JUAN RUÍZ DE ALARCÓN: DISABILITY AND DISSONANCE IN GOLDEN AGE SPAIN

 

Gloria Jeanne Bodtorf Clark
Penn State Captital College

There was a silence in Spain when Juan Ruíz de Alarcón y Mendoza died.  While it was reported that Lope de Vega’s funeral had lasted for nine days, there is only one notice of Alarcón’s death, printed in the August 9, 1639 issue of Avisos históricos, by José de Pellicer y Tovar: “Murió don Juan de Alarcón, poeta famoso así por sus comedias como por sus corcovas” (Castro Leal 52-3) (Don Juan de Alarcón died, a poet as famous for his plays as for his humps).  Even in death, Alarcón was not able to escape a corporeal tie to his work.  One interpretation of the death notice in Avisos históricos might be that it frankly told it like it was; Alarcón was famous in Spanish society for his plays and his humps.  People who knew him had difficulty separating his strong physical presence from his literary production, as evidenced by many references to his disability.  There was always a dynamic in his life that was fueled by his physical condition.  He was at all times subject to the attitudes, customs, and prejudices of the society around him.  Studying his disability and its effect on his relationship to society yields a better understanding of this enigmatic writer and his literary production.

Juan Ruíz de Alarcón y Mendoza presents a puzzling figure for scholars.  Unlike many other authors, he did not leave papers, letters, or journals for us to dissect and study.  The tangible evidence we have of his life consists of university, government, and church records; legal documents; descriptions written by friends and enemies; and the body of his literary work.  Walter Poesse in his life of Alarcón summarizes those sources:

The man who emerges, then, although not too distinctly, from his plays and what is known of him is one who labored under enormous physical and psychological handicaps, who was not insensitive to ridicule, but was able to stand up to it and even answer it, not permitting it to deter him from either his goal or his desires.  (35)

Poesse continues by describing Alarcón’s sense of humor, persistence, pursuit of monetary security and pride in his lineage.

There are a number of descriptions of his physical stature written by both friends and enemies during his lifetime.  According to those, he was small in stature, with spindly legs, a red beard, freckles on his face, a scar on his right hand, and a double hump, on the back and front of his torso. [i]   Alarcón’s particular disability was probably what is medically called kyphosis today, a form of scoliosis in which the backbone is so misshapen as to cause a hump on the back.  The Scoliosis Research Society, describes kyphosis as a 45-degree or greater curvature of the spine (Methodist Health Care System 1).  He also suffered from lordosis, in which a lump, or hump forms in the front.  Although we cannot definitively diagnose his condition from such a temporal distance, we can note the preponderance of tuberculosis in his day.  It is possible Alarcón suffered from tuberculosis of the spine, or Pott’s disease, which causes symptoms like those that Alarcon’s acquaintances saw in him. ^[ii] This condition was very prevalent in premodern times.  Alarcón, of course, did not have the benefit of modern treatments, such as braces, chemotherapy, or surgery, but literally had to carry the stigma of his own physical presence wherever he went.

Robley Dunglison’s nineteenth century description of the word “hump” is also interesting, because he notes that the curvatures appear at an early age caused by “scrofula, rickets &c; and not infrequently, they are accompanied by caries of the vertebrae” (485).  The word “scrofula” or sometimes “scrophula” is a very old term that described swelling or tumors of the neck.  The classic symptoms included a swelling of the upper lip, protruding eyes, tumors and ulcers in joints and glands, and in severe cases, a rotting of the bones (caries) (French 96).  In the dictionary today, “scrofula” means tuberculosis of the glands of the neck, a more narrow definition. ^[iii]

Alarcón must have carried the marks of scrofula on own his body, as the keen observer Francisco de Quevedo points out in his satirical poem, “De D. Francisco Quevedo contra D. Juan de Alarcón,”

¿Quién tiene con lamparones [iv]

Pecho, lado y espaldilla?

Corcovilla (King 250).

(Who has scrofula on his chest, side and shoulders?

The little hunchback.)

It is also interesting to note that Alarcón himself mentions lamparones in his play “La verdad sospechosa.”  Don García, a young gallant is getting dressed to go out into the streets of  Madrid and is discussing his clothing with his servant, Tristán.  He asks Tristán how he looks and receives the reply: “Divinamente Señor” (Divinely, Sir) (43).  He then tells his master a tale about a woman he knew who loved a man as long as he was wearing the large honeycombed collar that was in fashion.  However, when he visited his lady’s house without putting on his collar, she lost her affection for him

. . .porque ciertos costurones

en la garganta cetrina

publicaban la ruina

de pasados lamparones.(44)

(. . .because certain scars

on his sallow throat

disclosed the remnants

of past scrofulous swellings.)

