14 - Masculinities and Honour in Los comendadores de Córdoba

Summary

Men and women falling in love; men fighting over women or fighting for their nation; men preoccupied with their reputation: these staple plot elements of the comedia developed by Lope involve gendered characters in situations where issues of gender drive the action. While many of their predicaments may be recognisable as relevant to human beings of either sex, much of the comedia’s appeal and fascination derives from the tension between the subject and the perceived norms of masculine and feminine behaviour of their culture. The instability and constructed quality of gender is further foregrounded when the occasional woman dresses and successfully passes as a man, or when a male’s sense of himself as a man threatens to unravel before us. Marriage, the conventional goal of many plays, involves the male protagonist, not as an asexual, ungendered representative of the human norm, but as a heterosexually orientated half of a hegemonic relationship based on gendered hierarchy. Segregation of the audience by sex would only have increased the partisan response to the actions on stage, and as Lope's Arte nuevo reveals a playwright acutely aware of his audience, it is unsurprising that his writing responds to the dynamics of the corral (playhouse).

Los comendadores de Córdoba (1596) has been seen by several critics as important for understanding Lope's subsequent representations of masculine honour.The male protagonist is the Veinticuatro de Córdoba (a regidor or alderman), whose wife Beatriz and niece Ana we find ogling men from a window and then flirting with Jorge and Fernando, two comendadores (knightscommander) of a military order. As reward for active service against the Moors, King Fernando presents a diamond ring to the Veinticuatro, who passes this ring to his wife as a symbol of their marital union, but she in turn gives the ring to her admirer Jorge as a token of her lust. When the king notices his gift on the finger of the rival, he indignantly questions the Veinticuatro, provoking feelings of jealousy, shame and insecurity in the latter. Setting a trap for his wife, he catches her and Jorge about to consummate their passion, and exacts a vengeance which is almost unparalleled in world theatre, killing his wife, niece, both male lovers, several servants and the household pets.