Zayas as Writer: Hell Hath No Fury
[In the essay below, de Garcia contends that the frame narratives of Zayas's two collections reflect her evolving relationship with the literary academies of her time.]
María de Zayas was an enormously popular writer. Though her comedia went unpublished and, as far as we know, unperformed, her poetry was very successful in her own time, and her prose works are still being edited and read today. In addition, we know that María de Zayas participated in literary academies, or academias. If, as a young woman, she accompanied her father to Naples, she might have been allowed to witness reunions of the Ociosos organized in 1611 by Pedro Fernández de Castro, Duque de Lemos. By the third decade of the century, her contemporaries, Juan Pérez de Montalbán and Alonso de Castillo Solórzano, testified to her success in the “academias de Madrid.” Willard F. King supposes this to indicate that the academia of Mendoza and possibly also that of Medrano permitted Zayas to participate. It is also possible that she might have become involved with the literary group of Zaragoza—specifically, Francisco Fernández de Castro, Conde de Lemos, and his son, Conde de Andrade. Lemos and Andrade maintained academias in their homes, to which many of Aragon's most distinguished nobles and poets belonged, among them the Duque de Hijar, to whom Zayas dedicated the Desengaños amorosos. In either of these academias she could have first appreciated, then later perfected, the literary craft.
The connection to academias is obviously important. In the first place, it is the only concrete information we have about María de Zayas of which we can be certain. In the second place, the structure of the academias gives us insight into the structure of her tales, especially the frames. In the third place, the difference in focus between the two series of Zayas's novels can be explained in terms of an academic debate. And finally, the commentaries gleaned from both series in reference to poets and writers suggest a change in the relationship between Zayas and her literary peers in terms of their attitude toward her work.
In seventeenth-century Spain, virtually everyone with any inclination to writing in any genre either belonged to an academia or participated in certámenes, or both (King 1963, 8). The academias served principally a social function (Pfandl 1959, 185). In these circles, literary friendships were made, surfacing for posterity in the form of laudatory poems appearing in the preliminary pages of a friend's work.
The use of the term academia in the seventeenth century is itself unclear. Primarily, it was used in reference to a group with an established membership (mostly men), a regularly scheduled time and place of meeting (most often at the house of a noble sponsoring the group), with specific officers and rules of procedure, topics, admission, and so forth. Admission to a literary academy signified approval and acceptance by one's peers, although not universally. Quarrels and bitter criticism were legion, and they provide some of the most fascinating evidence of the dynamics within the academias.
The academias functioned under rules particular to each group, and the themes proposed for the members varied by group as well, although by the middle of the century the most common topics were either satirical or festive, or else absurdly erudite and obscure. While the academias enjoyed enormous popularity, writers criticized one another; it was common practice to “roast” a poet before giving him a prize. But often the criticism was directed toward the “legos,” or “mirones”—those who came not to contribute but rather to be entertained first and to criticize and gossip later.
The academias sometimes had “special editions” in which visitors were invited to participate. These justas poéticas, or certámenes, were not limited in their popularity to the literati or nobility. They were organized to celebrate births, weddings, coronations, beatifications, canonizations, military victories, state visits from foreign royalty, the completion of new construction, etc., although often enough the only purpose was to showcase the abilities and ingenuity of the poets.
Another type of literary function was the informal reunion, which was more like a sarao or party organized principally to provide diversion rather than to display erudition or talents. A variety of participants would present diverse works, ranging from festive or amorous poetry that could be read (or more often sung), to erudite disquisitions, to prose tales read for the entertainment and enlightenment of the public in attendance. We must suppose that the fundamental purpose of any presentation in an academia must have been to demonstrate one's literary abilities and accomplishments and to garner the applause or criticism of one's peers. In the informal sarao, however, the purpose was to entertain and to exercise one's wits in pleasant company. The president of such a group would assign poetic topics to the participants or pose a conundrum to be commented upon or debated. The participants would perform their literary tasks and await commentary before the next participant took his turn. Because of its casual nature, we have no records, actas, estatutos, or premáticas. Rather, this type of reunion is often reflected in the novelistic prose of the seventeenth century, as King's study testifies. In the novels, these groups share many elements of their real-life counterparts. They generally have a “president” who assigns topics, and there is usually discussion, however minimal, following each presentation.