We can tell from Tristán’s story that people with the marks of scrofula were looked down upon at this time.  Don García takes a moment after Tristán’s story to comment that the large fashionable collars were a bad idea from many different aspects, including the fact that they hid a man’s real self, a theme that is often repeated in Alarcón’s comedias.

Here  Bradford Lonstein’s Textbook of Scoliosis and other Spinal Deformities lists a number of effects of spinal deformity on patients, such as: diminished pulmonary function, thoracic or lumbar pain, neurologic compromise, cardiac disease, osteoarthritic changes, decreased work capacity and loss of self image (89).  The twisting of the spine and the unusual posture that results, puts pressure both on the supporting muscles and the internal organs.  According to the descriptions that have survived, Alarcón had very thin legs, which had to support his large upper body structure.

It is likely that Alarcón suffered from many or all of the physical effects listed above.  Considering the time-period he lived in, his accomplishments and his life span of approximately fifty-nine years were amazing.  Travel, for instance, was difficult at best.  Roads, where they existed, were rutted and strewn with obstacles.  Even a short ride in a horse-drawn cart would have been a torturous experience for someone with chronic pain.  Carriages were just coming into popularity in Alarcón’s time.  The very rich had carriages, but they were still an unusual sight.  Most people would have traveled in open carts or on horseback.  For Alarcón, traveling on horseback, if possible at all, must have been agonizing  His travel to and from Mexico could not have been much better.  Life aboard a ship in the 1600s was not only fraught with dangers from the elements, it was both strenuous and exhausting.  To mention just one challenge, Alarcón would have had to climb and descend narrow slippery ladders to get to the cabin and dining areas below the deck several times each day.

Life at the university demanded a lot of walking to buildings spread out on the campus and climbing many stairs to attend classes in large lecture halls.  The University of Salamanca, which he attended for approximately five years, was founded in 1218, and had about thirty buildings centered in the downtown part of Salamanca in the 1600s.  We do not have knowledge about where Alarcón lived during his university studies in Spain, but there were no accommodations on campus, so he also had to get to and from his lodgings for his classes and exams.

The emotional and psychological effects of such a disability must have been staggering as well.  One can only guess what it must have been like to grow up unable to participate fully in the games or activities of the other children as his body grew more twisted as the years went by.  The social isolation he must have experienced was based on his physical deformity, a condition, which could certainly be referred to as a stigma.  Lerita M. Coleman discusses the social impact of such stigmatization in her essay “Stigma: An Enigma Demystifies,” citing the impact of stigmatization on the individual and society.  She states that “Physical abnormalities, for example, may be the most severely stigmatized differences because they are physically salient, represent some deficiency or distortion in the bodily form, and in most cases are unalterable” (Davis 217-218). Margaret Winzer, in her essay on “Disability and Society,” gives this historical view of disability:

In the thousands of years of human existence before 1800, life for most exceptional people appears to have been a series of unmitigated hardships.  The great majority of disabled persons had no occupation, no source of income, limited social interaction, and little religious comfort. . .  Individuals seen as different were destroyed, exorcized, ignored, exiled, exploited-or set apart because some were even considered divine (Davis 76).

Alarcón’s family, however, must have recognized his intellect, as he went on to the university as his brothers had. [v]  His parents evidently resisted the custom among wealthy families, which was to protect and hide those family members with severe disabilities.  Society, on the other hand, had little use for those exceptional people who had special needs.  Alarcón pushed those limits and suffered for it by having to endure the criticisms of his fellow writers, and by being denied over and over again a position that he had earned in society through family history and education.  Alarcón was fortunate to be encouraged by his family to be educated because it was common in pre-modern times for all people with disabilities, mental and or physical, to be classed together.  As Winzer points out, there was little or no understanding of the individual abilities of a disabled person (80).  In other words, a person who was physically disabled was not expected to have intellectual abilities.

In addition, Alarcón was certainly marginalized during his lifetime, not only because of his physical disability, and because of his origin.  He was born in 1580 or 1581 in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, now called Mexico, but lived for many years in Spain (Castro Leal X-XI).  This dual citizenship gave him the unique position of being the first Mexican writer known outside of his own country, while at the same time being acknowledged as one of the elite group of writers who powered the Siglo de oro literary movement in Spain, along with Lope de Vega, Francisco de Quevedo and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.  Many critics have called Alarcón the first “universal Mexican,” because he was the first writer from Mexico to be recognized beyond the borders of his own country (Obras completas IX).  Both his native and his adopted countries claim him as a part of their rich literary heritage.  Acting as a literary ambassador, Alarcón brought a New World vision to the literature of the Spanish Golden Age.  However, at the same time, that very New World stance set him apart from the native Spanish writers who gloried in their position within the mainstream of Spanish life and culture.  Furthermore, his physical disability affected his acceptance by society and his pursuit of a career.

