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Modern Language Studies
Juana La Loca in Three Dramas of Tamayo y Baus, Galdós, and Martín Recuerda
Author(s): Martha Halsey
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Modern Language Studies, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Winter, 1978-1979), pp. 47-59
Published by: Modern Language Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3194407 .
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Juana La Loca in Three Dramas of Tamayo y Baus,
Galdós, and Martín Recuerda
Martha Halsey
The mysterious figure of Juana la Loca, crowned queen of Castile
at the death of her mother Isabella the Catholic in 1504, has lost non e of
its fascination. Juana has been a source of inspiration for such diverse
nineteenth and twentieth-century writers as Tamayo y Baus, Galdós, and
Martín Recuerda. Tamayo makes her the protagonist of his drama La
locura del amor (1855) and Galdós, of his Santa Juana de Castilla (1918).
Most recently Martín Recuerda incorporates her as an important character in his El engañao (1976). Emphasizing different facets of the
sixteenth-century figure, these three writers have created three Juanas
each of which stands unique from the viewpoint both of historical interpretation and artistic creation.
The fascination inspired by Juana la Loca is due, at least in part, to
the fact that the question of her madness remains a mystery. Galdós,
himself, speaks of her as a woman who remains a tantalizing enigma. He
does not consider this enigma cleared up to any extent by her biographer,
Antonio Rodríguez Villa, whose book La reina Doña Juana la Loca (Madrid, 1892) remains the most authoritative: "Los elementos allegados por
el sagaz erudito [... ] ofrecen singular encanto al lector, y le conducen
por una selva de amenas relaciones tan verídicas como novelescas, sin que
al termino de ella se vea claramente el alma de la Reina, ni la razón de su
sinrazón. " 1
Juana appears to have been more sane than not during her dealings
with her father, Ferdinand the Catholic, and her husband, Philip the
Handsome, whom she loved passionately despite his flagrant unfaithfulness. Rodríguez Villa concludes that before the death of Philip in 1506,
she demonstrated only the "extravagancias, manías y caprichos propios de
una mujer enamorada y celosa, "2 This behavior made it easy for both
Ferdinand and Philip to use her erratic actions as a pretext to attempt to
seize power. Their repeated political intrigues and disputes over the
crown are well documented by fragments of the Crónica de Felipe 1 by
Lorenzo de Padilla reprinted in R. Villa's Bosquejo biográfico de la Reina
Doña Juana (Madrid, 1874). 3
With the death of Philip in 1506, Juana's mental condition deteriorated. 4 After 1509, she spent the rest of her life in seclusion at a
palace in Tordesillas, having delegated (willingly it seems) all her power
to her father. Nevertheless, letters between her guardian the Marqués de
Denia and her son Charles from 1518 to 1520 indicate that Juana soon
regretted her decision to abdicate and was held prisoner by brute force to
prevent her from escaping to reclaim her lost crown. 5 Evidently Juana's
resol ve to regain her freedom and sovereignty, not her madness, was the
47
"secret" ofTordesillas so often referred to in the letters, a secret Charles
wished to conceal at all costs. Just as her husband and father had pretended that she was mad earlier, Charles, with the help of Denia, evidently conspired to drive her mad in order to keep his crown. Juana's
mind, less than stable from the start, eventually gave way during her long
confinement of forty-seven years, which ended only with her death in
1555.
Gustave Bergenroth, who studies the letters between Charles and
Denia in the Archives of Simancas before they were published in 1868,
has maintained the real reason for Juana's imprisonment was that she had
become influenced by Erasmus and that the accusations of her madness
made to justify her confinement were for the purpose of concealing her
heresy, the real "secret ofTordesillas. 6 No serious historian now accepts
that theory. 7 However, Galdós, perhaps following Bergenroth, presents
her as a follower of Erasmus.
It is significant that during her imprisonment, Juana demonstrated
her sympathy with the demands of the Comuneros who, in an effort to
legitimize their struggle brought their constitution to her in Tordesillas in
1520. At the time, she presided over a session they called of the Cortes,
giving a cogent address which astounded those present. This empathy
with the oppressed will be underscored by both Goldós and Martín Recuerda. However, as early as this date, Juana demonstrated symptoms of
returning indecision and paralysis of will which kept her from signing the
re beis' documents. 8
Tamayo y Baus' drama, La locura del amor, is, above all, aromantic exaltation of Juana' s love for Philip portrayed in all its sublime grandeur. It is the inner drama of a woman who puts love above all else by a
dramatist who excells in his knowledge of the heart and its passions.
The play takes place in 1506, when Philip, whose only interests are
"dar reinda suelta a sus tiránicas desmanes y licenciosos extravios,"9 is
conspiring to have Juana declared insane by the Cortes ofToro and Valladolid and locked up so that he may usurp her throne and continue his
amorous adventures. While Philip is supported by his Flemish courtiers
who sack and tyrannize the country and by those disloyal Spanish grandees he has bribed, Juana is supported by the pueblo, who adore her as
the daughter of Isabella and understand that the accusations of her insanity are pretexts to dethrone her.
