatro dramas Nō (Editors and translators Javier Rubiera and Hidehito Higashitani, Editorial Trotta, 1999), La construcción del espacio en la comedia española del Siglo de Oro (Editorial Arco / Libros, 2005) and Para entender el cómico artificio. Terencio, Donato-Evancio y la traducción de Pedro Simón Abril (1577) (Academia del Hispanismo, 2009). Claudia Mesa Higuera is associate professor of Spanish at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Her primary area of research is in the field of early modern peninsular studies with an emphasis on iconography. She focuses mainly, although not exclusively, on the relationship between emblems and narrative prose. She has published on the function of emblematic imagery in Mateo Alemán, Lope de Vega, and Isidro de Sariñana as well as on the aesthetic correspondences between Luis de Góngora and Octavio Paz. Her most recent publication examines the visual representation of Elizabeth I Tudor in Early Modern Spanish Sources. Currently, she is working on a manuscript on emblems and other forms of visual imagination as self-fashioning tools.

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Index

accommodation (accomodatio) 210, 214-15, 222 acrobatic performances 13, 21, 23-26, 36, 54, 148, 164-68, 176-85 acting profession 147 Alberro, Solange 215, 223 Amano, Sachi 220, 223 Anjirō 210 Apology (by Tertullian) 228, 230, 248 Arévalo 44 Arie 227 Arima 227 Ashcroft, Bill 39, 58, 59 Asunción, Pedro de 230 Atienza, Belén 74, 83 audience 11-17, 27-33, 66-70, 139-245 Augustinians 38, 43, 214, 230, 233-34 Avalle-Arce, Juan Bautista 101, 104 azalea 15, 117-19, 122 Bagby, Benjamin 24, 34 Bakhtin, Mikhail 31, 34 Barba, Eugenio 24, 34 Barbosa, Duarte 42 n3, 58 Barkan, Leonard 226, 246 Bass, Laura 128-30 Battacharya, Deben 23, 25, 34 Baudrillard, Jean 225-26, 232, 239, 242, 245 Beijing’s Central Academy of Drama 14, 149, 137-54

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Fuenteovejuna 69, 142, 153 Pedro de Urdemalas 12, 15, 137-53, 186 Students of the Academy 147 Theatrical Spain 142 Benavente, Fray Toribio de 214 Bergman, Emily 110, 128, 130 biomechanics 157 Blodgett, E. D. 22, 34 Boadella, Albert 138, 153 Borchard, Kimberly C. 104 Boswell, Laurence 29, 34 Bovilsky, Lara 104 Bradbury, Jonathan David 227, 246 Braudel, Ferdinand 92 Brecht, Bertolt 13, 15, 29-36, 157, 168, 182 Brennan, John 83 Brockett, Oscar G. 28, 34 Brockey, Liam Matthew 91, 104 Brooker, Peter 31, 34 Buddha 53, 56, 79, 148 Burningham, Bruce R. 13, 21-36, 249 Cabral, Francisco 215 caesuras, punctuating the 157 Calderón de la Barca, Pedro 10, 12, 15, 16, 25, 68, 70, 74, 83, 85, 95, 109, 113, 120-26, 168, 190-206, 249-53 Apolo y Climene 121

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Index

A secreto agravio, secreta venganza 74 Amor, honor y poder 121 El astrólogo fingido 156-69 combat scenes 167-68 costumes and make up: Beatriz 165 Don Carlos, friend of Don Juan, galán 162 Wu Sheng, the young warrior 162 feathers, ling zi 162 Don Diego 163, 167 Don Leonardo (doña María’s father) 163, 167 Lao Sheng, the old man 163 pao dai, suit with belt 163 ran kou, artificial beard 163 Doña María 164 Doña Violante 165 Morón 163 Otañez 168 Quiteria 165 El jardín de la Falerina 121 El monstruo de los jardines 121 Fieras, afemina amor 121 El mayor encanto, amor 121-22, 130 El médico de su honra 74 El pintor de su deshonra 74 El príncipe constante 121 Los tres mayores prodigios 70, 83, 121 La vida es sueño 95, 97, 109-36 Basilio 128-129 Estrella 113-14, 128-30 Rosaura 113-14, 125-28