Alarcón’s ancestors were Spaniards of noble families who came to the New World to serve the Spanish King as overseers to the silver mining industry.  His parents, Don Pedro Ruíz de Alarcón and Doña Leonor de Mendoza y Mendoza, spent a number of years in Taxco, which is located today in the Mexican state of Guerrero, and also lived in what is now Mexico City (Poesse 17-18).  He inherited a high social position as a criollo, the son of Spanish parents born in the colonies.  As a criollo, he enjoyed the benefits of a university education in bothMexico and Spain, where he pursued degrees in law at the then new University of Mexico and the venerableUniversity of Salamanca.  He traveled back and forth between Spain and his home in the colonies, studying, then eventually serving as a lawyer for a time in each country.  He achieved the doctoral level of study inMexico, passing his exams in 1609, but not actually receiving his degree (Poesse 22).  Antonio Castro Leal, in his canonical biography of Alarcón, explains that there were many fees that had to be paid in order to graduate, and Alarcón petitioned the University of Mexico to receive his degree without ceremony, because it was Lent and because he was poor (XV).  He never did formally receive his degree, even though the University authorities agreed that he had completed the course of doctoral study in Canonical and Civil Law.

Following his successful examinations in Mexico, Alarcón returned to Spain and entered the tumultuous world ofMadrid society.  Willard King, author of Juan Ruíz de Alarcón letrado y dramaturgo, describes Madrid at that time as having doubled its population from 65,000 to 130,000 in a scant twenty years, becoming a center for culture and the a rts:

. . . torneos y corridas de toros, bodas reales y ducales, procesiones de Corpus, recepciones de embajadores y de príncipes extranjeros, y a la concentración de todos los mejores ingenios, poetas, comediógrafos y artistas, venidos a Madrid para divertir a nobles ociosos con poemas y comedias y tratar de conseguir su mecenzago.  (King 157)

(. . . tournaments and bullfights, royal and noble weddings, religious processions, receptions for ambassadors and foreign princes, and the concentration of all the best minds, poets, dramatists and artists who came to Madrid in order to entertain idle nobles with poems and plays and to try to get their patronage.) ^[vi]

The record of Alarcón’s own literary career emerges with a day long festival that featured a poetry andcomedia competition in the morning, and an afternoon joust in San Juan de Alfarache, near Sevilla, on July 4, 1606.  Alarcón had moved to Sevilla in 1604 or 1605 to practice law, following his study at the University of Salamanca.  Castro Leal describes the competition held on the riverside estate of Don Diego de Colindres (XIII) with Don Diego presiding, Miguel de Cervantes as secretary, and Alarcón as treasurer.  Alarcón himself provided a poem of his dedicated to a lady with sweaty hands, “Consolando a una dama que le sudaban las manos“(“Consoling a Woman with Sweaty Hands”).  There was also a short play and a fanciful joust in which Alarcón starred under an assumed name, that Fernández Guerra describes this way:

Finally Juan Ruíz de Alarcón, by virtue of being a florid writer, because of being flor y nata (flower and cream) of the pandos or hunchbacked, because of his poor talle (figure) of a hunchback, and because of always being dechunga (in a jesting mood) and in good humor, and having been born in the Indies, took for himself the resounding, strange and meaningful name of Don Floripando Talludo, the Prince of Chunga. (qtd. in Poesse 142)

According to Castro Leal, Don Floripando Talludo entered wearing a sort of cardboard horse with a squire dressed as a dog; the two won two pair of gloves and gave them to women who were watching the tournament.  A clue to Alarcón’s personality comes from this description “La carta anónima que hace relación de esta fiesta insiste en que Alarcón actuó en ella con ingenio, vivacidad e inagotable buen humor” (XIII) (“An anonymous letter that makes reference to this party insists that Alarcón conducted himself with creativity, energy and inexhaustible good humor”).  This illustration allows us to enter that moment of time and understand how Alarcón dealt with his own disability, with humor and grace.  No written record of his personal feelings about his disabilities exists, ^[vii] but his plays and the evidence of his active intellectual and social life implicitly show how he must have felt about them.  He certainly did not consider them as a reason not to succeed at the university, or not to pursue his career.  He did not consider them a detriment to seeking a faculty position at the University of Mexico, or an office in the government of Spain.  Although there is no record that he officially married, he did have relationships with women, as it is recorded that Ángela de Cervantes gave birth to his child, Lorenza. ^[viii] His full life included work, travel, friends and family.  Whatever pain or doubt he might have felt were subsumed by his strong will to succeed in a world that was not always friendly to people with disabilities.