Parallel to Juana' s tragedy is that of the Castilian people, suggested
by the words of the innkeeper at Tudela and various meleeters who
describe the oppression of the realm by Philip, who raises taxes while the
poor starve. Contrasted to the treachery of Philip is the virtue of Isabella,
who treated noble and laborer alike, forced overlords to stop illtreating
the peasantry, and "no tenía nas pío que hacer la dicha de su pueblo." 10
Tamayo pictures a Spain prostrated by the factions that tore her apart
following Isabella's death. However his protagonist, despite visions ofher
mother who appears to remind her of her royal duties, is angered less by
her husband's political ambition than by his marital infidelity.
The plot of Tamayo' s drama is one of complicated intrigue. Philip
pursues Aldara, who unknown to him is actually the daughter of a
48
Moorish king. Aldara, who Juana believes to be a peasant girl, loves Don
Alvar, a captain returned wounded from Italy whom she is nursing atan
inn outside Tudela. Don Alvar, however, has always been secretly in love
with the queen.
Tamayo's Juana is characterized by sudden changes. The mental
instability which he portrays as caused by Philip' s infidelity, gives rise to
abrupt shifts from rebelliousness, defiance, and insistence upon her rights
as wife and queen to that most abject capitulation. Consumed with
jealousy when she suspects that her husband has been going to the inn to
see a peasant girl, Juana sends her page to spy on him. Then she confronts
him, ready to dispise him in the event her suspicions prove true. 11 However, when Philip tells her the most blatant lie-that he is there on a
secret affair of state-she needs nothing more to believe him. In sorne of
the most passionately lyricallines of the drama, she then declares her love
for him and her disdain for the political power he asks her to relinquish:
"Dame, en vez de esplendente diadema de oro, una corona de flores,
tejida por tu mano; en vez de regio alcázar, en donde siempre hay turbas
que nos separan, pobre choza en donde sólo nosotros y nuestros hijos
quepamos; en vez de dilatados imperios, un campo con algunos frutos, y
una sepultura que pueda contener abrazados nuestros cuerpos; tu amor,
en vez del poder y la gloria, y creería yo entonces que pasaba del purgatorio al paraíso" (p. 403). Juana tells Philip that when the ghost of
Isabella speaks to her ofher sacred duty, she thinks only ofhim. Although
urged to love the people, she adores only her husband; although exhorted
to weep as a repentent queen, she sheds the tears of a woman in love.
The queen's jealousy returns abruptly, however, when she learns
that her suspicions ofhis infidelity are indeed true. Letting Philip believe
that he has fooled her, she determines to get revenge. Arriving at the inn,
she tells him, with an irony which leaves him confounded, that she has
come to assist him in his affair of state. Asserting that any other woman
would call him a traitor in view of the evidence that he plans to carry off
the peasant girl that very night, Juana professes her faith that he is incapable of such villainy. She declares that, closing her eyes to the evidence,
she believes only him. Finally, she asks him if he does not understand
that she is mocking him.
Juana's rebelliousness reaches its greatest intensity when Philip
professes concern for his honor. In words which reveal her as a surprisingly modern woman conscious of the double standard of her time, she
demands: "¿Y el mío? ¡El honor de los hombres! ... También nosotras
tenemos nuestro orgullo, nuestros derechos, nuestro honor. Guardadora
del tuyo, aquí vine para reclamar que guardes el mío. Mentira: no hizo
Dios el pudor partimonio exclusivo de la mujer" (p. 425). Juana declares
that her love will be his punishment, a yoke to burden him always. When
the fickle Philip asserts that such love is madness, Juana sarcastically
agrees that illegitimate, adulterous affairs are considered love while consecrated love is considered folly or madness.
Although the queen is capable of moments of rebellion, her irrational, obsessive love always triumphs. When she screams at the king
after he declares his intention of returning to her rival, Alvar, believing
49
her in danger, bares his sword. Juana thereupon defends her husband,
shielding him with her own body.
The abruptly shifting nature of Juana' s temperament is seen again
as she attempts to pay her husband back in kind, making him jealous by
pretending to love Don Alvar, andas she reads his secret letters from her
rival. Learning that Philip has introduced the girl from the inn into the
palace as a lady-in-waiting, Juana forces each of the latter to demonstrate
her handwriting in a con test designed to reveal the identity ofher rival. 1t
is at this moment that the Almirante de Castilla brings the grandees of the
realm for an audience in order to demonstrate her sanity. Concerned
more with disclosing her rival than with the salvation of the nation, Juana
acts and speaks in such a way that those present, unaware of the reason for
her strange conduct, are convinced of her insanity. When she then astounds them by challenging her rival to a duel, the moment cannot be
more opportune for Philip to declare her mad.
