ENGENDERING INTERPRETATION: IRONY AS COMIC CHALLENGE IN MARÍA DE ZAYAS

Although as critics of María de Zayas’s two collections Novelas amorosas y ejemplares (1637) and Desengaños amorosos (1647) we often debate the “feminism” or “anti-feminism” of her work, we seldom discuss one of her most potent weapons against the extreme social restrictions imposed on women during her time.^[1] In both texts, irony operates as a comic challenge to cultural “myths” defining la mujer.

Before undertaking a textual analysis of the irony in Zayas’s prose, a few words about the process of critical reception and the impact of the narrative structure on reception seem warranted. If indeed the texts do serve to undermine a misogynistic implementation of societal norms, how can it be that such subversive manipulation of dominant cultural practices would have remained unexplored until now? As literary scholars, we are all aware that our experiences and expectations influence our interpretations of literary texts. Scientific experiments have proven that even transitory experiences can affect a reader’s understanding (Crawford 11). A significant number of our expectations stem from our contact with other critical studies of the texts in question, literary history and literary theory. Current criticism of Zayas’s art relies, to a certain extent, on past judgments of her work. Some of these are damaging, unfounded claims that have been accepted without challenge. Thus, as we will see, past reception of her work can act as a deception that misleads critics and prevents them from perceiving vital aspects of her achievement.

E. D. Hirsch, in his study entitled Validity and Interpretation, argues that an interpreter’s generic conception of a text “is constitutive of everything that he subsequently understands and this remains the case unless and until that generic conception is altered” (Hirsch 74, emphasis mine). Yet, the concept of genre represents but one source of expectations that we bring to the study of any given work. Other elements that inform our predisposition toward a text include those resulting from a familiarity with existing interpretations regarding the period, the author, and the work itself. The theoretical stance of Hans Robert Jauss and other proponents of Reception Theory offers many insights into the problematic relationship between interpretation and the heritage of past reception. Nonetheless, as Kaminsky notes, reception theory has all too often remained blind to “gender as a critical category” (Kaminsky 378).

Fortunately, more theorists have now begun to recognize the need to consider the role of gender in interpretation. If a transitory experience such as reading an introductory study can so deeply affect readers’ reactions, then gender and gender-typing which are “among the most powerful influences channeling the experiences of individuals” must inform a reader’s interpretation (Crawford 13). Annette Kolodny argues convincingly that “reading is a learned activity which, like many other learned interpretative strategies in our society, is inevitably sex-coded and gender-inflected” (Kolodny 588). Several elements contribute to the complexity of the situation. First, just as no one “male” reader exists, there exists no one “female” reader. We need not adopt an essentialist perspective in our consideration of gender; rather, we must recognize that cultural circumstances generate many of the “gender” differences we percieve. Gender remains unfixed, subject to “cultural” and individual reformulations. Hence, a woman reading a text may not always read as “woman.” To a great extent, many women, including students and literary critics, have been trained by a patriarchal system to read in accordance with a “dominant male critical vision” (Culler 57).^[2]

A basic awareness of the dynamic of gender-inflected reading seems crucial for an understanding of Zayas’s novelas, especially considering the emphasis on the manipulation of reader response in the works.^[3] Both her Novelas and her Desengaños make use of frame narratives in which each of the narrators, in turn, becomes a narratee who responds to the others’ stories. Although Salvador Montesa maintains that the text, through the exemplification of response dramatized in the narrative, allows for only one interpretation, I would argue that a bipartite system operates on all levels. As Appendix I illustrates, each narrator directly addresses two groups of narratees—one female, the other male. References to the differing expectations and reactions of the narratees based on their gender encircle all the novelas. The narratees, encoded within the text, serve a crucial function. As Susan Suleiman states: “In a narrative with more than one level of narration (e. g., a frame narrative), the levels are related to each other hierarchically. . . . Clearly, a first-level narratee may be considered the inscribed or encoded reader of the work” who provides a “built-in interpretive system.” (Introduction 1) Because the text incorporates two sets of encoded readers, it embodies at least two divergent interpretations, a fact that directly contradicts Montesa’s assertion.