By 1617 there was a production of his play, Las paredes oyen, which launched his career as a playwright.  He became known in the literary circles of Madrid.  But, being a part of the literary world of seventeenth century Spain had its advantages and disadvantages.  At the same time his work was recognized by the public, he also became a target for the barbs and slings of his fellow writers (Usigli 16).  Cristóbal Suárez de Figueroa, a minor author of the time, launched a series of vicious attacks on Alarcón targeting both his stature, and his conduct, which Figueroa described as “hiperactiva, ruidosa y agresiva. . .[como un] latoso mosquito que zumba en las orejas de los adultos serios” (King, 167) (hyperactive, aggressive…[like a] pesky mosquito buzzing in the ears of serious adults).  Others were not far behind, Tirso de Molina, Francisco de Quevedo, and Lope de Vega expressed their dislike for Alarcón’s dramas and Alarcón himself.  Lope de Vega mentioned Alarcón in a poetry certamen, or competition, as having written twenty-five plays, none of which had ever been heard of.  Lope also spoke of Alarcón in the introduction to one of his plays as “froglike in stature and noise,” as “giboso,” or hunch-backed, among other descriptions, including one alluding to his bad breath “mal aliento” (Castro Leal XX).  Around 1618 a friend of Lope de Vega wrote several seguidillas (poems with 4-7 line stanzas), which pointed out Alarcón’scara de búho (owl-like face) and cuerpo de rana (frog-like body) (King 171).  Lope de Vega and Mira de Amescua went so far as to break a flask of foul smelling liquid in the theater where Alarcón’s play El Anticristo was being shown.  People had to flee the theater and some collapsed from the smell (Obras completas 11).

Although the oil was the most dramatic of the insults Alarcón had to endure, it was not the last, nor the worst. Francisco de Quevedo, known for his satirical style, said, for instance,  that the “D” in Alarcón’s name, Don Juan Ruíz de Alarcón, did not really stand for Don, but rather the shape of the letter was actually half a self- portrait which depicted the lump on his chest.  He also called him “hombre formado de paréntesis,” “a man made of parentheses” (Ocampo Flores 40), as he walked between his two humps. James Iffland in Quevedo and the Grotesque also mentions that Quevedo, in his “De D. Francisco Quevedo contra D. Juan de Alarcón,” describes Alarcón’s humps as pinecones, the crust of a meat pie, a head of garlic, the number 5 and a cowbell (97).  These are only a few of the cruel things said about him; the writers of the day were relentless in their criticisms.  It must be understood that part of this barrage of criticism was the custom of the day.  Most authors criticized and satirized each other by writing and publishing poems.  Alarcón, however, seemed to have been the target for more than the usual criticism.  Iffland goes on to say that Quevedo satirized Alarcón, not for an intellectual exercise, but because he truly did not like him: “. . .  Quevedo’s attack on Alarcón . . . is a product of real enmity against a contemporary. . .  In this case there is a true attempt to ridicule and destroy an opponent . . .” (97).  Pablo Jaural de Pou, in his extensive biography of Quevedo, makes the argument that Quevedo used Alarcon’s deformity simply as ready material to showcase his own intricate and complex approach to satire (472).  His fellow writers criticized Alarcón on three accounts: his physical appearance, his literary works, and his New World origins.

Alarcón’s plays reflect the heady times in which he lived.  The court was the center of the social life in Madrid, and the city was full of young men who were seeking a place in the court and trying to find love. They were concerned with their physical appearances, and their clothing.  Fashion was essential, including the large pleated collars, which had become so extreme that the king actually had to issue a premática or order, which limited their size.  Women were, for the most part, concerned with appearances as well, such as the gowns, jewelry, and coaches which provided evidence of their place in society.  Kattán Ibarra, in Perspectivas culturales de España, describes the fundamental characteristic of Spanish society as “jerarquización, con una diferenciación muy notoria entre los distintos grupos sociales que la componían” (111) ( based on rank, with a notorious differentiation between the distinct social groups).  He goes on to list the groups:  the nobility was the minority, but the most powerful; the clergy made up 5% of the population; the merchants, university graduates, artisans, servants and day workers made up 80%; and the marginalized population such as slaves, moors and gypsies made up the rest (11-2).  Alarcón’s place in this society, was not a servant or a court “fool,” but as apretendiente himself, as a gallant himself.