The frame of Zayas's Novelas amorosas is set as a sarao—a portrayal of an ideal literary gathering. The majority of the frame is devoted to the shifting amorous liaisons between Juan, Lisis, and their respective new loves. The stories themselves are designed primarily to cheer up Lisis, not to provide instruction or to prove a common point to the “noble auditorio” [noble audience] Zayas puts her feminine narrators on a par with their masculine counterparts. The women's tales are received and commented in the frame in the same manner and with the same frequency as the men's. There is a concerted equilibrium.
But in the Desengaños, the literary society has become exclusive. Its participants are women only, and their assigned topic admits no rebuttal. In the frame, there is almost no discussion of the relationship between the lovers. Very little description is offered of the setting, the refreshments, the entertainment, or other amenities elaborated upon in the Novelas amorosas. The tales are foremost, and the characters of the frame serve chiefly to tell them, to comment upon them, and to discuss them.
It is a sort of debate, like one might find in a literary academy. Lisis is the “president” of the session, and through her the topic is announced and certain ground rules are laid. But in the Desengaños, only the women have the floor. The Desengaños are expressly concocted to provide an exclusive voice, a unique proposal, without possible rebuttal. In the course of the “debate,” it is clear that not all of the women believe in their assigned topic or agree with the message they are instructed to convey. Nonetheless, they follow the rules and present their case admirably. The attempts of the narrators are designed to impress and convince, as they would in an academia. But in this academia, only one side of the debate is allowed to be presented.
In addition to these differences in the frames, the reader notes a marked divergence between the two collections of prose in the novels themselves. In the first series, we are entertained by stories, all involving typical characters of the novella, who fall prey to typical vices and follies. In these stories we find heroines who are wronged, but as many who are perpetrators of wrongs. We find, similarly, men who are both victims and victimizers. While the majority of the stories are of a serious nature, we find more than one of a humorous, even picaresque or burlesque quality.
In the second series, however, there is a decided turn to the scabrous, an emphasis on the blood-curdling, with black/white contrasts of good and evil, openly and avowedly designed to convey a single moral lesson: men wrong women. The “typical” plots and characters become exaggerated and grotesque. The men are invariably cruel and ruthless while the heroines are innocent, long-suffering, and wronged. Usually falsely accused of adultery, the wife is variously caged, immured, bled to death, poisoned, garroted, stabbed, shot, crushed by a falling wall, tossed down a well, dismembered, or, most mercifully, abandoned. These are serious messages, with no comic relief. Their intent is more than entertainment, although that facet is not to be denied. Their intent is to shock, to provoke, and to elicit tears and shame.
Indeed, the tremendous difference between the two series of novels can be most easily explained in terms of the frame plot. In the frame of the Novelas amorosas, Lisis set into motion a deceit. She had promised her hand in marriage to Diego not out of love but out of a peevish sense of vengeance. This is hardly the posture of one who is to give the example to all women. She cannot marry Diego on these terms. By the beginning of the Desengaños, we see that she is looking for a way out of the relationship. She must find a solution that will be beyond question and beyond reproach. The entire pretext of the sarao and the relation of the tales is an elaborate and intellectual way to extricate herself from the fix in which she finds herself. She orchestrates a “debate” that will prove that men cannot be trusted. In particular, married women will suffer tremendously at the hands of their husbands or their husband's relatives. The arguments must be so convincing that they will give her free access to escape the undesirable compromise into which she has entered stupidly and petulantly. There can be no room for vacillation in the end. Her decision must seem the only acceptable one both logically and morally. She cannot simply deny Diego only later to accept another, for that would be beneath her nobility. She must deny all men. Thus, Lisis's end in the Desengaños amorosos is dictated by her own impulsiveness in the frame of the Novelas amorosas. This is a logical conclusion, not a tragic one, Zayas's textualized voice assures Fabio in the epilogue. Moreover, the tone and content of the stories must force this conclusion.