Undoubtedly the most masterful scene of the entire drama is the
one where, after being proclaimed insane by Philip, Juana declares that
he is right. Rather than doubt her husband' s love, she prefers to believe
herself mad:
¡Loca! ... ¡Loca! ... ¡Si fuera verdad! ¿Y por qúe no? Los médicos lo
aseguran; cuantos me rodean lo creen . . . Entonces todo sería obra de
mi locura, y no de la perfidia de un esposo adorado. Eso ... , eso debe
de ser. Felipe me ama; nunca estuve yo en un mesón; yo no he visto
carta ninguna; esa mujer no se llama Aldara, [ ... ]. ¿Cómo he podido
creer tales desparates? Todo, todo efecto de mi delirio. [ ... ] decídmelo
vosotros, señores; vos señora; vos capitán; tú, esposo mío; ¿No es cierto
que estoy loca? Cierto es; nadie lo dude. ¡Qúe felicidad. Dios eterno,
qúe felicidad! Creía que era desgraciada, y no era eso: ¡era que estaba
loca!" (p. 450). 12
Sicars, Tamayo' s biographer and critic, comments u pon this scene in
which Juana's jealous passion reaches its culmination: "Atesora[ ... ] las
situaciones y bellezas más notables de todo el drama. La idea de suponer á
la Reina por un momento verdaderamente loca para disculparse ante su
esposo, y dar la razón a sus enemigos, origina una situación bellísima y un
final de acto que no tiene igual en ningún Teatro. " 13
Parallel to the scene in which Juana mocks her husband, demanding her rights as wife, is the scene in which she now mocks the peers of
the realm, demanding her rights as a queen so that she may help her
people. As Philip prepares to ascend the throne, Juana, now in full possession of her faculties and aware of the grave danger threatening her,
defends her crown against her enemies. Confounding her husband and
the nobles who have betrayed her, she recalls the illustrious heritage of
each and then denounces him for ignominiously seeking the destruction
of the realm for personal gain and foreign honors. To their protests that
she insults them, Juana responds with delicate irony that they have no
reason to take offense since she is mad and therefore doesn't know what
she is saying.
50
The queen now puts love for her people above individual love:
"Amar como todas las mujeres, es amar a un hombre; a semejanza de Dios
debe amar una Reina, amando a un pueblo entero." lt is this concern of
Juana for her people which will be emphasized most strongly by Galdós
and Martin Recuerda. Applauded by the crowd, the queen turns to her
husband and asks: "¿Qué quieres, Felipe? Mi pueblo ha perdido el juicio
como yo." When the soldiers refuse to disperse the mobs, she observes
ironically: "Con razón asegura el refrán que un loco hace ciento. [ ... ]
Réstame advertiros que no es cordura jugar con ellos. Felipe, señores,
adiós quedad. La Reina loca os saluda" (p. 459).
Juana's speech to the contrary, the emphasis of Tamayo's play
remains individual rather than social. Juana's passion for her husband
overshadows her sense of responsibility to the people. Even the preceding empassioned speech befo re the grandees seems a defense more of her
position as a wife than as a queen. It is motivated, above all, by her desire
to remain at her husband' s si de. At the end of the drama, Philip' s death
leaves Juana unable to reign as she exhibits signs, for the first time, of real
insanity. If the mental un balance occasioned by jealousy led her, before,
to the extreme of preferring to consider herself mad, it leads her, now, to
that of refusing to believe her husband dead as she cautions all not to
awaken him from his sleep.
In Tamayo' s play, the personal drama of the protagonist obviously
evokes the larger drama of Spain. However, although it is possible to see,
in the figure ofJ uana, the suffering of the Spanish people-as sorne critics
have- 14 this identification is never explicit. In the dramas of Goldós and
Martin Recuerda, this larger drama of Spain will assume a prominent
role.
Galdós' Santa Juana de Castilla, is, above all, a social drama. 15
Whereas Tamayo emphasizes Juana's mad passion for her husband, Galdós scarcely even alludes to this love, underscoring, instead, her altruistic
love for the poor and oppressed. Galdós' play takes place in 1855, the year
in which Juana died after almost a half century of captivity in Tordesillas.
Juana is depicted as a long-suffering victim, no longer rebellious as in
Tamayo's play, but resigned to her fate and enduring without protest the
endless humilitations to which she is subjected by her guardian Denia,
who usurps the money Charles provides for her support. Living totally
isolated from the events of history, Juana no longer demands her crown,
preferring obscurity and maintaining silence out of respect for her son.
This deference, however, does not prevent Juana from voicing her
convictions. When Charles sends Francisco de Borja to act as her confessor, she admonishes her son that he would do better to concern himself
with administering the realm; for, ignorant of the virtue of the common
people he allows the Flemish nobles to impoverish and oppress them.
When Juana is asked for sorne word of encouragement for her son in his
struggles throughout his empire, she responds with the quiet dignity
which characterizes her in Galdós' drama: "En este cauteverio, humillante para un reina, mi respuesta no puede ser otra que el silencio. Silencio ... , oscuridad ... ,olvido." 16 For Juana, who constantly lives in the
past, her only regret is not having been able to help the people as she
51
believes her mother did. At the stage of her life which Galdós depicts,
however, this is no longer possible and Juana is the first to acknowledge
it.