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Segismundo 113-14, 125-26, 129 stylization of movements 166-67 Calderón, Manuel 83 Cali, Colombia 156 Calvo, Vasco 42 n3 Castilla Pérez, Roberto 227, 246 Cathay 9, 10, 11 Cebu 38, 43, 44 Central Academy of Drama Pedro I 137, 154 Cervantes, Miguel de 9, 12, 16, 18, 25-26, 34, 63, 85, 93, 99-101, 104, 107, 110, 123, 131, 137-42, 14547, 151-53, 181, 186-87, 191-206, 242-52 “El curioso impertinente” 100-01, 104 Don Quixote 92, 101, 139, 142, 146, 152, 206, 241-42, 250 Entremeses 137, 141, 145, 147, 153 La gran sultana 131, 152 Numancia 123, 152, 153 Pedro de Urdemalas 137 acting profession and biographies 147-48, Tong Chao 148, Hou Bao Ling 148 actors: Huo Ni Fan, Liu Chao, Liu Jingyuan, Huo Ni Fang, Zhu Gang Riyao 142-47 audience 150 censor board 150-51 court system 149 folk character 141, 142, 147, 152, 160 folk legend from Xin Jiang 142 picaresque 147

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Index

reception in Colombia vs in China 151-52 staging 148 Urdemalas choices 148 El retablo de las maravillas 138, 154 “La Señora Cornelia” 101 Charles I of Spain 43 Chaunu, Pierre 92 Chen, Kaixian 16, 185, 189, 191, 205 Cheng, Yu-Yin 104, 112, 132 Chincheo 45, 50 Chinese painting, aesthetic canon of 160 Chinese poetry, sensations, idea, image 160 Chinese storytellers 148 Chinese traditional opera (Zhong Guo Xi Qu) 157 acrobats 164 evolution 159-60 five lines of expressive devices: voice, hands, eyes, body, gait 161 imitation of everyday life 160 movements and gestures 166-67 pantomime 160, 167, 175, 180 pause of utter stillness liang xiang 161 pause, stillness 161 regulatory laws about actresses 150 stock character 49, 67, 156, 158, 161 Cho, Sookja 100, 104 Christian Century in Japan 234 Christian martyrs in Japan 225-48 Chuanqi plays, chuanqi 10, 11, 49, 66-67

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257

Cipango 10 Circe 121-22 climate change and emotions 14, 91-97 climate criticism 91 Cochinotzu 227 Columbario, Julio 228 Columbus exchange 96-97, 102, 106 Columbus, Christopher 41, 42 comedia nueva 35, 239 Commedia dell’Arte 24, 27, 146, 158 commissioned work 227, 233-34 commonalities between Ming and Habsburg theaters 11, 12 Conti, Natale 70, 83 corral, theatrical courtyard 25, 67, 138, 150, 178, 184 corruption 49, 96, 147 costumbrismo 139, 153 Crosby, Alfred W. 97, 104 Cruz, Gaspar da 42 n4, 59 Cull, John T. 228, 247 Cultural Revolution 146-47 Cummins and Boxer 234, 247 Cummins, J.S. 227-29, 233-35, 24748 Daoxue 80 Dassbach, Elsa 241, 247 Davidson, Clifford 23, 35 Davis, Nathaniel 32, 35 De Armas, Frederick A. 13, 14, 63-87, 95, 104, 123, 125, 128, 129, 250 death of the divine referential 232 decoro 142 Decroux, Étienne 160, 169 demons 114-16, 122 Deruet, Claude 237 desengaño, felling of disillusionment 11