The duality of the narrative structure extends beyond the level of the narratees encoded in the frame. Each set of “inscribed” readers posits the existence of a corresponding “implied” or “postulated” reader—a reader whose existence, characteristics and beliefs are postulated by the narrative itself. The two postulated readers, one female and the other male, share some traits; in several cases, however, the divergences between the postulated female and male readers become clear. In the Novelas, the “she” believes in the existence of virtuous women, the “he” does not. In the Desengaños, the “she” is a potential victim of “engaños,” the “he” is a potential “engañador.” As Lotman clarifies: “any text (and especially a literary one) contains in itself . . . the image of the audience . . . this image actively affects the real audience by becoming for it a kind of normalizing code” (Lotman 81). The encoding of two different “roles” within Zayas’s text permits the real reader to choose a stance, a fact that proves especially significant given that the narrative deals with the presentation of the often discordant relationship between the sexes without forcing the reader to adopt the position occupied by the “Other.”

The frame in both works fulfills a vital function by postulating both female and male audiences; however, the manipulation of reader response differs drastically between the two collections. The frame structure in the Novelas is explicitly designed to provide a sense of equilibrium between female and male perspectives. In the Desengaños, men are excluded from the act of narration—they are relegated to the role of narratees. The textual description of the organization of the “sarao” states that it constitutes the women’s usurpation of a previously male dominated sphere: “Y como son los hombres los que presiden en todo, jamás cuentan los malos pagos que dan” (118). Whereas in the Novelas the audience reponse following the tales stresses agreement among the listeners, in Desengaños, the text encodes diametrically opposed responses defined by gender.

This and other crucial differences have been obscured by the conflation of the two works (Kaminsky 378). As Kaminsky suggests, the continuing tendency to read the texts as one unit serves to diminish the power of the Desengaños, a prime example of the impact of critical tradition on interpretation. The dominant vision defines not only the accepted literary canon, but also the “approved” methodological procedures with which critics approach literature.

In their illustrations of the impact of the acceptance of preceding interpretations on critical reception, both Jauss and Julian Hirsch cite examples of the perpetuation of positive “myths” regarding texts and authors (Jauss 20 and Holub 48-9). Yet, works may also receive unduly harsh critical treatment based upon unchallenged past evaluations. Undoubtedly, the critical reception of Zayas’s narrative provides an excellent example of how previous assessments can thwart, rather than enrich, the interpretation of literary texts. We must realize that Hayden White’s assessment of the fictionality of history applies to literary history as well. Just as historians emplot historical facts according to their personal interpretation, so do literary historians and literary critics elect the “masterpieces” of accepted literary canons according to their tastes which are, of course, influenced by their own circumstances. This subjective element cannot be eliminated, nor can it be ignored. We must acknowledge the potential bias inherent in every generation of scholars and respond to the undeniable need for continual re-examination of the presuppositions that operate in our discipline.

Among the many misleading claims regarding Zayas’s works (not to mention the harsh censure of their “immorality” and “lasciviousness” by some critics) are repeated affirmations that her works are devoid of irony and that they unequivocally support a rigid, “Calderonian” view of honor. In fact, Amezúa’s pronouncement, “no conocerá el humor ni la ironía porque esos matices no son posibles a su temperamento dinámico y fogoso” (Amezúa XXI) remained unchallenged until the publication of Salvador Montesa’s study in 1981. Montesa counters that “la insistencia en los aspectos trágicos de las novelas y en el pesimismo que destilan puede hacernos olvidar una faceta interesante en la obra zayesca: el humor” (225). Of the six pages out of 400 that he devotes to his discussion of humor, only one considers irony. I would contend that Zayas’s irony does not, as he and Rincón suggest, “quitar el hierro al esceptismo zayesco” (11), but rather serves to sharpen her attack on patriarchal structures.

