The English Reformation in the Spanish Imagination: Rewriting Nero, Jezebel, and the Dragon by Deborah R Forteza (review)

Reviewed by: The English Reformation in the Spanish Imagination: Rewriting Nero, Jezebel, and the Dragon by Deborah R Forteza Mary-Anne Vetterling Forteza, Deborah R The English Reformation in the Spanish Imagination: Rewriting Nero, Jezebel, and the Dragon. U of Toronto P, 2022. Pp. 227. ISBN 978-1-4875-6350-9. The English Reformation in the Spanish Imagination provides an overview of anti-Catholicism in England from the point of view of works written in Spain from 1580 to1630. Its first three chapters include a study of the background to the prevailing Spanish opinion about the importance of preserving Roman Catholicism within Spain via avoidance of the damaging effects of Protestantism as seen in England. The next two chapters, in turn, focus on the literary treatment of this topic in selected texts by Lope, Calderón, and Cervantes. Professor Forteza's analysis springs from the writings by the Jesuit Pedro de Ribadeneyra (also Rivadeneira): Historia eclesiástica del scisma del reyno de Inglaterra (1588, 1593) and his Tratado de la tribulación (1589), in addition to Fray Diego de Yepes's Historia particular de la persecución de Inglaterra (1599)—all of which were widely read and quite popular in Spain during that period. Chapter 1 briefly explores the literary and historical background of the European Reformation (especially in England) through an examination of several ecclesiastical histories circulating in sixteenth-century Europe that debated the validity of Catholicism versus Protestantism. Forteza comments in particular on the Protestant writer, John Foxe's Acts and Monuments and, subsequently, on Nicholas Sander's Schismatis Anglicano, a response to Foxe's book with a defense of Catholicism. Both authors, stresses Forteza, use literary devices to enhance their arguments with interesting stories (even beast fables) that contributed to the immense popularity and wide circulation of their books. In the following chapter, Forteza delves into the historical and literary contexts in which the ecclesiastical histories by Ribadeneyra and Yepes were written. She explains that Henry VIII's daughter, Queen Elizabeth, through her cruel, heartless treatment and executions of England's Catholics, inspired these Spaniards to write books in which the atrocities in England against Catholics are vividly described and the people responsible for them are condemned. These authors modified and adapted their sources for their Spanish-speaking audiences in order to paint a negative picture of how Catholics were treated in England, and at the same time to defend Catholic Spain from heresy and from the evils of Protestantism. Literary techniques in these books, such as the exemplum, the use of Biblical stories (especially those of End Page 166 martyrs), and tropes of monstrosity, are examined by Forteza, with examples, demonstrating how both Ribadeneyra and Yepes skillfully inspired a highly negative attitude towards England among the Spanish populace. Chapter 3 contains an account of Luisa de Carvajal's life and letters and how they fit into the world described in the writings of Ribadeneyra and Yepes. Forteza paints a vivid portrait of this aristocratic dama who became obsessed with the state of Catholicism in England. Strongly influenced by several Jesuits, she went to England on a mission to help restore Catholicism there. Her letters contain first-hand accounts of how English Catholics were tortured and became martyrs on behalf of what she viewed as the one true faith. Her correspondents included the English Jesuits Robert Persons and Joseph Creswell along with Spaniards Magdalena de San Jerónimo, Inés de la Asunción, Rodrigo Calderón and the Duque de Lerma, among others. Forteza next provides a literary perspective on Catholicism in England in chapter 4. Besides carefully describing the depiction of Queen Elizabeth and Sir Francis Drake as monstrous enemies of both the Catholic Church and Spain in Lope's La Dragontea, Forteza focuses her analyses on Lope's and Calderón's portrayals of the evil Queen Elizabeth, Anne Boleyn, and Henry VIII as well as on the saintly Mary Queen of Scots. Discussed in this chapter are Lope's La Dragontea (epic poem), El amor desatinado (comedy), Rimas humanas (poems), La corona trágica (religious epic poem), and Calderón's La cisma de Inglaterra (tragedy). The analyses are detailed; they brilliantly trace...