Description
Book SynopsisIs gender learned or innate? This controversial play asks the question: what happens if you raise a boy to sew and behave as a girl, and raise his sister to fight as a soldier? For the first time ever, Guillén de Castro’s
La fuerza de la costumbre (‘The Force of Habit’) will be available to English and Spanish audiences with a performance-tested translation on facing pages. Castro’s plot is unique in that, unlike other cross dressing plays, the children do not traverse gender boundaries by choice; instead complications arising from their parents’ problematic marriage dictate the gender they should perform. This new Spanish edition (the first since 1927) and performance-tested English translation will begin a new discussion of this understudied work and its implications among Hispanists, comparatists, performance theorists, and gender scholars. The critical apparatus includes a biography of the author, textual history, editorial methodology, metrical analysis, bibliography and notes on the text. Machit’s introductory essay, ‘Bad Habits: Gender Made and Remade in La fuerza de la costumbre’ aims to contextualize and investigate the most salient questions raised by Castro’s gender-bending play.
Trade Review‘Jeffs and Machit’s edition of
La fuerza de la costumbre is overall an excellent one, with a solid translation and accompanying introductory materials that will surely inspire directors and dramaturgs as much as literary scholars. It is a welcome addition to the growing corpus of Golden Age drama in the English language.’
Sarah Grunnah,
Bulletin of the Comediantes Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION
BIOGRAPHY OF GUILLÉN DE CASTRO
PLOT SUMMARY
TEXTUAL HISTORY
THE PRESENT EDITION
The Editio Princeps and Manuscripts Editorial MethodsMETRICAL ANALYSIS
CRITICAL ESSAY : BAD HABITS: GENDER MADE AND REMADE IN LA FUERZA DE LA COSTUMBRE
INTRODUCTION:
LA FUERZA DE LA COSTUMBRE, THE POWER OF HABIT
I. CROSS-DRESSING IN SPANISH GOLDEN AGE THEATER
II. MASCULINE PERFECTION: THEORIZED AND PERFORMED
III. GENDER TROUBLE IN
LA FUERZA DE LA COSTUMBRE Dressing Up as “Oneself”IV. GEN(I)US AND GEN(D)ERATION: THE CONCEITS AND CONCEPTIONS OF PATERNAL INGENIO IN LA FUERZA DE LA COSTUMBRE
In the Name of the Father: Félix’s Transition Genre Trouble: Hipólita UnmadeBIBLIOGRAPHY