Spanish society of the seventeenth century had a strong concept of the “norm,” or what was expected of each person.  Of course, family relationships dictated the level of society available to each person, but within those levels there were layers of expectations.  The church/government tie formalized those expectations to a degree unheard of in developed countries today.  The monarchy, which exercised the “divine right of kings,” regulated society down to the very fashion choices.  There were many men who dressed themselves in spectacular clothing to walk the streets with the purpose of catching a lady’s eye.  Gingras, in his article on clothing during Cervantes’ time pointed out that: “From the late fifteenth to the seventeenth century, the Spanish nobility considered ostentation in dress to be admirable and, therefore, normative . . . the Spanish were known for their love of costly and bright fabrics” (131).  In 1624, King Felipe IV issued a sanction, which limited the fashion to a more moderate expression of taste (Buruma 96).  Society followed this sanction and men, in particular, began to dress in black.  The interesting part of this process is that the Spanish people accepted and followed these rules laid down by their King, even though it impeded their freedom of expression.  The powerful Roman Catholic Church also imposed its own regulations and sanctions over Spanish society with expectations about conduct and propriety.  Society followed these regulations as well, adhering to the practices and expectations of the faith.  The seventeenth century was also the time of the expulsion of the Moors (1609) from Spain, and the continued Inquisition, which, under the guise of reform, persecuted Moors, Jews, Gypsies and Protestants.  This was a society that had a strong and cohesive notion of the “norm” in such areas as birth status, religion, and dress.

It is important to note that Alarcón also lived in a time when Spain’s social structure was adapting to new influences.  The conquest and colonization of the New World had a strong impact on various systems and customs that had been in place for generations in Spanish society.  It became the custom for Spanish families in the New World to send their sons to Spain for a university education.  Some of these sons, like Alarcón, made an effort to claim rights due to them in Spain because of their family connections.  It was, however, very difficult for these criollos to find a place in such a highly stratified and fossilized social structure.

The seventeenth century was a time of economic crisis in Spain, which was staggering under the load of military campaigns and the administration of the colonies.  As I.A. A. Thompson and Bartolomé Casalilla point out in The Castilian Crisis of the Seventeenth Century, Spanish nobility responded  to the situation  by seeking more power, “The aim was to influence the king, either directly or institutionally. . .(256).  Alarcón himself made repeated efforts to have his heritage recognized and rewarded by the king.  Here again is Alarcón, not only bodily disfigured by social standards, but also a criollo, practically an indiano by the views of the day, presenting himself for a position in the court.  On the one hand he was seeking a right that was due to him, on the other hand, he had to endure being set aside over and over again.

His voice was heard, however, through the medium of his plays, both through silences and words.  He spoke through silences by the lack of characters with significant physical disabilities in his plays. In all but one of his plays, the men are handsome and gallant, the women beautiful and ladylike.   In La verdad sospechosa, for example, Don García describes Lucrecia as “la gloria de ese cielo” (the glory of that heaven) (53); “luna,” (moon)(57); and “muy hermosa” (very beautiful) (59).  The silence of this lack of characters with physical disabilities speaks volumes about Alarcón’s view of life.  He knew that he did not “fit” in society and was constantly reminded that he was not the same as others.  There were people with disabilities who were accepted in some way by society during the seventeenth century, but at a cost, as they would never have survived outside of the protection of the court. The Spanish court kept dwarves, for instance, as servants and sometimes as “fools.”  Spanish artists recorded some of the details of their lives.  Diego de Velázquez, for instance, depicted a number of court dwarves, the most famous of whom appeared in his memorable painting “Las meninas.”  In this painting the dwarf, Maribarbola, appears as a lady-in-waiting.  Besides artistic expression, there were also writers who considered the theme of mental and phsyical disabilities. Miguel de Cervantes, for example, wrote a number of works that explored the realm of mental illness and disability.  In addition to El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, whose protagonist is presented as a madman, he wrote a short narrative “El licenciado vidriera” (“The Glass Graduate”) which was included in his Novelas ejemplares.  This narrative told the story of a madman who was taken from town to town in a cart and spoke wisely to those gathered around.  Both of these works explore the depths behind madness, and view those afflicted with it as somehow more pure or wise or closer to God.  Connected to that idea is the legend popular at the time that it would bring good luck to rub a hunchback.

In all, society had constructed a place for Alarcón, one that might view him as humorous or mysterious, wise, or perhaps good luck because of the deformity of his body.  Perhaps society found him difficult because he would not stay within the boundaries described for him.  It seemed like Spanish society of the seventeenth century revolved around people with disabilities without ever giving them a real place.  They could be tolerated as long as they were amusing or appeared to be wise.  Society had sketched the parameters of disability, which became an unwritten law.  Lennard Davis, editor of The Disability Studies Reader and author of Enforcing Normalcy challenges society’s exclusive definition of “normalcy,” saying that the problem in society is not the disabled person, but the way that society constructs that very normalcy to create the “problem of the disabled person” (9).  Such a definition views society’s role as formative, as May Ann McColl and Jerome Bickenbach have described in their Introduction to Disability: “On this account, disability is primarily a social construction that arises from social norms, and people with disabilities are forced into a social role, complete with assumptions and expectations about who they are and what they can and cannot do” (7).  This social construction of disability classed people with disabilities together.  Since society pre-decided what a person with disabilities could or could not do, there was a real struggle between the power of society and the body of Alarcón.  Society had dictated a place for its disfigured people, either hidden away at home, or somewhat accepted for their usefulness or their entertainment value.

