Abstract
This paper considers a little-studied play, Los empeños de un engaño by Juan Ruíz de Alarcón, as a possible source text for both Calderón de la Barca’s Los empeños de un acaso and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s Los empeños de una casa. The phonetic similarities of the latter two titles have relegated Ruíz de Alarcón’s unique drama to obscurity. However, the unusual details of both the Alarcón and Sor Juana pieces demonstrate the relative freedom the two New World authors had in composing unique versions of the capa y espada genre, particularly when compared to their peninsular counterpart. Although all three plays are similar in title, plot, and even character names, they are ultimately unique pieces that speak to the specific conditions under which each of their authors composed and staged their work. It is also the author’s wish that this paper, along with the recent discovery that the play La monja alferez was penned by Alarcón and not Pérez de Montalbán (Vega García-Luengos, in: Cañal, González (eds) Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz y el teatro novohispano, Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 2021), will inspire more scholars to consider the Mexican dramaturg’s oeuvre beyond his better-known pieces such as La verdad sospechosa or Las paredes oyen.
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03 March 2023
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-023-09761-0
Notes
Nota bene: from here on out the plays will be referred to by the one differing word in the respective titles for clarity.
In fact, we can assert that it was written prior to April 1633, the date given in the Aprobación y censura that appears at the beginning of that volume. In a thesis written for the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Aehécatl Muñoz González states “Sobre esta comedia se desconoce su presentación y, como la gran mayoría de las comedias alarconianas, es imposible precisar cuándo fue escrita, sin embargo, se ha considerado que fue antes de 1618” (2015), but does not give any indication as to where that has been said. Either way, the play was certainly the first of the three.
Arguably, “conceptual” is doing some heavy lifting here. It is well known that Alarcón spent a significant portion of his adult life in Spain and that Engaño was most likely written during his second stint in Spain, which lasted from 1613 until his death in 1639. Still, this time was spent in constant contact with the Americas; from 1625 onwards he worked as a relator in the Consejo de Indias and, as José Juan Arrom tells us, “nace, se educa, viaja, brega, se afana, aspira y obtiene merced como indiano, y como indiano, entre amistades casi todas indianas, transcurre el resto de sus días hasta su sosegado fin” (1967). Given his close personal and professional ties to the colonies even in this later stage of life, I would argue that even while in Spain his work is that of a colonial subject first and foremost. In fact, Arrom outlines the ways in which his colonial roots make his work stand apart from the more nationalistic writings of his Spanish counterparts (1967). Likewise, José Estrada argues that Alarcón himself uses his background as a strategy to compete with his peninsular counterparts (2019).
Arrom does not even include Engaño in his list of known Alarcón plays. Although he states that the twenty-four known Alarcón plays do not come close to the hundreds and perhaps even thousands of many of his counterparts such as Lope, Tirso, and Calderón, “Alarcón ensayó… casi toda la gama temática de la comedia de su época” (1967). Of the twenty-four, Arrom lists sixteen under various subtitles, including El semejante a sí mismo, La industria y la suerte and Todo es ventura under the category “simples comedias de enredo” (1967). He never mentions Los empeños de un engaño, despite making the comparison between Alarcón and Sor Juana directly after the first mention of Casa.
In the Tesoro de la lengua castellana (1674) by Covarrubias, we find a definition that specifies castaño as a colour to describe animals, but by 1729 the Diccionario de Autoridades has an updated entry that includes human features: “El color que semeja a la cáscara de la castáña quitada del herízo. Dividese en castaño claro y castáño obscúro. Latín. Castaneus, a, um. ESPIN. Escud. fol. 5. Tenía ojos negros y grandes, pestáña larga, cabello castáño.” Fina García Marruz agrees that the name is an indication of the colour of his skin: “La complicidad es evidente…. Castaño recuerda el color de la raza indígena…” (1976).