Time and again, critics have pointed to the virulence of the misanthropic comments found throughout the Desengaños as evidence of a personal desengaño—as proof that Zayas herself suffered at the hands of an unscrupulous paramour, to be left ultimately alone and abandoned like her heroines, but bitter and resentful. Many critics take the fact that the character Lisis retires to a convent to be indicative of such a fate for Zayas herself, in an attempt to escape the cruel world dominated by deceitful men who have always wronged women in general and María de Zayas in particular.1 But this interpretation depends upon establishing an identity—an equation between Lisis, the character in the frame, and María de Zayas. We know virtually nothing about María de Zayas, lover or wife, but we do have evidence of María de Zayas, “sibila de Madrid” [sibyl of Madrid], author of drama and published poetry and prose, successful participant in activities of the literary community. This information comes both from outside and within the texts.2
In order to determine which narrative voice or voices might be the author's, we must examine the levels of narration within the texts in an attempt to approach Zayas. Palomo, Melloni, Griswold, and Montesa have all dealt with the problem of levels of narration or voices in their studies of Zayas. I like to think of the various levels in terms of a series of nesting boxes. The largest is the voice of Zayas, speaking as an author, addressing herself to the highest level of her reading public: her fellow writers. This voice is theoretically the one that will yield any information about Zayas, her life, and her relationship with her literary peers. Within this box is the voice of the omniscient narrator, who addresses the “mass” reader, the ladies and gentlemen of the corte. This narrator's principal function is to relate the proceedings of the sarao and to disclose the relationships and interpersonal exchanges between the characters in the frame, as a sort of puppeteer, while at the same time offering comments for the edification of the reader. At times, it is difficult to distinguish this voice from the previous one.
The next box is that of the narrators of the tales. These are characters of the frame who take turns telling stories reading or relating un caso to their listening public, i.e., the others present at the sarao, who are all nobles, both men and women, young and old. At times they discuss each others' stories and offer moralistic comments.
Within this box lies the last. It is a character within a novel who narrates his own story to another character within the story. While the character sometimes makes comments of a moralistic nature, they are usually limited to his or her own fate.
This hierarchy is not always maintained exactly. In this system, there is no communication between the omniscient narrator and a character of the frame who narrates a tale, but there is between the latter and a character within a tale, as in the case of Isabel in “La esclava de su amante” [Her lover's slave], who is both a character in the frame as well as a narrator of her own story about her misfortunes.
What is essential to our discussion is to find those instances or passages which can fairly safely be attributed to Zayas qua Zayas—i.e., those passages which are literary in nature, which deal with the life of a writer, with the mechanics of writing, or the relationships between writers. In general, narrators of the frame, including Lisis, maintain their position as such. However, in the tenth desengaño especially, we find Lisis crossing several boundaries. For example, she speaks of the sarao as “her” literary production: “Si fuere malo [mi sarao] no ha de perder el que le sacare a luz, pues le comprarán, siquiera sea para hablar mal de él” [Even if it (my soirée) were bad, the publisher could not lose because they will buy it, if only to speak ill of it] (469).3 At the end of the last desengaño, Lisis takes on the role of spokeswoman, taking care to stipulate that she personally has no need to take up her own defense: “no por mí, que no me toca, pues me conocéis por lo escrito, mas no por la vista” [not for my sake, since it doesn't matter to me because you know me only through my writing but not by sight] (507). Immediately, we see that this passage is not directed to the fictitious audience of the sarao but rather to the reading public. Ultimately, Lisis's voice as narrator fuses with Zayas's as author speaking of her published works. While the task of separating the various voices is not easy, it is possible to a certain extent.
Zayas's stated purpose at the beginning of her novelas is to defend women. In terms of literature, her attitude or position might be summed up as follows. In the world of letters and studies, women should have the same opportunities as men, for their capabilities are the same; but women lack the education or arte given to men. The very fact that she, Zayas, as woman, is writing fiction, testing the deep waters of rhetoric, “arte y ciencia,” [art and science] is a wonderful thing. But she should not be judged as an equal to men, for she does not have the same background and has not had the same advantages.