Alarcón, however,  certainly proved his intellectual capabilities by ascending through the various academic degrees offered by the field of Law.  Nevertheless, he found a series of dead ends in his quest to have a position in society.  For example, he was rejected four times in his bid for a university chair in Mexico, an elected position.  As mentioned previously, all during the time he was in Spain, Alarcón was a pretendiente for an office granted by the king.  He made many petitions, usually pointing out his family’s service to the crown in the New World, as well as his own university training and legal experience.  Peña  mentions that both Alarcón’s visible disabilities and the wave of invective poetry that pursued him most likely had an effect on his case for a government position (235-6).  In 1626, after thirteen years as a pretendiente, he was finally appointed as a court reporter to the Consejo Real de las Indias, (Royal Council for the Indies), a position which made use of his training as a lawyer and provided a steady income.  This important position allowed him to hear to all types of petitions presented to the Consejo, as it oversaw all of the governmental activity in the colonies.  In Colonial Latin America, Mark Burkholder and Lyman Johnson list the responsibility of the Consejo over such areas as legislation, finance, commerce, the courts, the church and the military (73).  Alarcón received good compensation for his work, was able to rent property and settle down.  According to Walter Poesse, he bought a coach, employed servants, received a bonus at Christmas as well as certain other fees, and had enough money to lend to at least six debtors (31).  During his time on the Consejo Real, he did not write any more plays but did publish a volume of collected plays in 1634.  In 1635, according to King, Alarcón petitioned the Consejo Real for a position in the New World, but he never received a response (86).  He then kept his position in Spain until 1639, when he resigned a few months before his death at the age of 58.  Toward the end of his time on the Consejo, it was reported that he began to miss meetings and a substitute, Don Antonio de Castro, was named in his place.

Rodolfo Usigli in Juan Ruíz de Alarcón en el tiempo, discusses the relationship between Alarcón’s physical disability and the portrayal of the characters in his plays.  Usigli posits that Alarcón must have developed keen skills of observation because he constantly had to judge how people in society were going to treat him because of his disfigurement (37), a type of self-protection.  Alarcón used these observations about people to expand the standard character types familiar to the comedia form.  He added touches and details that made them more than just types, more like the people in the audience itself, so that they could see themselves reflected in the actions of the characters. The genius of Juan Ruiz de Alarcón in the world of the comedia was that he took the stylized characters of the comedia form and made them live.  He only wrote about twenty-four plays during his lifetime, but those twenty-four displayed more development of character and psychological analysis than most of the other Golden Age plays.  Alarcón made his characters live by giving them motivation for their actions and memorable personalities, creating a new type of comedia, the “comedia de caracteres” (Enciclopedia de México7058).  So, in this sense, his disability allowed him to see more keenly and write more sensitively.  Davis refers to this aspect as the “. . . richness of experience and creativity offered by the opportunity of disability” (5).

Although most of the characters that Alarcón included in his plays were physically beautiful or handsome by the standard of the time, one play has as its central character a man, Don Juan de Mendoza, who describes himself as “tan pobre y feo y de mal talle” (Obras completas vol. I 262) (so poor and ugly and of bad form). Don Juan loves Doña Ana de Contreras, but feels that she is too beautiful to love someone ugly (263).  In turn, Doña Ana sees Don Juan as “[de] mala cara y mal talle” (268) (of bad face and form).  Throughout the play, the humble and good Don Juan is pushed aside and lied to by his rivals, Don Mendo and the Duke, as they also fall in love with and pursue Doña Ana.  It is evident from the very beginning that Doña Ana cannot see Don Juan’s good qualities because she thinks of him as ugly.  She says to her servant, Celia:

¿Cómo puedo yo querer

hombre cuya cara y talle

me enfada sólo en miralle? (288)   

(How can I love

a man whose face and form

angers me just in looking at him?)

The role of the servants in Las paredes oyen is interesting, as they are the ones who are more broad-minded about Don Juan’s looks.  Beltrán, Don Juan’s servant, encourages him with, “amor es ciego” (love is blind) (263).  Celia stands up for Don Juan a number of times, telling Doña Ana that Don Juan is different and that she should not just see beauty in a person (304-5).  Doña Ana complains: “¡Si Don Juan tuviera mejor talle y mejor cara!” (If only Don Juan had a better figure and face!) (304).  However, in the end Doña Ana is able to see that only Don Juan has been faithful and truthful to her.  Rodolfo Usigli commented on  the character of Don Juan de Luna: “Su Don Juan de Luna es bueno porque es deforme, no a pesar de serlo” (His Don Juan de Luna is good because he is deformed, not in spite of being deformed.) (44)   Alarcón was in many ways a moralist.  In Las paredes oyen he has taken on the issue of disability and its place in the life of the time.  His play, however, is not a plea for understanding or sympathy, nor is it written from the point of view of having a disability; it probably would not have been so popular if it had been, but he did touch on the theme of the unacceptable, which must have struck a cord with his audiences, who were not always the rich and the beautiful.  His play highlights what is both a simple and profound theme at the same time, to accept people for what they are, not what they look like.  As Celia says to Doña Ana, “Lo visible es el tesoro de mozas faltas de seso…” (The visible is the treasure of young girls who lack brains…) (304).