Des pite the fact that Galdós places the action of his play at a much
later date than does Tamayo, when her mental condition was rapidly
deteriorating, he presents a much less unstable Juana than does the latter.
Tamayo, as the title of his play indicates, emphasizes her mental unbalance and, as we have seen, uses it to great dramatic advantage. The only
indication of Juana's madness which Galdós depicts is her inability, at
times, to distinguish clearly between past and present as she acts, at
times, as if it were only the preceding day, for example, that the Comuneros carne to her to offer to return her crown-an event which took
place sorne thirty years earlier.
In Galdós' play, what is emphasized is not so much Juana's insanity
but suspicions of her heresy as a follower of Erasmus, whose Elogio de la
locura she has constantly with her-even though, as we shall see, Borja
testifies, at her death, to the purity of her faith. 17 Of course, Galdós,
himself, was attracted strongly by Erasmus' ideal of a return to an uncorrupted primitive Christianity. Stanley Finkenthal points out, in a recent
analysis of Galdós' drama, that the love of roan and the redistribution of
wealth which Galdós advocated in the plays preceding this one, were
characteristics of the early Christian communities. 18 Of course, in the
context of sixteenth-century Spain, Juana's "heresy," although religious,
also becomes political since "catholicism and patriotism had coalesced
into an absolute political-religious orthodoxy," where freedom of conscience and mutual tolerance were anathema. 19 These latter ideals will be
strongly emphasized, also by Martín Recuerda as he contrasts them to
those implicit in the foreign policy of the E m pire.
Galdós' play centers on a fictitious excursion ofJuana to the village
ofVillalba del Alcor with her attendants after escaping for a day from the
palace where she is imprisoned. His drama is modern problem play, and
the visit with the peasants of this village affords him the opportunity to
examine certain social and political questions and to provide the viewer
with a vision of what he believed Spain could be in bis own time. Seated
in a rustic chair enjoying the pure air and sun she is usually deprived of,
Juana holds court surrounded by the illiterate peasants she loves. Her
ideas on social class are made obvious as she tells them: "He querido
visitar una aldea de las más humildes de esta tierra, y por eso estoy aquí
respirando con vosotros el aire campesino; no soy la primera castellana, ni
tampoco la última: vosotros y yo somos los mismo" (p. 1327).
Juana' s identification with the lowly peasants makes them feel free
to express their ideas. One ancient farmer, Peronuño, voices the love of
the Castilian people for Isabella, who visited village after village helping
the poor who, after her death, remained abándoned and forgotten. His
words thus echo those ofTamayo' s inkeeper and muleteers. Both Tamayo
and Galdós show the admiration of the populace for Isabella, who defended them from abuse by powerful overlords. In the plays of both
writers, Juana shares this admiration and considers herself unworthy
when compared to her mother.
52
Nevertheless, Juana' s attitude and that of the pueblo must not be
confused with that of Galdós himself. For Galdós, the greatness oflsabella
was myth. Obsessed with orthodoxy and doctrinal unity, she left the
minds ofher people enslaved. In another place, he has written: "No vio, o
no la dejaron ver que si antes de morir hubiera desatado nuestras consiencias, habría hecho más por nosotros que describriendo cien Américas y
conquistando doscientas Granadas. " 20 It is obvious that, for Galdós,
J uana-although she feels herself to be inferior to her mother-possesses
a virtue more significant than any represented by Isabella-that of Christian charity.
It is the policy of religious unification, begun by Isabella and continued for three generations, which led to involvement in foreign wars
ultimately responsible for the poverty and suffering of the peasants whose
taxes paid for them. Galdós describes this suffering graphically in the
words of Poco Misa, a widow with six children who must leave mass early
to plow the fields so that her children may eat: "Los [. .. ] labradores
pedimos a vuesa grandeza que nos quite esa roña de pechos, alcabalas,
foros, gabelas y otras socaliiias, y que no parezcan por acá esos zánganos
que, so color de favorecernos, vienen a llevarse el fruto de nuestro sudor,
para costear las endiablades guerras de los países que llaman bajos, tierra
de flamencos, y los países de romanos, de italianos, de turcos y los de
infieles, que son las alimañas" (p. 1328).
Peronuño then recalls the uprising of the Comuneros which began
as a protest against taxes imposed by Charles to wage his foreign wars but
soon assumed the nature of a class struggle in which peasants demanded
equal representation as noblemen. The importance both Galdós and
Martín Recuerda accord to this struggle is explained by the fact that the
defeat of the Comuneros has been paralleled by other failures at selfgovernment in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: in 1812, the
1870's, and the 1930's. Peroñuno expresses the resolve of the peasants to
shed blood if necessary to revive the Comunidades. However, Juana's
only response is to promise to get her son to grant them the form of
government they desire. To those who urge her to abandon her meekness
and lead her people, Juana answers that her only desire is to end her days
in peace. It is the people, she believes, who must find the power from
within to govern themselves.
