In conversation with Alani Hicks-Bartlett

¡Oh quién pudiera dar voces! : Inquisitorial Anxieties and "Effortful" Speech in Calderón's El médico de su honra

From involuntary exclamations to seditious accusations, stammered exculpations, and canny jokes, from public gossip and cries of horror to private accusations, the dramatic soundscape that weaves in and around Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s El médico de su honra (1635), has a remarkably central role throughout the play. By using shouts and cries to punctuate the peacefulness of the countryside, whispers and overheard speech to inflame confrontations at court, and by contrasting the effortful speech of the female protagonist to a king preoccupied with controlling the sounds of his city yet altogether inept at doing so, the tense interplay between silence and speech that El médico centers, informs the representation of gendered linguistic dynamics and the struggle for linguistic power and control throughout the play. While Calderón’s plays have often historically been read as starkly antifeminist or propagandistic, in his wife-murder plays in particular, Calderón acerbically critiques the systemic failures fueling misogyny and condoning uxoricide—in the case of El médico, the linguistic double-bind, for example—in the most overt way.

About Alani Hicks-Bartlett

Alani Hicks-Bartlett is assistant professor of comparative literature, French and francophone studies and Hispanic studies at Brown University, with affiliations in the programs in early cultures, medieval studies and the Center for the Study of the Early Modern World. Her teaching and research interests center around gender, violence, and race in medieval and early modern English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese literatures. In addition to articles on Ariosto, Christine de Pizan, Montaigne, Shakespeare and Cervantes, she has recently published on disability, race, citational practice and authorial voice in theater and lyric and epic poetry.

About the event

This lunchtime event takes place in Durham Hall 240 on the ASU Tempe campus and is free and open to the public. Food will be provided. This event is in-person only.