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258

Index

Dharmananda, Subhuti 81, 84 Dias, Bartolomé 41 Diderot, Denis 72 divine representation 226, 232 Dixon, Everest 138, 156 Dolby, William 23, 26, 35 Domínguez, María José 16, 104, 17186, 252 Dominican mission in Japan 226-27, 229-30, 233-35, 245-46 dream 9, 12, 14-18, 39, 41, 57, 63-97, 103-33, 163, 189, 190, 194-206 Ear of wheat (Espiga de Heredad) 229 Early Modern Japan 225-48 Ebrey, Patricia Buckley 96, 104 Egan, Gabriel 104 eglantine (see azalea) Eisenstein, Sergei 29, 30, 35 ekphrasis 38, 75, 129, 130, 131, 250 El Grupo Teatral Estudiantil Quijote 16 Elcano, Juan Sebastián 43 Elements 82 Ellis, Robert Richmond 10, 17 Els Joglars 138, 153 El retablo de las maravillas 138, 145, 147, 153 emotion 12-17, 49, 63-171, 232-51 emotional distress 13 emotions and global climate 14 Endor, The Witch of 123 Entrambasaguas, Joaquín 228 entremeses 51, 137, 141, 145, 147, 153 Espiga de Heredad (ear of wheat) 229 Esslin, Martin 30, 31, 35 Estrada, José 9, 17 estrella 94, 113-14, 128-30

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evangelistic theatre 209-15, 219, 229 Ex pastorali officio 234 Expostulatio Spongiae (also see Spongia) 228 Extensión de los dominios españoles (romance) 228-29, 247 Fagan, Brian 93, 104 farce 12, 48, 52, 54, 56, 57, 128 Felipe II 209 Fernández de Navarrete, Pedro 233-35 Fernández, Juan 210, 217 Figueiredo, Melchior de 221, 222, 223 flower 12, 14-15, 30, 71, 77-82, 111, 116-24, 200, 243 Francis Xavier, Francisco de Javier 210, 215, 234, 239 Franciscans 40-41, 211, 213-15, 22324, 230, 234, 243 friendship 14, 40, 96-107, 250 Fan Juqing and Zhang Yuanbao 101 foundational myths 13 fourth wall 11-13, 28-32, 35, 72 Gai, Jiaotian 159 Wu Song and his Struggle with the Tiger 159 García Castañón, Santiago 18, 44, 58 García Pinar, Pablo 9, 17 García Santo-Tomás, Enrique 83, 95, 154 garden (see pavilion) Gasta, Chad 10, 17 gift 98-99, 104, 228 Gil-Osle, Juan Pablo 3-18, 89-107 Gil, Juan 236 Giles, Herbert A. 49, 59 global climate and emotions 89-107

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Index

globality and literature 90 Golden Age theater 12-16, 29, 84, 137, 142, 156, 171, 180, 225 Gómez de Sandoval, Francisco, duke of Lerma 238 Gómez, José Luis 138, 145, 153 Góngora, Luis de 93, 105, 227, 253 Goyti, Martín de 43 gracioso, comic servant, rustic 67, 142, 157, 163 idealized peasant 147 Great Khan 40, 41, 41 n2 Gregory XIII 234 Grimm, Reinhold 30, 31, 35 Gruzinski, Serge 10, 17, 91-92 Guahey 55 haijin 42 Häläläinen, Pekka 97, 101, 105 Han Chinese 142 Han dynasty theater tradition 157 Harich-Schneider, Eta 220, 224 Hasekura Rokuemon Tsunenga 237-39 Henrique of Portugal, Infante Don 41 Herrería Fernández, Antonio 99, 105 Hideyori, Toyotomi 235, 240 Hideyoshi, Toyotomi 209, 235 hispanophiles 151 Historia Mongolorum 40 n2 Hollywood 148, 190 horns 50 Hou Bao Ling 148 Hsia, R. Po-Chia 99, 105 Hsu, Carmen 236, 247 Hu, John 10, 17, 35 Hua, Wei 11, 18 Huang, Martin W. 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 105