Other plays follow this common Alarconian theme, that people should not be judged by their appearances.  In Examen de maridos, for example, Doña Inés decides to classify all of the qualities of a number of young men in order to choose the best husband.  Doña Inés really loves a suitor named El Marqués Don Fadrique, but she hears (falsely) that he has some physical disabilities.  Her dilemma is whether to choose a husband who has imperfections (she believes), or to choose another who has less shortcomings but whom she doesn’t love.  She does marry Fadrique in the end, coming to this conclusion:

Cuando os miro sin defetos,

¿Cómo, Marqués, os querré,

si os adoraba con ellos? (Obras Completas v2 1004)

(When I look at you without defects,

¿How, Marquis, will I love you [without them],

if I used to adore you with them?)

Another play by Alarcón, No hay mal que por bien no venga sheds light on his perception of a person’s relationships with society.  Although it does not have characters who are physically deformed,  this comediadoes present a character, Don Domingo de Don Blas,  who is eccentric and nonconformist.  Persons who are perceived by society to be eccentric or persistently nonconformist are often marginalized for their strong opinions, or marginalize themselves because they refuse to adhere to the “norm.”  This particular character has very strong opinions about fashion and comfort, for example.  He would not be found wearing uncomfortable clothing just to make a good appearance, saying that he does not want to use his money to buy items that cause him to be annoyed:

. . . que no quiero

comprar yo por mi dinero

cosa que me cause enfado  (Obras vol. 3 108).

(. . .  I don’t want

to buy with my own money

anything that makes me angry.)

Later he tells his tailor that he will not pay for a fashionable ankle-length cape because “modesto adorno ha de ser y no embarazo penoso” ( . . . it must be modest clothing and not a painful impediment.)  He continues with hilarious descriptions of trying to ride a horse or having a duel wearing such a long cape.  Don Domingo’s strong opinions also include living in housing without steps, and living near children, carpenters or gardens (Halpern 128).  The character Don Domingo stands in opposition to the mores of fashionable society, at a time when appearance was of supreme importance.  His opinions, however, go beyond fashion, to other societal mandates.  The hour to eat a meal, for instance.  In Scene IX, his servant suggests that it is the hour to eat, if he is ready.  Don Domingo replies that the hour to eat is when he wishes to eat because a watch should tell the time, not give rules and regulations (134).  He comes to the conclusion, in the same scene, that custom should not be an obligation, “No ha de obligarnos el uso. . .” (135) (Custom must not obligate us). Alarcón uses don Domingo to criticize the proprieties of the Spanish society and make a firm statement about the pressures of conformity that speaks to the reader even today.

It is a logical leap to suggest that Alarcón himself was also somewhat of a nonconformist in his day, only part of which was under his control.  He certainly could not control the fact that he was Mexican, and therefore not an integral part of Spanish society.  Although Mexican society was modeled on Spanish traditions, it was, at best, a copy.  He would, for all of his life in Spain, be marked by a certain frontier roughness because of his origins.  Claude Aníbal in his essay “Juan Ruíz de Alarcón,” summarizes Spanish thought about the New World: “. . . in Spain the New World was judged to be quite devoid of all intellectual culture and literary life” (Parr 186).  Alarcón was also forced to be a nonconformist because of his physical appearance.  The fashions of the day, which he railed against in many of his plays, could not have been easy for him to wear.  The popular dress of the day included a close fitting doublet and full breeches, which at the beginning of the century were quite short, but reached the knee in later years and were set off with tight fitting hose.  We can imagine Alarcón, thepretendiente and playwright, encountering a society whose values of beauty were impossible to achieve.  Not only did Alarcón suffer from a chronic lack of money to purchase the expensive clothing, he was probably physically unable to wear it.  The very large collars, for instance, would have been impossible for someone with a deformity in the back and the front.  Perhaps that is why Alarcón spoke against the collars in La verdad sospechosa,

Por esa y otras razones

me holgara de que saliera

premática que impidiera

esos vanos cangilones . . .(44)

(For that and other reasons

I would enjoy it if a decree

would come out that would impede

those vain collars. . . )