David Kaufer’s recent work on irony and rhetorical strategy provides substantial evidence to support the claim that the bipartite narrative structure of Zayas’s works represents an integral part of their ironic nature. He states:

. . . we can explain this perceived disparity in the ironist’s relationship to his audience if we ascribe to ironic discourse the implication of two audiences. One audience identifies with the ironist’s literal meaning, the other with his ironic meaning. . . . Thus the ironist’s audience . . . is bifurcated into two distinct audiences according to its association with either the literal or ironic meaning. (96-97)

Elsewhere I have demonstrated that, in a structured experiment, reader response to Zayas’s novelas did vary according to the reader’s gender.^[4] One might argue convincingly that the divergences in interpretation directly related to the audience’s perception of textual irony. Male readers tended to read the texts more “literally” while female readers often mentioned how the inclusion of a certain ironic phrase undermined a more superficial level of meaning. This tendency, while by no means absolute, would suggest that the narratives posit the “male” reader as the audience of the literal meanings and the “female” reader as the audience of the ironic. Following Kaufer’s argument on the strategies of irony, such a technique allows authors to pretend that the target of their discourse is “part of their chosen audience” (102). In this manner, Zayas can criticize established societal norms ironically, a stance that might prove “politically dangerous” if expressed directly (Kaufer 102).

As others have noted, Zayas’s feminism may not conform to our current conception; however, her implicit program anticipates the paradigm formalized by Rosario Castellanos, one of the foremost Mexican feminists of our era. Castellanos states that her purpose as a feminist is to explore the myths that govern society’s expectations of women and to begin the process of demythification using humor to reveal the absurdities underlying accepted social conventions. (She warns us that we must accept “no dogma that cannot withstand a good joke.”) She identifies three constellations of myths that constrain women: the esthetic, the intellectual and the ethical. Zayas, writing over three centuries before Castellanos, embarks on a similar endeavor, for she employs irony as a comic challenge to the same three categories of cultural myths. Thus, Castellanos’s construct may serve as a critical framework for the consideration of irony in the novelas.^[5]

In Golden Age Spain, the “ideals” or societal “myths” proscribing women were codified in several ways, including their propagation through popular literature in general and marriage manuals in particular. Zayas’s ironic manipulation of definitions of Christian womanhood demonstrates her challenge to the dominant tradition. Thus, her works may be read as a critical response to these proscriptions, especially those embodied in Fray Luis de León’s La perfecta casada.

A consideration of the first category of cultural myths, the esthetic, reveals Zayas’s ironic treatment of social conventions in which she juxtaposes, as Montesa suggests, an apparent reality with an underlying truth. The popular literature of the period reflects what historians term a “patriarchal economy” in which a woman’s beauty represents her means to secure stability and happiness. Throughout the Novelas and the Desengaños, however, a woman’s beauty brings her only ill-fortune. The frequent repetition of the paired adjectives “hermosa” and “desgraciada” signals this inversion. In “El traidor contra su sangre” the narrator explicitly states: “El hijo tenía por nombre don Alonso, y la hija doña Mencía; hermosa es fuerza que lo sea porque había de ser desgraciada” (372).

“La más infame venganza” manipulates another esthetic ideal. Fray Luis de León asserts that “pone la hermosura de la buena mujer no en las figuras del rostro, sino en las virtudes secretas del alma (172), and that “los frutos de la virtud” include “amor, y gozo y paz” on Earth as well as everlasting life in the Kingdom of God (180). He assures the reader that a woman who follows this sacred path, who remains virtuous within her husband’s house, removed from temptation, will be blessed with a peaceful life. The textual presentation of Camila in “La más infame venganza” directly challenges this position:

Llegó el día deseado de Carlos, ya nuevamente enamorado de Camila, que aunque no muy hermosa, el trato y ser ropa nueva le hacía de apetecerla. Tenía la belleza que ha de tener la propia mujer, pues más en las virtudes que en la hermosura ha de florecer; demás que no era tan fea que pudiera por esto ser aborrecida y cuando lo fuera, la hiciera hermosa más de cincuenta mil ducados que tenía de dote y deseaba ya Carlos verse dueño de todo. (187, emphasis added)

The inclusion of the phrase “ropa nueva” undermines the supposed emphasis on Camila’s virtuous manners. The text further ironically manipulates the concept of “inner beauty,” clearly suggesting that her riches, not her virtue, appeal to her suitor.