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259

Huston, Hollis 22, 35 Idema, Wilt L. 10, 18, 24, 35, 64-65, 74, 84, 105, 107 Ieyasu, Tokugawa 235, 240-41 interculturation 211-12 International Siglo de Oro Festival at the Chamizal National Memorial, Paso, Texas 16, 172-73, 180-82, 186 Japan 12, 17, 24, 36, 78, 92, 94, 131, 209-53 26 Martyrs Museum 244 Christian missionaries 17, 64, 20919, 235-40 martyrs 17, 226-36, 243-48 representation 234, 239, 242, 245 European accounts of Japan 239 Japanese delegation in Madrid 236 Jesuit 12, 17, 63, 64, 105, 107, 210, 209-53 Jesuits in Japan (also see Society of Jesus) 227, 230, 234-35, 243, 245 Jiao, Juying 15, 157, 159, 169 Jin (the comic servant) 158 João de Barros 42 n4 Johns-Putra, A. G. 105 Joli, Crétineau 235 jongleuresque 13, 21-35 Juan de la Cruz 124 Kalvodová (Vladimir Sís/Josef Vanis) 23, 35, 176, 181, 184, 186 Kamen, Henry 93, 105 Kiebuzinska, Christine 30, 35

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Index

Knight, Sabina 49, 59 Koch, Alexander 93, 97, 103, 105 Kunqu Opera 66-67, 83 Kutcher, Norman 99, 100, 101, 105 Kyushu (island) 210, 227, 234 Lach, Donald 10, 18, 105, 225, 236, 239, 247 Lam, Ling Hon 112-13, 131 Laupin 55 Lavezaris, Guido de 43, 44, 85 Lee, Christina H. 10, 18, 63, 84, 106, 172, 187, 225-26, 233-48 Leims, Th. F. 216, 219, 220, 224 Lévy, André 48, 59 Li Ma-hon 43, 44, 45 Lisón Tolosana, Carmelo 214, 244 Little Ice Age 93, 97, 103 Liu, Jung-en 52, 55, 59 Liu, Siyuan 35 Liu, Yao-Kun 32, 35 Llamas, Regina 105 Lo, Yuet Keung 100, 105 locus amoenus 115, 120 Lopes de Castanheda, Fernão 42 n4 López de Legazpi, Miguel 37, 43, 44 Lord, Albert B. 22, 30, 35 love 11, 14, 15, 18, 22, 49, 65-85, 90, 94-97, 109-29, 147, 152, 162, 165, 167, 175, 240, 241 Lu, Tina 91, 97, 106 Lu, Yusheng 68 The Story of the Equivalent Dream 68 Luarca, Miguel de 10, 13, 18, 37-40, 43-59, 63, 77 Verdadera relación de la grandeza del Reino de China 13, 18, 37, 38, 44, 58-59

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Lucan 123 Pharsalia 123 Ma, Ning 92, 93, 106 Ma, Zhiyuan 49, 59 Macrobius 77 Magellan 9 Manila 18, 38, 45, 177, 227, 229, 233 Mann, Charles C. 93, 97, 99, 100, 106 Mar del Sur (Pacific Ocean) 9 Marín, Jerónimo 38, 43 Maroto, Camino 106 Martin, Carol 32, 34, 35 Martínez, Miguel 10, 18 Martins, Mario 221, 222, 224 martyrs; martyrdoms 226-27, 244-45 Christian martyrs 226, 230, 233-34 Japanese martyrs 229-34 mask 140-41, 152, 157-59 Calderón characters/masks 158, 163 characterizations 157 Chinese opera 158 Comedia dell’Arte 158 McDermott, Joseph P. 99, 100, 102, 106 Mei, Lanfang 21-36, 176, 187 melancholy 14, 15, 74-77, 82-85, 121 Mena, Alonso de 233 mendicant orders in Japan 214-15, 230, 233-34, 240, 243 Menéndez de Avilés, Pedro 44, 250 Menéndez y Pelayo, Marcelino 226, 247 metaphor 15, 17, 31, 73, 130, 161, 226, 229 hyperbolic metaphor 226 metaphor of verbal and visual display 226 metaphor of visuality 226