On the one hand, women should have the same advantages as men and should be treated the same as men. But on the other, Zayas wants to hold on to the privileged position women enjoyed in the past, when chivalrous men respected, admired, even adored women. Zayas looks longingly at this past, but will settle for respect in the present. Women must command respect from men. Accordingly, she, as a woman writer, should get preferential critical treatment by virtue of her sex. Women should have an advantage, a “handicap.”
Throughout the Novelas amorosas we find references to literary criticism in the court, as in the following passages:
Porque la llaneza de su ingenio no era como los fileteados de la Corte, que en passando [un romance] de seis estancias se enfadan.
(Don Alvaro, narrating El castigo de la miseria, 144)
[Because his simple intelligence was not like that of the woolly wits at court who get bored after six stanzas.]
(modification of Boyer 95)
Que un poeta si es enemigo es terrible, porque no hay navaja como una pluma.
(Diego, in the frame; 218)
[For a poet is a terrible enemy because there is no knife as sharp as a quill.]
In the Desengaños, we find similar remarks, some of which are mild, even mocking:
Demás que los músicos de los libros son más piadosos que los de las salas de los señores, que acortan los romances, que les quitan el ser, y los dexan sin pies ni cabeza.
(narrator of the frame; 123)
[Yet the musicians in books are more charitable than those in lordly parlors who slash verses, ruin their essence, and leave the verses headless and footless.]
Y habiéndole dado una guitarra, templó sin enfadar, y cantó sin ser rogada. Falta tan grande en los cantores: cuando vienen a conceder, ya tienen enfadado al género humano de rogarlos.”
(Matilde narrating; 300)
[And, having been given a guitar, she tuned it without fuss and sang without being begged. A tremendous flaw of all other singers: by the time they give in, they have already tired all humankind by forcing them to beg.]
Nonetheless, the majority of passages of a literary nature are neither jocular nor impersonal. While in the novelas there is confusion between Zayas-narrator-Lisis, there is a parallel confusion between the public for whom the tales are theoretically meant and to whom they are actually directed. Theoretically, Zayas directs her work to her peers, the narrator to the general reader, and Lisis to the “noble auditorio” [noble audience] gathered to hear the tales. But, we remember, the frame is a sarao, a sort of literary gathering, which parallels the literary academies in form and function. Remarks of a critical or complaining nature directed in theory to the audience at the sarao might in reality be meant for the members of the flesh-and-blood academias which serve as models for the sarao.
We recall that in the academias and within the literary community—here, her readers—there are mirones, legos, those who have not been able to get into print. Their envy makes them speak ill of others in general and, it seems, of Zayas in particular. In the frame of the Desengaños, we see that the Novelas did not receive universal acclaim: “unos le desestimaron” [some did not appreciate it] (258). Early in the Desengaños, Zelima/Isabel begins her story and quickly turns from the task of narrating her own misfortunes to address literary critics of the court:
Yo fui en todo extremada, y más en hacer versos, que era el espanto de aquel reino, y la envidia de muchos no tan peritos en esta facultad; que hay algunos ignorantes que, como si las mujeres les quitaran el entendimiento por tenerle, se consumen de los aciertos ajenos. ¡Bárbaro, ignorante! si lo sabes hacer, hazlos, que no te roba nadie tu caudal; si son buenos los que no son tuyos, y más si son de dama, adóralos y alábalos; y si malos, discúlpala, considerando que no tiene más caudal, y que es digna de más aplauso en una mujer que [en] un hombre, por adornarlos con menos arte
(128).
[I was gifted in everything, but especially in writing verses, so that I was the awe of the kingdom, and the envy of many not as talented in this area. There are some ignorant individuals who, as if women robbed them of their intellect by having their own, are consumed by jealousy for other's successes, ignorant, barbarian! If you know how to write verses, do it. No one can rob you of your talent. If those that are not yours are good—especially if they are by a woman—appreciate and praise them. And if they are bad, forgive her and, pitying her lack of talent, consider them more worthy of applause as the work of a woman rather than a man, since they are less blessed with art.]