Carol Bingham Kirby theorizes that refundiciones in the seventeenth century had to be “reworked” or “rehashed” texts in very specific ways, which maintain a significant portion of the verses of the original (1994). In the case of the Empeños texts, this would preclude us from making the comparisons. It might better serve our purposes to call the subsequent plays adaptations of the original, following the definition of Linda Hutcheon: “Adaptation is repetition, but repetition without replication” (2012). Although some of the plot points and characters are similar, demonstrating repetition, there are enough differences to make these plays unique, particularly in versification, to consider them adaptations and not “replications”.
The version of Engaño that I am citing from Cervantesvirtual.com is based on Obras Completas. T. II, Valencia, Albatros Hispanofila, 1990, and maintains older spellings which I have updated for this article. For example, from this citation I have amended Iuan to Juan and vereys to veréis, among others. I have also removed the “h” from “Theodora.” Finally, I added brackets to clearly indicate the aparte.
Although the tapadas do initially cause confusion and inspire lust for the unseen woman as they do in other contemporary plays, Calderón does break from the convention in the final scenes: Elvira, Diego’s sister, is sent out in a veil to fool Félix into believing he has recovered his beloved Leonor. Elvira, however, decides to reveal the truth to Félix immediately instead of letting the misidentifications continue. This is likely a device employed by Calderón to bring the play to a close. Another round of misunderstandings would have required yet another act to resolve, and the comedia is at the point that it should be entering into the denouement.
Almost all Calderón’s comedic brides have the potential to turn into the wives of his tragedies. By setting them up for failure during courtship, there is little chance that they will survive long enough in their marriages to die of natural causes.
I use the word surviving here purposefully. We know that Sor Juana gave up much of her library towards the end of her life and dedicated herself to caring for her sick sisters (Jiménez Rueda, 1977). Between the sale of her goods and a death brought on during a plague (which often meant that the deceased’s possessions would be burnt or otherwise disposed of), we cannot know for certain if any of her pieces were lost or misplaced. It is not outside the realm of possibility that Sor Juana wrote many more comedias for which we no longer have copies or record.
In fact, as Arrom notes, that is not all we have, but rather her theatrical repertoire consists of “dieciocho loas, tres autos, dos comedias, dos sainetes y un sarao o fin de fiesta” which he calls “relativamente abundante para una pluma americana” (1967).
Arrom does claim that Amor is not entirely from Sor Juana’s pen: “la jornada segunda la compuso el licenciado Juan de Guevara, primo de la autora” (1967), although he does not leave a citation as to where that information originated. Guillermo Schmidhuber de la Mora, however indicates that the first edition of the play does include the shared authorship: “fue por primera vez editada en 1692 con la adjudicación autoral de sor Juana de la primera y tercera jornadas, y de Juan de Guevara, la segunda jornada” (2013). Still, as Schmidhuber de la Mora points out, this does not detract from Sor Juana’s capabilities: “Cabe notar que la capacidad de versificación de sor Juana era superior a la de Guevara y su experiencia como dramaturga aún mayor” (2013).
María Esther Pérez considers the servant named Hernando in Acaso to be a gracioso: “Hernando es el tipo de gracioso que encarna la contrafigura del galán su amo, Juan; de las diligencias encargadas por su amo sale Hernando, según palabras propias, ‘descalabrado’” (1975). Hernando’s comicality, however, is centered on his interactions with his female counterpart. Other than delivering a letter as per Juan’s direction, he does not intervene or scheme to help out his amo in any way. Compared to Campana and Castaño, therefore, his part is minor and not on par with the scene-stealing graciosos we find in other comedias de capa y espada.
Interestingly, the servant in Casa works both for and against her ama, Ana. Celia simultaneously gives Juan access to the house behind Ana’s back while simultaneously helping Ana in her plots to destroy Carlos and Leonor’s relationship. Thus, Sor Juana combines both versions of the criada into one character.
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Cowling, E.A. Recuperating Ruíz de Alarcón: Los empeños de un engaño as Source Text for Calderón de la Barca and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Neophilologus 107, 225–238 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-022-09759-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-022-09759-0