According to Fray Luis’s writings, Camila’s virtue should ensure her peaceful, happy existence. Instead, the brother of her husband’s mistress seeks to avenge his honor by raping her. The textual signs underscore this injustice: “Mira que culpa tiene la inocente. . . . Mas Camila honesta, Camila cuerda, Camila recogida y no tratando sino de servir a su marido . . .” (190). The only reward the conclusion allows for is the promise of eternal life. Camila’s husband “le dió un veneno para matarla, mas no le sucedió así, porque debía de querer Dios que esta desdichada y santa señora padeciese más martirios para darle en el cielo el premio de ellos” (195). The use of “debía de,” however, leaves the matter open to interpretation. It does not assure the reader that her suffering will be rewarded.

Not only does Zayas question the assumptions underlying the esthetic myths governing women, her texts also actively attack myths regarding women’s intellect. At the time, the majority of prominent thinkers portrayed women as intellectually inferior to men, a position deemed consistent with Catholic doctrine. Fray Luis de León affirms that: “a la mujer buena y honesta la naturaleza no la hizo para el estudio de las ciencias, ni para los negocios y dificultades, sino para un solo oficio simple y doméstico, así les limitó el entender” (149).

Within this context, Zayas’s defense of woman’s intellectual capacity has been well documented; nonetheless, some elements still merit further study. In the prologue to the Novelas she states:

Con mujeres no hay competencias. . . . Y así pues, no has de querer ser descortés, necio, villano ni desagradecido. Te ofrezco este libro muy segura de tu bizarría, y en confianza de que si te desagradare, podrías disculparme con que nací mujer, no con obligaciones de hacer buenas novelas. (Prólogo)

Montesa claims that in this passage Zayas “desautoriza su propia capacidad intelectual, no equiparable a la del hombre, puesto que tiene que ampararlo bajo el manto de la feminidad para hacer comprensibles sus fallos.” (135) He fails to recognize the presence of the topos of self-deprecating irony commonly found in prologues of the period as evinced by Ernst Curtius’s exhaustive study. Moreover, what he interprets as acquiesence to the myth of woman’s intellectual inferiority actually manipulates the male reader’s response by obliging him to comply with his part of the “ideal.”

Once again Montesa’s critical evaluation of the statement by Isabel, the narrator of “La esclava de su Amante”: “Si son buenos los versos que no son tuyos y más si son de dama, adóralos y alábalos; y si malos, discúlpala, considerando que no tiene más caudal” reveals his particular bias. He argues: “Si las almas no tienen sexo, idea que le gusta repetir, tampoco los escritos lo tienen: ni son de dama ni de varón . . . al no comprenderlo así abre una profunda grieta en el edificio de su feminismo” (135). This narrow understanding of feminism does not allow for the valorization of gender differences. He does not consider that the uniquely female voice posited by Zayas’s discourse might represent one of her most revolutionary accomplishments. The metaphor he chooses to express his position also proves interesting. The image of the “edifice” reflects, as I will discuss later, an imposition of patriarchal structure, one that her text defies by resisting categorical enclosure.

The attack on the intellectual myth reaches ironic heights in “El prevenido engañado.” The male protagonist, Don Fadrique, views women’s intelligence as the cause of their deceptions; he discounts his active participation in their sexual exploits. He opts to marry a completely innocent, totally naive young girl despite warnings that stupidity does not guarantee virtue. He falsely informs his new bride, Gracia, that in married life, the woman’s nightly “duty” consists of keeping armed watch over her husband. During his first absence, an ardent suitor assures Gracia that he can teach her another way to fulfill her wifely duty—one she finds much more pleasant. Unaware that she has engaged in an illicit activity, she excitedly informs her husband, upon his return, that “another husband” has helped her discover a more entertaining way to spend their evenings. In the end, Fadrique praises “las discretas que son virtuosas porque no hay comparación ni estimación para ellas; y si no lo son, hacen sus cosas con recato y prudencia” (173).