It would seem that Zayas here hides behind a character, or removes the mask of the character to express her own indignation at the unfavorable criticism some of her literary peers have leveled at her work. We find this happening often, when a character or narrator refers to “mi sarao” or “mis desengaños.”
We can suppose that María de Zayas's prose has been criticized and accused of a lack of inventio, judging by the defense of her craft:
Si acaso pareciere que los desengaños aquí referidos, y los que faltan, los habéis oído en otras partes, será haberle contado quien, como yo y las demás engañadoras, lo supo por mayor, mas no con las circunstancias que aquí van hermoseadas, y no sacados de una parte a otra, como hubo algún lego o envidioso que lo dixo de la primera parte de nuestro sarao.
(Nise; 199)
[If, perhaps, you think you've heard some of the disenchantments told here or those yet to be told, you must have heard them elsewhere. You may have heard them from someone who, like me or the other storytellers, knew only the facts, but not with the detail that adorns them here. They have not been taken from any old source as some envious critic has stated about the first part of our entertainment.]
Zayas's narrators repeatedly stress their lack of education or “arte.” As in the case of the following examples, this can be taken either as a pose or as a defense against criticism:
Historias divinas y humanas nos lo dicen, que aunque pudiera citar algunas, no quiero, porque quiero granjear nombre de desengañadora, mas no de escolástica.
(Matilde; 294)
[Sacred as well as human stores tell us so, and although I could cite some sources here, I refuse to do so since I prefer earning the title of one who enlightens (desengañadora) to that of scholar.]
Y yo, como no traigo propósito de canonizarme por bien entendida, sino por buena desengañadora, es lo cierto que, ni en lo hablado, ni en lo que hablaré, he buscado razones retóricas, ni cultas; porque, de más de ser un lenguaje que con el extremo posible aborrezco, querría que me entendiesen todos, el culto y el lego.
(Lisis; 469-70)
[And as for me, since I don't wish to be canonized as well educated but rather as one who successfully enlightens, the truth is that neither in what I have spoken nor in what I am about to speak will I look for rhetorical or cultured reasons; because, besides being a language that I abhor to the greatest possible extreme, I want everyone to understand me, both the educated and the uneducated.]
At times the position adopted is one of anger—of resentment at the idea that the Desengaños will probably be criticized as the Novelas amorosas were:
¿Quién ignora que habría esta noche algunos no muy bien intencionados?, y aun me parece que los oigo decir: ¿Quién las pone a estas mujeres en estos disparates? ¿Enmendar a los hombres? Lindo acierto. Vamos ahora a estas bachillerías que no faltará ocasión de venganza. Y como no era esta fiesta en que se podía pagar un silbo a un mosquetero, dexarían en casa doblado el papel y cortadas las plumas, para vengarse.
(omniscient narrator; 258-59)
[Who doubts that this night there might be some with less than good intentions? And even now it seems I hear them say: “Who puts these women in such absurd situations? Reform men? Nice try. Let's hear their prattle, there'll be no lack of chances for vengeance.” And since it was not a public celebration where one could pay a heckler to whistle them down, they'll have to leave at home their folded paper and the sharpened quill in order to seek their vengeance.]
Again and again, we find the fear of the stories being ill-received and a defensiveness of the female writer being vilified as a “bachillería.”
The certainty of criticism is met with the argument of men's obligation to respect women. Near the end of the Desengaños, there is a plea for acceptance of the work by her literary peers which can be read alternately as coy or satirical:
Y así, pues no os quito y os doy, ¿qué razón habrá para que entre las grandes riquezas de vuestros heroicos discursos no halle lugar mi pobre jornalejo? Y supuesto que, aunque moneda inferior, es moneda y vale algo, por humilde, no la habéis de pisar; luego, si merece tener lugar entre vuestro grueso caudal, ya vencéis y me hacéis vencedora.
(Lisis; 470)
[And so, since I neither take from you nor give to you, why could not my poor scribblings find a place among the great riches of your heroic discourses? And given that, even though it is inferior coin, it is still coin and worth something, you shouldn't trample it just because it's humble. If, then, it is worthy of a place among your great wealth, you win and you make me a winner too.]
