María de Zayas’s ‘Tarde llega el desengaño’ and the Contradictions of Modernity

Delehanty, Ann T.

doi:https://doi.org/10.3828/bhs.2018.55

Delehanty, Ann T.

Bulletin of Hispanic Studies (2018), 95, (9), 945–958.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3828/bhs.2018.55
Language: English
Pages: 14

Abstract

Through an analysis of María de Zayas’s story, ‘Tarde llega el desengaño’ (1647), this essay argues that Zayas highlights moments when her characters, in failed attempts to categorize other people, experience admiratio, or marvel. These scenes unveil the limits of epistemology in the face of contradictory phenomena. In this way, Zayas’s stories offer us an intriguing use of literature as a tool of philosophy during the Baroque period. Zayas employs the interpolated story to demonstrate to her readers how the attempt to shed illusion (desengañar) and achieve certainty through narrative explanation – which, in this case, comes in the form of an interpolated story that purports to explain the contradictions contained in the frame story – leads only to more uncertainty. By exposing the contradictory claims of different social categories, Zayas’s stories point to the tragic outcome of the competing values of modernity.

A través de un análisis del cuento de María de Zayas, ‘Tarde llega el desengaño’ (1647), este ensayo sostiene que Zayas enfatiza los momentos en que sus personajes, sobre todo en sus intentos fracasados de clasificar a otras personas, experimentan admiratio, o maravilla. Estas escenas nos señalan los límites de la epistemología frente a la contradicción. De esta manera, las novelas de Zayas nos dan un uso interesante de la literatura como técnica de la filosofía durante el período barroco. Zayas emplea el cuento interpolado para demostrar a sus lectores cómo la tentativa de desengañar y llegar a la certeza a través de la narración –que en este caso se presenta en la forma de un cuento interpolado que propone explicar las contradicciones de la narración principal– conduce a más duda. A través de esta revelación de las afirmaciones contradictorias de varias categorías sociales, las novelas de Zayas nos muestran el fin trágico de los valores contradictorios de la modernidad.

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