Comparative Drama

The Islamization of Spain in William Rowley and Mary Pix: The Politics of Nation and Gender Pilar Cuder-Dominguez ThesustainedMuslimpresence in Spainbetween 711 and 1492 provides a fascinatingexample ofintercultural dynamics thathas never ceased to engage the imagination ofmany authors. One episode in particular, the Islamic invasion and conquest of 711, was in its very swiftness so hard to explain that it has puzzled everyone for centuries. Historians nowadaysexplain itawaymore asthe resultoftheweaknessofthe Gothic ChristiankingdomthandiestrengthoftheinvadingNorthAfricans.Mostly this weakness appears to have been connected to die ancient elective system of succession, which was challenged by certain parties.1 Garcia de Cortázar and González Vega have described how after the death of King Witiza in 710 his sons did not accept the election of a new king in the person of Roderick, earl of Betica.2 The "Witizan" faction started negotiations widi the North African Muslims for their help against Roderick through a Christian mediator, Julian, governor of the North African town ofCeuta, and in July 71 1 the Muslim leader Tariq, landing withhistroopsnearGibraltar,defeated andkilledRoderickinGuadalete.3 Four months later, the NorthAfricans had occupied Toledo, the capital, in central Spain, and then continued to advance northward. By 725 they had reached the French town of Carcasonne.4 They encountered little organized resistanceuntil closeto theendofthecentury,atRoncesvalles.5 Thus the history ofthe Muslim invasion ofSpain started with fragmentation , division, and civil war,while the slow recovery oflands from Islam for the tiny Christian pockets ofresistance demanded the painful efforts of many generations until at last victory was achieved with Ferdinand and Isabella'sconquestofGranada in 1492.Between the mythic 321 322ComparativeDrama separation and loss of the kingdom and the myth-building reunion of the Reconquista stood eight centuries of frontier friction and cultural symbiosis. During the Middle Ages the Iberian Peninsula was a privileged place where three great cultures came together. Muslims,Jews, and Christians shared a cultural continuum torn bysporadic though intense strife.Notsurprisingly,this longperiodhas proved tobe an endless source ofrich inspiration for writers ofall backgrounds to the present time.6 The purpose ofthis article is to address the politics ofthe representation of the Islamic irruption on the Iberian Peninsula in the plays of two Stuartplaywrights,William Rowleyand MaryPix. Rowley'sAll'sLost by Lust, first performed in 1622, tells the events ofTariq's invasion and Roderick's defeat in a vague but still recognizable form. His deployment ofthe Islamic characters in his play is shaped on an anti-Spanish intent because die presence and actions ofthe Moors help to convey the inadequacy and decadence of the Spanish Christians. In 1705, Mary Pix adapted this play in her own The ConquestofSpain, though her emphasis was on the figure ofthe ravished woman as the focus ofintercultural andpatriarchal conflict. Her revisions ofRowley's playde-emphasize the participation of the Moors and introduces a doubling technique that, stressing the commonalities between Moors and Christians in their victimization ofwomen, thus subordinates racial concerns to her preoccupation with patriarchy. I. The Islamic Invasion in the Early Spanish Historical Ballads Notwithstanding the efforts of historians, the events surrounding the Islamic conquest ofSpain remain steeped in legend. Pedro Chalmeta has hypothesized that Julian tried to conceal his role in the "loss ofSpain to Islam"bycirculatingthe rumorthatKingRoderickhad seducedhisbeautiful daughter Florinda, who had been sent to the king's capital, Toledo. Byvirtue ofthis tale, Julian ceasedto be a traitor andbecame the avenger ofhis honor, while his North African allies merely assisted in putting to rights the wrong committed by a corrupt king. According to Chalmeta's thesis, this storywas given credence bythe Islamic chroniclers, and eventually it was to be reproduced in the anonymous ballads composed in Christian Spain.7 Pilar Cuder-Dominguez323 This is a likely explanation for the origin of the many Spanish ballads dealing with die loss ofSpain to the Moors. The versions that have reached us date from fifteenth-century manuscripts, and they cover the particularsoftheyear711.8Some—forexample,"Romance delos amores del rey don Rodrigo y de la Cava"—focus on the love relationship between thekingandJulian's daughter,identified in the poems as"La Cava," a name deriving from die Arabic cahba meaning "prostitute." Here the poem assigns Roderickthe blame forhaving seduced her"más por fuerza que por...