Juana's excursion to Villalba del Alcor ends with the arrival of
Borja, sent by Charles to return her to Tordesillas. Juana, her delicate
mind and body exhausted by the strain of the excursion, lets herself be
carried in the arms of the peasant women as she begs to remain with her
people. The understanding Borja praises her Christian virtues, her love
for the humble as well as the patience and resignation with which she has
born her humiliations. The scene in which he proclaims Juana a saint is
the clímax of the drama: "¡Mujeres castellanas: llevad con cuidado el
cuerpo de esta reina, que ha padecido durante luengos años sin consuelo
de nadie, sin exhalar una queja, sin protestar contra sus opresores! ¡Es
una santa!" The response of the people is given by Poca Misa: "Como
santa la llevaremos" (p. 1331).
Tamayo's drama ends with Juana's death after she indicates her
53
desire to be buried simply with only a wooden cross and flowers of the
field to adorn her grave and after she admonishes her son, whom she sees
in a delirious vision, that, overwhelmed by the burdens of worldly honor,
he will abdicate to find peace in a monastery. Borja, who once again
proclaims her saintliness, recalls that Erasmus, in his famous book, celebrated madness, calling sorne of the greatest heroes of humanity madroen.
In his drama, Galdós thus emphasizes Juana' s resigned suffering
and exalts her humility and love for her people. With the examples of
both Erasmus and Juana, Galdós indicates his belief in the need for a
return to tolerance and individual freedom. In the suffering ofJuana, here
as in Tomayo' s drama, there is implicit that of the Spanish people crucial
moment in history. 21 Galdós, who wrote this modern problem play in
1818, ata time of civil unrest when the liberals were not living up to their
humanitarian ideals, and together with the church, were neglecting the
interests of the new urban working class, denied that the solution for
Spain's identity crisis lay, as sorne believed, in a return to the ideals of
Isabella and Charles. 22
Like Galdós, Martín Recuerda portrays the suffering caused by the
foreign policy of the Empire. El engañao is the epic drama of the
sixteenth-century saint Juan de Dios and the victims he shelters in the
hospital he founds in Granada. 23 These victims include "todo el desecho
humano de las guerras imperiales, que no es recogida en la España oficial
de su tiempo, toda la prostitución que la guerra trae, todos los revolucionarios, incluso, que no quieren ir a guerras injustas."24 The role of
these victims is similar to that of Galdós' peasants. Just as Galdós has
Juana escape to a village to speak with its humble inhabitants, Martín
Recuerda has her evade her captors to visit Juan's patients and coworkers.
In his drama, which is faithful to the life of the saint in all essentials, 25 Martín Recuerda underscores Juan' s opposition to the ideals of the
E m pire, having him speak of wars waged out of false faith and false pride
which result, not in glory, but in destruction, hunger, and death. Juan
points out that it is the money of the poor which support these battles:
"Unos roban llevando la bandera de la fe católica para que otros mueran
de dolor y pudrición." Juan, who attempts to alleviate the suffering
caused by these wars, is opposed by the bishops who call his hospital a
den of rebels and a brothel since he accepts, without discrimination,
former ruffians, Comuneros, and prostitutes.
In Recuerda's drama, where Juan is considered a fool by those in
power and even by many he helps, it is only one judged insane who is
capable of understanding the saint. There exists no historical record of any
meeting between Juana and Juan de Dios. Nevertheless, if Juana sympathized with the plight of the Comuneros who carne to her in Tordesillas,
it is legitimate to suppose that she would have felt compassion for the
outcasts Juan sheltered and that she would have upheld the ideal he
represented. This ideal is the pure, uncorrupted primitive Christianity
advocated by Galdós in the preceding play.
54
Recuerda' s drama begins in the 1540' s-nearer the time of Galdós'
play than of Tamayo's. Nevertheless, in her vitality and !ove for life,
Recuerda's Juana resembles Tamayo's more than Galdós'. Despite her
advancing age and the mental instability she herself recognizes, she rebeis against her fate and asserts her right to freedom and even love. In
Juan and the suffering victims he protects, she finds renewed meaning in
life. In this concern for the humble and oppressed, she obviously recalls
Galdós' protagonist.
In a poetic scene which takes place when she arrives for the first
time at Juan's hospital, Juana expresses her enchantment with the simple
beauty of its white curtains that wave like banners in the breeze and the
perfume of the orange blossoms which enters the windows. She then
speaks, to one who at first distrusts her, of the need for understanding:
"Debes empezar a creer en todo: los locos y en los cuerdos, en los santos
y en los asesinos. En todos hay que creer y llegar a extremos tan grandes,
de comprension y perdón, que casi nadie nos cree. " 26 After urging a
Comunero who is Juan's assistant to pardon one who has wronged him,
Juana laments the division ofher land into two factions and applauds those
who refuse to fight in her son's wars. Juana's words thus underscore the
need for mutual tolerance and peaceful convivencia emphasized by Galdós in the preceding play.
