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MEXICO MAGICO
TRIUMPHS and TRAGEDY... A history of the Mexican people |
CHAPTER IV, The Forefathers - The Baroque Years (63th part continues...)
By Prof. German Estrada - September 2006 |
Poets and men of learning, for all that, partly circumvented the ills of Gongorismo and scholastic dullness. Bernardo de Balbuena (1561-1627?) was one of them. Born in Spain, he grew up in Guadalajara, attended the Real y Pontifícia Universidad in Mexico City, and became a priest. His Grandeza mexicana, a lyrical poem, exalted the beauty and glitter of Mexico City while portraying vividly its women, the theater, and intellectuals. Mateo Alemán, author of Guzmán de Alfarache, retired to New Spain in 1608; his famous novel, along with Cervantes Don Quixote, helped bury the romances of chivalry so popular until then. Written in the picaresque style, Guzmán de Alfarache trod the path of Lazarillo de Tormes, the pioneer of the genre. Sucesos de Fray García Guerra, Alemán´s last story, relates the life of the resplendent clerical bureaucrat, with whom he arrived in New Spain in 1608.
Regardless of the laurels of Balbuena and Alemán, one of the premier authors of the seventeenth century as Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, a criollo hunchback with an inferiority complex who, early on, moved to Spain, lived there most of his life, and despised his colonial birth. His writings rank with the finest of the Spanish Golden Age. Gifted with the mastery of the Spanish language, he wrote plays, comedies, and commentaries on manners; La verdad sospechosa (Truth Suspect) is his best-known work. The ploys of his plays ridiculed the vices of gossip, deceit, selfishness, and ingratitude, common, Ruiz asserted, in the Madrid of his times.
In this age of men, woman occasionally, made their voices heard. That, however, should not come as too much of a surprise, because, in the opinion of straitlaced Spaniards, criollo men gave their “respectable” women excessive freedom, allowing them, to cite one particular shocking custom, to “play cards and dice in mixed company.” One of them, Doña María de Peralta, the widow of a distinguished lawyer, had even been accused of blasphemy by the Holy Office. Another freethinker, Elena de la Cruz, a nun and daughter of Don Juan Gutiérrez Altamirano, attorney for Cortés, had also a brush with the Inquisition, accused of “discoursing….. on the powers of the papacy, the binding nature of the decrees of the Council of Trent, and the character of sin.” Supposedly, she doubted the authority of the pope and Archbishop Alonso de Montúfar, successor to Zumárraga, to grant pardons or indulgences for violations of divine law.
Students of colonial letters place on woman at the head of the literary scene, alongside of Ruiz de Alarcón, who, after all, rarely called New Spain his home. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a beautiful and talented criollo was the first outstanding poet of América. An illegitimate child, she was born in Nepantla in 1648, arriving at eight years of age in Mexico City, where, eventually, her talents caught the attention of the viceroy’s wife, who brought her to the palace. For inexplicable reasons, perhaps a love affair that turned sour, Juana forsook the glamour of the viceregal court for the vows of the Jeronymite nuns and devoted her life to books and learning. She wrote love lyrics, morality plays, and dramatic comedies. Of keen mind with a passion for inquiry, Sor Juana, although prone occasionally to embrace gongorismo, towered above scholastic authors. Her Hombres necios, a poetic critic of men’s hypocrisy, and, especially, the Respuesta a Sor Filotea, an essay defending her right to learning as a woman, stamp her as the first feminist of the New World. Unexpectedly, she abandoned her books and died unhappy and forlorn in 1695.
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The unusual subject of this painting derives from a Spanish picaresque novel entitled
Guzmán de Alfarache, by Mateo Alemán
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Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, painting by Miguel Cabrera, c. 18th century;
in the National Museum of History, Chapultepec Castle, Mexico City
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In the next issue we’ll continue with Chapter V of this fascinating book, The Baroque Years.
Prof. Germán Estrada
E-mail: estradanav@yahoo.com
Source: From the book Triumphs and Tragedy, a History of the Mexican People by his author Ramon Eduardo Ruiz, and with his authorization. (W.W. Norton & Company. New York-London).
Prof. Germán Estrada is the author of the best selling book, México Mágico: Everything You Wanted To Know About... But Nobody Told You..." available in Puerto Vallarta at The Net House, Mail Boxes, Etc., Books, Books as well as directly from his website.
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