The conclusion incorporates another ironic twist: “Entró doña Gracia monja, contenta . . . porque como era boba, fácil halló el consuelo gastando la gruesa hacienda que le quedó” (173). If “el ácido corrisivo de la risa” fails to reveal the absurdity of the dominant view of women’s intelligence as “dangerous” and antithetical to moral development, the narrator explicitly identifies the text’s purpose: “para que se avisen los ignorantes que condenan la discreción de las mujeres, que donde falta el entendimiento, no puede sobrar la virtud . . .” (173). This novella, the frame narrative, and other tales unequivocally defend women’s intelligence as a necessary, positive force.

Zayas’s examination of the ethical myths that attempt to define women’s morality proves even more scathing. Her novellas reflect the period’s preoccupation with the moral and ethical obligations imposed on women. As Fray Luis and others argued: “Woman’s natural state is that of subjugation to man.” The honor code represents one of the social structures designed to perpetuate unchallenged male dominance and to ensure women’s compliance with the cultural expectations regarding morality. Not only did women need to behave in accordance with societal expectations, they also had to remain completely above reproach. Fray Luis de León, in La perfecta casada states that: “aquella sola es casta en quien ni la fama mintiendo osa poner mala nota” (40, emphasis mine). Any suspected transgression required the shedding of the offender’s blood in order to remove the “stain.”

Even those critics who recognize Zayas’s challenges to other social restrictions placed on women still affirm that she adheres to a strictly codified definition of honor. Studies often paraphrase Portal’s assessment:

Por lo general, la novela cortesana ante el honor adopta una doble postura, la típicamente calderoniana, recordemos, la deshonra sólo se lava con sangre, y aquella otra, más humana y realista, que a lo largo de casi toda su obra defendió Cervantes. María de Zayas, apasionada y fatalista, optaría por la rigidez calderoniana. (Portal 17)

Although various characters articulate views Portal labels as “Calderonian,” several of the novelas subvert the honor code.

Perhaps “Al fin se paga todo” best represents this ironic manipulation of the code. The protagonist, Hipólita, recounts how she marries Don Pedro only to find herself pursued by Don Luis, his brother. She resists his advances, but succumbs to Don Gaspar’s charms. Four times they arrange to meet to consummate their illicit love; each time their encounters fail. (The obstacles to their union prove quite humorous.) When her husband’s unexpected arrival interrupts their fourth tryst, Hipólita encloses Gaspar in a trunk. She mistakenly believes he has suffocated, and appeals to her brother-in-law (Don Luis) for help, explaining that: “no he ofendido a mi marido y vuestro hermano de obra, si bien con el pensamiento” (247). Don Luis seeks to use his knowledge to force her to accept him. When she resists, he schemes to enter her bedroom under the cover of darkness and, pretending to be her husband, rapes her. To avenge her honor, Hipólita kills Don Luis with her husband’s knife, then seeks refuge in Don Gaspar’s house. Perversely, he beats her cruelly, steals her jewels, and throws her into the street. After her rescue by Don García, she enters a convent. She eventually contacts the authorities who have arrested her innocent husband. They declare her innocent of any wrongdoing; nonetheless, she remains in the convent, refusing to return to her husband’s house. When Don Pedro dies, “dejando a su mujer, de quien no se tenía por ofendido, heredera de toda su hacienda” (257), Hipólita subsequently marries Don García. After revealing that Don Gaspar’s servant killed him to steal Hipólita’s jewels, the narrator pronounces “que cada uno mire lo que hace, pues al fin todo se paga” (257).

The repetition of the title ironically underscores the subversion of societal norms in the tale. Not only does the text manipulate the honor code, but the doctrine of intention that was often employed to determine guilt as well. In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council decreed that the intention behind any act determines its morality. One need not complete the “offense” to be guilty of the sin. The honor code incorporated this definition in that the mere suspicion of ill intent was considered justification for revenge. “Al fin se paga todo” clearly undermines this doctrine. Hipólita admits that she has intended (and attempted) to commit adultery, yet she escapes any official sanctions. She then avails herself of the código (from which her dalliances remained exempt) to avenge her honor by killing her brother-in-law with impunity. Only the men in the narrative (Don Luis, Don Gaspar, the manservant) appear subject to the “justice” alluded to in the title. That Hipólita, after her open defiance and subsequent manipulation of the honor code lives “happily ever after” shakes the very foundation of the patriarchal system.