The collar was of great importance and evolved from a huge ruff to a high stand-up collar called a golilla after Philip IV issued the decree against extreme decoration of clothing.  Each of these articles of clothing presented a special challenge to someone who had a spinal deformity in the front and back, and spindly legs.  We do not know how Alarcón was able to modify these fashions for himself, but we do know that the discussion of the fashions of the day is a strong thread throughout most of his plays.  On the other hand, Alarcón, chose to be a nonconformist when he entered the university and pursued his goal of being a lawyer and an author.  He chose to be a nonconformist when he presented himself to a rigid and closed society.  His rejection of many of the fashions and customs of court society resembles very much the attitude of Don Domingo de Don Blas.  He chose, for example, to live with Ángela de Cervantes, even though she may have been on a different social level. [ix]   He accepted his illegitimate daughter and made her the executrix of his estate with these words in his last Will and Testament: “con la bendición de Dios y la mía” (King 217) (“With God’s benediction and mine”).

Without question, Alarcón lived with a prominent physical disability, which affected every aspect of his mobility and his appearance.  Such a distinctive disability shaped not only his physical being, but also his relationship to, and position in, a society that could not accept him.  It is notable that Alarcon’s plays overflow with such noble sentiments as loyalty, friendship, generosity, and willingness to forgive, all virtues he himself received from others in small measure.  We might be tempted to interpret the record Alarcón left for us as dissonance, as a life lived on the edge, perceived by us as inharmonious, discordant, or incongruous.  Dissonance, however, can resolve into the harmonious or fulfilled.  Alarcón found his own resolution, in living out the normative life through his characters’ actions, while day-to-day embracing the cultural nonconformity he came to call his own.

Notes

[1] There are descriptions of Alarcón’s  appearance in many sources.  For example: Alfonso Reyes gives a physical description in the introduction to Obras Completas on page 10: Walter Poesse’s biography of Alarcón notes his deformity on page 18, Castro Leal  describes him on page XV; Margarita Peña includes a primary document written by Juan de Carmona Tamariz who describes Alarcón’s features on page 225.

² Pott’s disease is named for  Percival Pott who first described the curvatures it produces (Dunglison 1019).  Pott’s disease is a form of tuberculosis, which begins in the bloodstream and first affects the lungs or the mediastinum, which refers to the space around the lungs.  It is caused by the tubercle bacillus, a bacterium, which enters the body and causes lesions.  This particular bacterium is one of the slowest in growing, so the affected person can carry it for a long time without visible symptoms.  According to Pott, the symptoms include “pain, rigidity, deformity, a cold abscess, and paraplegia” (Book of Orthopaedics 2).  In spinal tuberculosis, the lesions center in the spinal area.  These lesions affect the spinal discs, which cushion the vertebrae.  As the disks disintegrate, the vertebrae rest on each other, causing the recognizable curvature.  Today the condition is identified and treated as early as possible by using braces or resorting to surgery when the braces are unable to correct the condition.  Patients who suffer paraplegia may also undergo a course of chemotherapy.  Spinal tuberculosis is not a common disease in the United States today, but it does still affect young people in developing countries.  The Book of Orthopaedics and Traumatology lists it as “a disease of childhood and adolescence, 50 percent of case [sic] occurring in the age group 1-20 years” (1).  India, in particular, is a source of information on the diagnosis and treatment of this disabling disease.

³ According to French’s description of medical practices in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, scrofula was very common, and considered treatable in its early stages.  Doctors at the Aberdeen (Scotland) infirmary, which French studied closely, treated scrofula with a mixture of “sweet mercury and milk,” even noting that a cow was kept at the infirmary for that reason (97).  This draught caused “copious salivation and sweating” which doctors believed was an indication that the blood vessels were clearing (97).

4 Lamparón is a medical term that is translated as “scrofula.”  “Lamparón,” Harper Collins Spanish Unabridged Dictionary, 1999 Ed.

5 Alarcón had four brothers who entered the University of Mexico: Pedro in 1592, Gaspar in 1594, Hernando in 1597 and García in 1598 (Castro Leal XI).

⁶ All of the translations of the Spanish quotes in this article are mine.

⁷ Alarcón’s illegitimate daughter, Lorenza inherited the balance of his estate after his obligations were satisfied.  She legally signed her responsibilities as executor over to her husband, Fernando Girón de Buedo in September of 1639.  Lorenza declared at that time that her husband had received an inventory of her father’s possessions.  According to King, that record has been lost, and with it any personal papers or letters that might have existed (218).

⁸ Alarcón and Ángela de Cervantes (b. 1576) had a daughter, Lorenza, who was baptized in Piqueras del Castillo on January 6, 1617 (159).

9 King  theorizes that Juan Ruíz de Alarcón and Ángela de Cervantes perhaps never legitimized their relationship because she was not of the same social class, or  because Alarcón decided to stay celibate in the event that he be called to a position on an ecclesiastical tribunal (159).

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