Offering her crown to pay the expenses of the hospital, Juana
declares that she wants to help Juan so that the truth he represents may
not be destroyed. "Todo tú eres verdad," she tells the protagonist, "la
verdad que más me desvela de todo lo poco que sé de mi reino." She does
not want Juan to suffer the fate she has suffered: that of not being believed
by anyone. She fears that hi~ hospital-like everything that is pure and
uncorrupted in her kingdom-will always be misunderstood. "Hemos
nacido," she tells him, "en un país que no perdona nunca a los justos." lt
would not surprise her ifJuan were locked up justas she has been. When
Juana leaves, it is with her crown-which Juan gently refuses-in her
hand and the red carnations her companion brought in her hair. These
carnations, she explains to the astounded onlookers, are the symbol ofher
rebelliousness.
Juana's vitality and lively temperament contribute to the dynamic
quality of Recuerda' s drama, an example, of "total theater" in which
lyrical scenes with song and dance alternate with esperpentic scenes of
physical violence, such as the destruction of}uan's hospital. The dynamic
nature ofthis play, thus contrasts sharply with the static quality ofGaldós'
drama, which reflects the resignation of his protagonist.
Juana' s second visit occurs after the bishops condemn Juan's hospital. Protesting this unjust denunciation of Juan and his dreams, Juana
poetically declares that men are like pigeons: the higher they soar, the
more beautiful they become. Faith, she tells the angry bishops, must be
pure like Juan's. As Juana is then led off once more as a prisoner to
Tordesillas, she echoes Juan's opposition to wars that the populace no
longer support and again condemns the division between Spaniards: "Dos
mundos siempre: los que queremos la libertad y los que no la quieren,
55
Dos mundos: los que quieren llevar corona y los que queremos llevar
claveles en la cabeza."
After Juana's departure, one ofthe prostitutes who supports Juan's
hospital with her work asserts that, in a country where the sane are
thieves and traitors, only Juana is capable of ruling. As in Galdós' s drama,
it is Juana who, although mentally unbalanced, possesses the lucidity to
recognize the truth of what is happening in the country. Critic José
Monleón states in regard to Juana and to Juan, who appears to many just
as insane as the queen: "en la lucidez de los locos frente a la estolidez de
sus cuerdos existe toda una tácita interpretación por parte de Martin
Recuerda de los españoles y de su historia." 27
Juana's most significant appearance takes place in Valladolid,
where she comes to persuade her grandson to help Juan, who has cometo
court to see him. By the time of this scene which occurs around 1554,
Juana's deteriorating health and rapidly-progressing unbalance are obvious. Dressed as a Dolorosa, her heart transfixed by daggers, she raises
her arms to lament her lonely fate: "En esto quedan los reinos. En mujeres sin hijos y sin nietos. En mujeres que duermen solas en celdas de
conventos. En mujeres que estorban a todos. En el fracaso de saber que
me lo roban y me lo esconden, para que la vida se me vaya de una vez.
[ ... ] ¡El reino queda en lo que veis!" (pp. 79-80). Ragged and almost
esperpentic, Juana becomes an image of Spain itself. In Recuerda's
drama, unlike Tamayo or Galdós', the identification of Juana with Spain
becomes explicit as she herself expressed the bond she feels with her
people. The audience ends as she reads a letter from her son announcing
his departure to die alone, like a wounded soldier, in Yuste. Juana is
finally led off, prisoner one final time, despite her demands that she be
allowed to return with Juan to the gaiety and sunshine of Granada to find
the freedom and love she stilllongs for: "¡Rabio porque estos labios míos
se secan sin que nadie los bese!¡ Quiero ir por mis claveles! [ ... ] ¡Que mi
vejez no llegó! ¡No soy vieja para morir en vida!"
Whereas Tamayo underscores the individual tragedy of Juana,
Galdós and Martín Recuerda both emphasize the collective tragedy of
Spain which her fate comes to represent. Both embody in Juana ideals of
social justice and tolerance which stand in opposition to the official state
policy ofthe time-policies represented visually, in Recuerda's drama, by
the imperial banners torn down at the end. Martín Recuerda, like Galdós,
writes his play ata time when Spain is facing a crisis and the ideals Juana
represents have important socio-political implications for today. It is significant that these ideals are represented, not by one of the most powerful
figures of Spanish history but by one of the most humble, not by one of
her heroes but by one ofher greatest victims. Moreover, in the drama of
Martín Recuerda, as of Galdós, Juana is surrounded by the humble and
oppressed "para mostrarnos," Monleón states, "el dolor y la carne de
quienes padecen nuestra historia. Quedan así dramáticamente levantados
los dos mondos; el del poder absolutista y el de las llagas y grilletes de sus
victimas. " 28 Both writers demythologize the ideals of an epoch considered
Spain's most illustrious. Their critical stance puts their works in direct
56
opposition to the historical dramas of such modern playwrights of the
right as Marquina, Villaespesa, and Pemán, who idealize Spain's history,
evoking with nostalgia what they consider past glory and national virtue. 29
The Pennsylvania State University
NOTES
The author wishes to expn·ss her appreciation to the lnstitute f(¡r the Arts
and Humanistic Studies ofTiw Pennsylvania State University f(Jr the grant which
made possible the writing of this article.
l. Galdós, "Prólogo to Jost• \latía Salavenía, Vilja Espafw. in William H.