In Paul Julian Smith’s otherwise intriguing article, he diminishes the subversive force of the text through a revealing “mis-reading.” He states:

Thus Hipólita, in Al fin se paga todo plunges her dagger ‘five or six times’ into the heart of her sleeping husband. . . . Zayas implies an acceptance of the patriarchal code of honour, and does not question the belief that blood can only be cleansed with blood. Women are thus permitted to adopt a travesty of man, but cannot transgress the law of the dagger and the phallus. (Smith 235)

He fails to notice the suggestive usurpation of male power embodied by the phallic symbol. The dagger Hipólita employs is her husband’s, a weapon she turns against her brother-in-law, not her spouse. As traditionally presented in Golden Age literature, the honor code would call for Hipólita’s husband to kill her so that her blood could cleanse the “stain” on his honor. Instead, she avenges her own, not her husband’s, honor.

A careful examination of the function of ironic inversion in this novella and others challenges current critical evaluation of Zayas’s stance regarding the honor code which affirms that her sense of justice “consiste tanto o más en recompensar a los buenos y en castigar a los malos” (Montesa 171). In “El jardín engañoso,” for example, Teodisa employs the code to secure the man she desires. She falsely accuses her rival, her own sister, of infidelity, a ruse that costs an innocent young man his life. Nonetheless, she eventually marries as she wishes. The devil’s participation in “El jardín” also proves problematic. In an unselfish act, he willingly returns the deed to a young man’s soul. The inclusion of the devil’s good deed is not gratuitous. In fact, the frame tale highlights it by acclaiming the devil as the character who commits the greatest act of good. Montesa argues that if one were to accept Zayas’s manipulation of the construct of good and evil as deliberate, “esto sería quebrantar las bases sobre las que se sostiene todo el edificio. Desaparecería el arraigado sentido de justicia de nuestra autora” (171). He correctly identifies the implications of the scene, yet dismisses them because they do not fit with his construction of Zayas. In so doing, he fails to recognize the tremendous subversive power of the novela. The recasting of the devil as a entity capable of good can be read as a revisionist myth that challenges the most fundamental oppositions imposed by traditional doctrine.

That Montesa’s critical analysis again incorporates the metaphor of the “edifice” brings to mind another cultural “myth” that Zayas confronts. During the period, the house served to define the woman’s role. Fray Luis specifies that “los fundamentos de la casa son la mujer y el buey” (Fray Luis 47). Marcia Welles and Elizabeth Ordóñez have intimated that Zayas’s preoccupation with enclosure anticipates that identified by Gilbert in 18th-century Gothic fiction. As Gilbert suggests, the “house” becomes a sign for the “architecture of patriarchy” which represents the entrapment of women by male-dominated social institutions. (85)

In Novelas amorosas, Zayas explores the comic possibilites of this architectural sign, at times demonstrating that the rigid imposition of patriarchal order also restricts men. In “Al fin se paga todo” Don Gaspar, attempting to enter Hipólita’s chambers, becomes trapped within the confines of the house: “. . . se quedó atravesado en el marco de la ventana por la mitad del cuerpo . . . siendo fuerza a don Gaspar el correr metido en su marco . . .” (245). Desengaños, on the other hand, portrays the house as an instrument of torture employed against women. In “Amar sólo por vencer,” the father and the uncle kill the protagonist by collapsing a wall on top of her. This resolution holds significant interpretive possibilites. At the same time that patriarchal architecture destroys the young woman, it itself crumbles. The text seems to suggest that such extreme implementations of the honor code may lead to the erosion of the social structure itself.

Many critics have read Zayas’s texts as offering no alternatives to the oppressive patriarchal order. Nevertheless, she does challenge the ethical “myths” that bind the woman to her husband’s house forever. Fray Luis proclaims “Que por más áspero y de más fieras condiciones que el marido sea es necesario que la mujer le soporte. . . . ¡Oh que es un verdugo! Pero es tu marido . . .” (57). He censures those women who abandon their homes to “calentar el suelo de la Iglesia” (23). Both collections present women who actively reject these strictures. Among them, Laura of “La fuerza del amor,” frequently beaten by her husband, refuses to return to him despite the Viceroys’ mandate. Instead, she elects the convent.