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Index

movements and metaphor 161 Meyerhold, Vsevolod 15, 157, 169 Miller, Arthur 146, 154 Salesman in Beijing 146, 154 mime, dramatic physical 25, 49, 52, 160, 167 Ming dynasty 10-18, 24-27, 42, 49, 55 n7, 96 Mira de Amescua, Antonio 227, 246 miracles; miraculous occurrences 236, 241-46 missionaries’ letters 209-14, 217-22, 226-39 Molina, Diego de 106 Moluccas 43 Mongols 40 n2, 55, 66 Monkey King 12 Montanus, Arnoldus 216, 220, 244 Montecorvino, John of 41 n2 Moratín, Leandro Fernández de 28, 35 Morales, Francisco 233-35 Morley and Bruerton 69-70, 85, 227, 247 musical accompaniment 24, 27, 50, 51, 64, 66, 157, 175-76, 180, 219, 220 Nagasaki 230, 233, 236 Nan Xi 157 Natural History 118, 123 naturalistic theater 16, 156, 160 Navarrete, Alonso 230, 233-36 Navarrete as fictional character 241-44 Navarrete, Gerónima de 233 necromancy 14, 123-24 neo-Confucian academy 98 neoclassic rules 11, 13, 27, 28

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261

new comedy, comedia nueva 142, 147 Nō or Noh theater 12, 17, 216, 219-23 Nobunaga 209 Numancia 123 number of scenes 11 Nykl, Alois. R. 226, 227, 247 oboes 50 Ochiuntey 55 Odoric of Pordenone 41 n2, 59 oikouménē 39 Ollé, Manel (Manuel) 10, 18, 100, 106 oneiric phenomena 7, 13, 15, 61, 77, 195, 203, 204 Ong, Chang Woei 100, 106 Oquiam 38 Orfanel, Jacinto 227, 229 orientalism 39, 59, 91, 106, 107, 179, 187, 190 Ortolani, Benito 216, 220, 224 Osaka 235 Otón 44 Ou Mon-con 45 Padrón, Ricardo 91, 106, 229, 248 Pagden, Anthony 91, 106 Pagès, León 233-34 Panay 43, 44 Pancom 54 Pangasinán 43 Parker, Geoffrey 94, 103, 106 Partida Tayzan, Armando 212, 224 pavilion 69, 110, 111, 114-122 Pax Mongolica (or Pax Tatarica) 40 peony 78-83, 117, 119, 122-24, 126, 127 Peres de Andrade, Fernão 42 Pérez de Oliva, Fernán 98, 106

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262

Index

performance mechanism 15, 157 Perrault, Charles 111, 132 Philip II 43, 66, 228, 236 Philip III 66, 69, 74, 95, 150, 228, 235, 238 Philippines 10, 37, 43, 44, 57, 63, 177, 234 Luzon 43 Manila 38, 45 Pian de Carpine, John of 40 n2 picaresque 15, 101, 137, 147, 152 pipa 51, 53 n6, 54, 55 Pires, Tomé 42 n3 Plane, Anne Marie 95, 106 Pliny 118, 123, 124, 132 Polo, Marco 40 n2, 59, 225 Pope Innocent IV 40 portrait 69, 79, 80, 83, 113-14, 12730, 237 Portugal 37, 41, 42, 93, 209, 225 Portuguese 41, 42, 44, 210-13, 215, 218, 222, 226, 230, 236, 239 premier 137, 139, 141, 145, 150-51, 191 censorship 150-51 closing of theaters 150 Prester John 40-41n2 psychological impulse 156 psychological theater 156 public performances 11, 25 puppets 13, 57, 146 Qin dynasty 51 qing 81, 90-91, 96, 112, 128, 132 Rada, Martín de 38, 43, 59 reception 16, 47, 68, 87, 98, 133, 150, 171, 185, 206, 219