Shoemaker, ed. Los ¡mílogos de Galdós (\fexico 1962), p. 97.
2. R. Villa, La reina Doña Juana la Loca (Madrid, 1892), p. 408.
3. Pp. l-32. These intrigues are also evinced hy a letter Philip evidently had
Juana sign stating that Ferdinand tried to make her ap¡war insane in order to
govern himself and in a letter Ferdinand wrote complaining that Philip held
Juana in a statc "de opresión y de tiranía" in Flandes, "como presa e fuera de
toda su libertad." Bo.w¡uejo, pp. 32 fr
Philip's treachery is seen, likewise, in the testimony of Padre l\fariana that
Ferdinand prott'sted that armed nwn sent by bis son-in-law f(¡rced him to
sign tlw 1.506 agreement at Villafáflla renouncing the government of Castile
in fiiVor of Philip ami declaring Juana unflt to reign. !\toreover, Philip tried
unsuccessfully to get the Cortes to pennit him to lock up Juana at Tordesillas
in 1506 even though tlw Almirante de Castilla ami the Conde de Benavente
urged him not to. It was f(·ared that the peopk might rise up to free her.
Historia general de r:spafut (\tadrid. 1872), pp. 31.5-16.
4. Juana's strange lwhavior as she accompanied the corpse of her hushand from
Burgos to Tordesillas is wdl-known. Slw insisted that whenever the funeral
procession stopped, the body he guarded by armed nwn lest any woman
approach it. Set· R. Villa. La n•i11a Dona .fruuia la Loca. p. 189 H'.
5. Reprinted in Bosquejo. pp. 83-108. An interesting letter fi·om Cardinal Adriano to Lope Hurtado de Mendoza, in 1520, states: "Los criados y servidores
de la Reina dicen públicamente que el padre y d hijo la han detenido
tirailamente y que es tan apta para gobernar como lo era en edad de quince
ailos y como lo fue la reina Isabel." Bosquejo, p. 115.
Juana was kept prisoner under various pretexts such as the plague epidemic
in the neighboring town (clespite various attempts to escape), prevented fi·om
summoning the Cortes to complain of mistreatment. and deprived of her
daughter and her jewels. Charles biled to inf(mn her of even her htther's
death or other events-evidently in an attempt to trap her in a maze of
douhts and lead her to douht her own sanity. See the letters of Charles and
Denia in Bosquejo, pp. 83-108.
6. Bergenroth, ed. Letters, Dispatches ami State Papers. Supplementary Volume. (Lonclon. 1868). Bergenroth maintained that Juana was entirely sane
until the closing years ofher lile. From her letters and speeches, it is ohvious
that Juana's periods of insanity alternated with periods of lucidity. Schizophrenia, however, is characterized by periods of remission.
7. For a refutation of Bergenroth's ideas, see William H. Prescott, lli~tory of
the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabel/a (London, 1885), pp. 642-43. See, also,
Ludwig Pfandl, Juana la Loca (Madrid, 1937), p. 82.
57
8. While Juana hesitated, the Royalists finally defeated the comuneros in a
decisive battle at Vallalar, outside Toro, in April 1521. Leaders Padilla and
Juan Bravo were executed. For testimony of the meetings between Juana and
the Comuneros, see R. Villa, Bosquejo, pp. 116-121.
9. Manuel Tamayo y Baus, Obras completas (Madrid: Ediciones Fax, 1947),_ p.
395.
See Sicars, pp. 277-80 for an account of the Barcelona performance of
Tamayo's play, in 1900, with María Guerrero. The drama was also performed
all over Latín America and Europe and translated into Portuguese, French,
Italian, English, German and Russian.
10. Tamayo, always conservative in politics, was praised by Narciso Sicars y
Salvado, for his "verdadera apoteosis de !sabela puesta en boca de una honrados traginantes." Sicars adds: "Imposible es retratar mas fielmente al leal,
honrado, agradecido y creyente pueblo español, cual lo hizo Tamayo en la
mesonero Garci-Pérez [ ... ] y en sus huéspedes, aquellos humildes arrieros." Tamayo: Estudio Crítico-biográfico (Barcelona, 1906), p. 265.
11. These events are fictitious. However very similar episodes are found in the
Chrónica de los Reyes D. Fernando y Da Isabel, reyes de Castilla y de
Aragón by Alonso Estaques. Quoted in Sicars, p. 225. In 1504, Juana pursued Philip to Flandes and, in a paroxism of jealousy, personally assaulted a
lady of her suite he was enamoured of. Juana then had her rival' s hair shorn
from her head because it had excited Philip. See also Prescott, p. 584.
12. These words, when interpreted by the famous actresses Teodora La Madrid
and María Guerrero, brought resounding ovations. See Alonso M. Escudero,
"Prólogo," Tamayo y Baus, La locura de amor. Un drama nuevo. Colección
Austral, No. 545 (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1970), p. 22.