The Desengaños present the most fervent challenge to the cultural dictum that marriage represents the “natural order” and “serves to restore order and maintain harmony” (Ordóñez 9). All female protagonists either die or choose to enter a convent. Montesa and others interpret this decision as one motivated by fear and consistent with the dominant order. Nevertheless, the narration of the “desengaños” exclusively by women (during a supposed engagement party for Lisis) in itself represents an inversion of, rather than compliance with, the patriarchal order. That women, after listening to the tales, join hands and enter the convent together defies the social norm. As Ordóñez notes:

The choice to enter a convent is based not only on a female decision to save body and soul from victimization by men, but it signals a more positive move toward the formation of another kind of bonding . . . underscoring matrilineal alternatives to patriarchal coding in text and social context. (8)

In fact, the entire asymmetrical structure of the second volume, which privileges a gynocentric orientation, ironically represents an inversion of patriarchal order.

Unquestionably, a careful textual analysis of the Desengaños and Novelas refutes the critical assertion that Zayas’s narratives are devoid of irony. Thus, the consideration of irony in Zayas not only reveals how she challenges esthetic, intellectual and ethical myths that proscribed women’s conduct, it also serves to reveal the self-propagating nature of criticism. All too often, opinions fossilized through years of stagnation become transformed into “indisputable” facts. We cannot naively accept past reception without falling prey to possible deception. The revolutionary nature of her work has often been dismissed by critics who note that she does not address other inequities inherent in the social order. Zayas need not examine all the manifestations of injustice generated by her society’s hierarchical configuration, for she attacks the very “foundations” of the patriarchal order. Her work itself has been interpreted by critics trained by a patriarchal system to read in accordance with a “dominant male critical vision” (Culler 57). This may explain resistance to the broadest implications of her ironic manipulation of the culturally defined constructs of good and evil, of “la perfecta casada” and “la mala mujer.” Zayas’s comic challenge ultimately serves to “quebrantar las bases sobre las que se sostiene todo el edificio” (Montesa 171).

Works Cited

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Ordóñez, Elizabeth J. “Woman and Her Text in the Works of María de Zayas and Ana Caro.” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 19.1 (1985): 3-13

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Rincón, Eduardo, ed. Novelas amorosas y ejemplares o Decameron español. Madrid: Alianza, 1968.

Smith, Paul Julian. “Writing Women in Golden Age Spain: Saint Teresa and María de Zayas.” Modern Language Notes 102.2 (1987): 220-40.

Sulieman, Susan. The Reader in the Text. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1980.

Vasileski, Irma V. María de Zayas y Sotomayor: su época y su obra. Madrid: Playor, 1973.

Welles, Marcia. “María de Zayas and her novela cortesana: A Re-evaluation.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 60 (1978): 301-10.

Williamsen, Amy R. “Gender and Interpretation: The Manipulation of Reader Response in María de Zayas.” Forthcoming in Discurso Literano.

Zayas y Sotomayor, María de. Desengaños amorosos. Ed. Alicia Yllera. Madrid: Catédra, 1983.

___. Novelas completas. Ed. María Martínez de Portal. Madrid: Bruguera, 1973.

^[1]All parenthetical references to the Novelas are from Portal’s edition; the references to the Desengaños are from Yllera’s.

^[2]In a work of the present scope, I cannot possibly address all the intricacies of these theoretical issues. Nevertheless, I believe that the concept of gender-inflected reading provides crucial insight into the analysis of María de Zayas novelas (see works cited). For a provocative discussion of “gender” as a performative construct, see Butler.

^[3]For additional discussions of the relationship between the reader and the text in Zayas see Elizabeth J. Ordóñez (6), Sandra Foa (126), and Salvador Montesa (333, 352).

^[4]This is the central argument of my article (“Gender and Interpretation”).

^[5]The preceding discussion parallels that found at the beginning of my related study “Challenging the Code: Honor in María de Zayas” (forthcoming).