But at the end, a cynicism and a bitterness surface in the certainty that the sarao will be criticized and spoken ill of by envious writers and would-be poets:
Se fueron a sus casas, Ilevando unos que admirar, todos que contar, y muchos que murmurar del Sarao; que hay en la Corte gran número de sabandijas legas que su mayor gusto es decir mal de las obras ajenas, y es lo mejor que no las saben entender.
(omniscient narrator; 510)
[They all went home, some with things to admire, everyone with things to tell, and many with gossip about the soirée; for in the Court there are a great many uneducated vermin whose greatest pleasure is to speak ill of the work of others—above all, work they are incapable of understanding.]
These remarks hardly seem directed at the general reading public, the “mass audience,” but rather at an initiated and participating group of writers, of académicos de sarao. Let us part from the premise that Zayas, like other Siglo de Oro authors, wrote for her peers—specifically, her literary peers. Then María de Zayas might well be protesting—consciously or unconsciously—the criticism that her male counterparts have leveled against her sex in general and her literary abilities or production in particular.
We should not assume that everything said in the frames by the narrators is a true reflection of Zayas's innermost thoughts.4 But it is feasible to weigh possibilities one against the other. Perhaps there is an identification between what Lisis and the narradoras say at times and what Zayas espouses. At the very least, the evolution of their manifold literary comments and complaints indicates a relationship between Zayas and her peers that has, at least from her point of view, gone sour.
Notes
-
See Amezúa's introduction to Yllera's edition of Desengaños amorosos, xxii; Montesa Peydro 1981, 28-32; Vasileski 1973, 59; and Desengaños, 21.
-
See Palomo 1976, 68; Melloni 1976, 13-18; Griswold 1980, 103; and Montesa 1981, 337-78.
-
Montesa 1981 also quotes this passage on page 369 of his study.
-
As Maxime Chevalier affirms: “un texto literario, hasta cuando sale de la pluma del Príncipe de los ingenios [Cervantes], no tiene fuerza de documento de archivo, y que un episodio novelesco no tiene valor de testimonio personal” (1976, 92) [a literary text, even when it comes from the Prince of Creative Geniuses (Cervantes), does not have the force of an archival document, and that a novelistic episode does not carry the weight of personal testimony].
For the Novelas amorosas I have used Agustín González de Amezúa y Mayo's edition (Madrid: Aldus, 1948), while for the Desengaños I have used Alicia Yllera's (Madrid: Cátedra, 1983).
References
Chevalier, Maxime. 1976. Lectura y lectores en la España de los Siglos XVI y XVII. Madrid: Ediciones Turner.
Griswold, Susan C. 1980. “Topoi and Rhetorical Distance: The ‘Feminism’ of María de Zayas.” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 14: 97-116.
King, Willard F. 1963. Prosa novelística y academias literarias en el siglo XVII. Madrid: BRAE, anejo X.
Melloni, Alessandra. 1976. Il sistema narrativo di María de Zayas. Turin: Quaderni Ibero-Americani.
Montesa Peydro, Salvador. 1981. Texto y contexto en la narrativa de María de Zayas. Madrid: Dirección General de la Juventud y Promoción Sociocultural.
Palomo, María del Pilar. 1976. La novela cortesana (Forma y estructura). Barcelona: Planeta.
Pfandl, Ludwig. 1959. Cultura y costumbres del pueblo español de los siglos XVI y XVII: introducción al estudio del siglo de oro. Barcelona: Araluce.
Vasileski, Irma V. 1973. María de Zayas: su época y su obra. Madrid: Plaza Mayor.
Zayas y Sotomayor, María de. 1983. Desengaños amorosos. Edited by Alicia Yllera. Madrid: Cátedra.
———. 1948. Novelas amorosas. Edited by Agustín González de Amezúa y Mayo. Madrid: Aldus.
Get Ahead with eNotes
Start your 48-hour free trial to access everything you need to rise to the top of the class. Enjoy expert answers and study guides ad-free and take your learning to the next level.
Already a member? Log in here.