13. Sicars, p. 270.
14. See, for example, the prologue by Alejandro Pida! y Monto the Fax edition of
Tamayo's Obras completas: "Juana[ ... ] no es sólo la esposa amante burlada,
celosa y loca al fin; es Castilla, es España, es la civilización española primero,
europea más tarde, cristiana en suma, que vive, padece y lucha con todos los
elementos, extraños rivales y enemigos de su felicidad, sosténiendose sólo
por el corazón de su pueblo," p. 34.
15. Caldos' play premiered in 1918, one and a half years before his death. His
principal source was evidently R. Villa's La Reina Doña Juana la Loca, which
was found in his library with copious comments in his hand.
16. Benito Perez Galdós, Obras completas. Vol. VI, ed. F. Sáinz de Robles
(Madrid: Aguilar, 1961), p. 1324.
17. Other words that may have influenced Galdós besides those of Bergenroth
(who lived his last years in Spain) are Vicente de La Fuente' s Doña Juana la
Loca vindicada de la nota de herejía (Madrid, 1870) and Menéndez y Pelayo's
Historia de los heterodoxos españoles, Vol. 11 (Madrid, 1880) which contains
reference to accusations that Juana was a heretic. However, the influence of
Erasmus on Juan has been rejected by Maree! Bataillon. Se Rodolfo Cardona
and Gonzalo Sobejano, "Introducción," Teatro selecto de Perez Galdós (Madrid: Escelicer, 1972), pp. 69-72.
18. Stanley Finkenthal, "Santa Juana de Castilla: Galdós' Last Play," Anales
galdosianos·, 9 (1974), p. 131.
19. Ibid.
20. Galdós, "Prólogo a José María Salaverría, Vieja España," p. 128.
21. Finkenthal writes: "Metaphorically Juana is Castile. Her moment of freedom,
nipped in the bud, reflects Castile's short-lived flirtation with democratic
government as the Middle Ages drew to a close. This is the moment that
58
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
marked the end of the independence of the municipalities, which had enjoyed special privileges and a great measure of freedom sin ce Roman times."
p. 32.
Griswold Morley, however, has suggested that what Juana represents even
more clearly is the soul of the aging Galdós himself, who was living in silence
and obscurity, contemplating the approach of death. See. R. Cardona and G.
Sobejano, p. 72.
Finkenthal, p. 132.
The opening in February 1977 of M. Recuerda's previous historical play, Las
arrecogías del Beatería de Santa María Egipciaca has been considered one of
the most significant theatrical events of post-civil-war Spain. See Emilio
Orozco Días, "Las arrecogías del Beaterio de Santa María Egipciaca," in
Pipirijaina, No. 4 (1977), pp. 52-60 and my "Las arrecogías del Beaterio de
Santa María Egipciaca: A Contemporary Celebration of Mariana de Pineda
and her Sisters," forthcoming in Kentucky Romance Quarterly. Together
with Recuerda's earlier Las salvajes en Puente San Gil, it has been published
by Cátedra with an extensive introductory study ofF. Ruis Ramón.
M. Recuerda, in "Coloquio," in Teatro español actual (Madrid, Fundación
Juan March and Cátedra, 1977), p. 125.
The most authoritative biography of Juan de Dios is Francisco de Castro's
Historia de la vida y sanctas obras de Juan de Dios (Granada, 1585). lt is
reprinted in M. Gómez-Moreno, Primicias históricas de San Juan de Dios
(Madrid, 1950).
All quotations are from a manuscript lent by the playwright. Sections of the
play have been published in José Monleón's Cautro autores críticos (J. M.
Rodríguez Méndez, J. Martín Recuerda, Francisco Nieva, Jesus Santos),
Granada, 1976.
A manuscript of this play is available also at the Biblioteca y Museo del
Instituto del Teatro established by F. Ruiz Ramón at the Purdue University
Library. El Engañao won the Premio Lope de Vega in 1976 and Recuerda
expects the play to open sometime in 1978. (Letter to author dated April 10,
1978.)
José Monleón, Cuatro autores críticos, p. 12.
Ibid., p. 10.
The new historical theater in Spain, which stands in opposition to that of
Marquina, Villaespesa, and Pemán, is represented by dramas of Buero Vallejo, Alfonso Sastre, and Rodríguez Méndez, as well as M. Recuerda. The
first of these dramas which takes a critical view of both Spain's past and
present was Buero's Un soñador para un pueblo in 1958. Ruiz Ramón describes the purpose of this new historical drama: "En nuestro tiempo la vuelta
al drama histórico suele producirse desde una aguda conciencia histórica de
las contradicciones del presente, con intención de provocar en el público una
toma de conciencia de las mismas y de alterar así el proceso histórico en
marcha." "El teatro español contemporánoeo, incomprendido por la crítica
europea," Hoja Informativa de Literatura y Filología, Fundación Juan
March, No. 55 (December 1977), p. 4.
59