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Relinque Eleta, Alicia 90, 106 reports on Chinese culture 10, 11, 40, 42, 45, 48, 81 Reséndez, Andrés 107 Ricci, Matteo 64, 98-99, 105-07 On Friendship 98, 107 Robinson, Douglas 33, 35 romance about Japan and China 228-29 Ronquillo de Peñalosa, Gonzalo 44 Ruiz de Alarcón, Juan 9, 17 Ruiz, Rosario 153 Ruru, Li 23, 27, 34, 36 Russia 29, 30, 32, 94, 150, 251, 252 Ryjik, Veronika 95, 107 Said, Edward 40, 59, 91, 107, 179, 182, 187 sakoku (ban on Christianity) 234 Salcedo, Juan de 45 San José Ayala, Hernando de 230, 233 Sanches, Aires 218 Sánchez Jiménez, Antonio 228, 248 Santangelo, Paolo 90, 96, 107 Sarmiento, Pedro 43, 45 Saturn 82, 125 Saussy, Haun 30, 31, 33, 36 Schechter, Joel 30, 36 Shakespeare, William 64, 100 Romeo and Juliet 73 Shen, Grant 23, 36 Shih, Chung-Wen 23, 24, 36 Shklovsky, Victor 31 Shou-Yi, Ch’en 49, 59 silver markets 92, 93, 96-97, 102, 177 Simerka, Barbara 84, 95 Simons, Sarah 91, 107 simulacrum, simulacra, simulations 225-26, 232, 240, 245-46

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Index

Sir John Mandeville 41 n2 Society of Jesus (also see Jesuits) 21314, 230, 234 Sorieri, Louis 101, 107 Sosac 55 Sotelo, Fray Luis 238 Space 9-12, 15, 25-28, 38-39, 55, 7072, 81-86, 109-33, 164-68, 195, 199, 201, 204-05, 212, 223, 232 Spanish opera in America 10 Spanish providentialism 228 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty 37, 59 Spongia 227-28 staging 12-13, 15, 48, 51, 67, 138-40, 145, 148, 150, 152, 156-57, 159, 162, 172, 174, 182, 184, 186, 216, 220, 223, 239, 246, 256 Stanislavski system 15, 156, 159 Stenberg, Josh 24, 36 styles of recitation 16, 156-57, 185 xi pi, er huang qian 157 Suárez de Figueroa, Cristóbal 227 subaltern 37, 39, 48, 53, 55, 58-9 Subiotto, Arrigo 30, 36 Sun, Tzu 37, 59 supernatural 11, 17, 39, 81, 124, 126, 241 Suquam 55 Taicosama 235 Taiji Quan 161 body movement vs. ballet 161 Wu school 161 Taim 54 Tairov, Alexander 30, 157, 169 Tan, Tian Yuan 11, 18, 35, 66, 86, 91, 97, 105 Tang dynasty 51

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263

Tang, Xianzu 14, 50, 63-88, 90, 107, 109-36, 130 Four Dreams 65 Handan Dream 65 Memorial to Impeach the Ministers and Supervisors 65 Nanke Dream 65 Peony Pavilion 59, 63-88, 94, 97 Du Liniang 109-24, 126-30 Liu Mengmei 110, 112, 114, 122-23, 126-28 The Purple Flute 65 The Purple Hairpin 65 Tangoa 45 Tenochtitlan 9 Teresa de Ávila 124 Tertullian 230, 248 The Travels of Marco Polo 40 n2 Theatricality 14, 25, 29, 31, 70, 72-74, 86, 112-13, 131, 219, 249 Tian, Min 32, 36 Titian 76, 83-84 Venus and Adonis 76 Tirso de Molina 68, 172, 252 El burlador de Sevilla 100-01 Cómo han de ser los amigos 100 El condenado por desconfiado 74 Tiumhey 55 Tokita, Alison 24, 36 Tong Chao 148 Tontuso 45, 50 Torres Rámila, Pedro de. 227 Torres, Cosme de 210, 214-15 Treaty of Tordesillas 37, 41 trumpets 50 tsa chü 36, 49, 52 n5 Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt 90, 107 Tuan, Yi-Fu 39, 59, 71, 82, 86

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264

Index

Ucheo 47, 52, 54, 57 Untzin 54 Urdaneta, Andrés de 43 Urdemalas, Pedro de 12, 15, 137-54, 186 Vakhtangov, Yevgeny 157, 169 Valignano, Alessandro 214, 215, 236, 239 vaudeville 21, 28, 30, 148 Vega, Lope de 11, 12, 14, 17, 25, 63-86, 99, 100, 104, 107, 139-42, 154, 171-72, 187, 225-48 Angélica en el Catay 63 Arte nuevo de hacer comedias 36, 65, 141-42, 154, 187 Barlaán y Josefat 226 La boda entre dos maridos 100 El caballero de Olmedo 14, 70, 72-87 El castigo sin venganza 69 Don Juan de Castro 64, 86 La doncella Teodor 64, 86 Filomena 227, 248 Lo fingido verdadero 154 Fuenteovejuna 69, 142, 153 Lope’s letter to Duke of Sessa 22728 Lope’s self-made emblem 228 Los palacios de Galiana 64, 86 Los primeros mártires del Japón (attributed) 225-28, 231-32, 236, 239, 242, 245-46 La prueba de los ingenios 72, 86 La quinta de Florencia 14, 63-86 Servir a señor discreto 64, 86 El triunfo de la fe en los reinos del Japón 227-30, 233, 235, 245 Virtud, pobreza y mujer 64, 86

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La vitoria de la hora 64, 86 La viuda valenciana 69 Velasco, Luis de 43 Verfremdung 157 Vieira, Cristovão 42 vihuela 51, 54-5 Villamediana, Conde de 93, 107 Vítey 55 Vizcaíno, Sebastián 235-36 Voigt, Lisa 9, 18, Wai (the stranger) 158 Wang, Zhengbao 23, 36 Watt, Ian 93, 107 Way, The (Dao) 40, 112 Weber, David J. 107 Weimann, Robert 24, 36 West, Stephen H. 95, 105, 107 Willett, John 31, 36 William of Rubruck 40 n2 Wilson, Diana de Armas 9, 18, 93, 107, 203, 206 Xu, Dongfeng 98, 99, 107 Xu, Yongming 64-6, 79, 87 Yang Yang 149 Yantey 55 Yi-Fu Tuan 82 Yodo-dono 235 yüan ch’ü (see yuan qu) Yuan dynasty 49, 55 n7 yuan qu 52 n5, 158 Za (the servant) 158 Zhaungzhou 16, 201 Zeitlin, Judith 109, 112, 133 Zung, Cecilia 30, 36

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También en Iberoamericana/Vervuert:

Juan Pablo Gil-Osle: Los cigarrales de la privanza y mecenazgo en Tirso de Molina, 2016, 198 p., tapa dura (Biblioteca Áurea Hispánica, 110) ISBN 9788484899457 Juan-Pablo Gil-Osle: Amistades imperfectas: del Humanismo a la Ilustración con Cervantes, 2013, 196 p., tapa dura (Biblioteca Áurea Hispánica, 83) ISBN 9788484896401 Frederick A. de Armas: El retorno de Astrea: astrología, mito e imperio en Calderón, 2016, ed. revisada y ampliada, 380 p., tapa dura (Biblioteca Áurea Hispánica, 108) ISBN 9788484899594 Frederick A. de Armas, Antonio Sánchez Jiménez (eds.): Nuevas sonoras aves: catorce estudios sobre Calderón de la Barca, 2015, 278 p. ils. ISBN 9788484898726 Frederick de Armas, Luciano García Lorenzo (eds.): Calderón: del manuscrito a la escena, 2011, 360 p., tapa dura (Biblioteca Áurea Hispánica, 75) ISBN 9788484896340 Frederick A. de Armas, Enrique García Santo-Tomás, Luciano García Lorenzo (eds.): Hacia la tragedia áurea: lecturas para un nuevo milenio, 2008, 448 p., tapa dura (Biblioteca Áurea Hispánica, 55) ISBN 9788484894292

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