Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-54dcc4c588-br6xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-03T23:07:50.646Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 13 - Spanish Baroque Theater and the Transatlantic

Bartolomé de Alva’s Nahuatl Transcreation of El animal profeta y dichoso patricida

from Part IV - Transcreating

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2025

Kenya C. Dworkin y Méndez
Affiliation:
Carnegie Mellon University
Elisa Sampson Vera Tudela
Affiliation:
King's College London
Get access

Summary

Don Bartolomé de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, a Mexican diocesan priest of Spanish and noble Nahua ancestry, translated three plays from the Spanish baroque in the early 1640s. Due to his multiple positionalities – priest, translator, author – Alva has been understood as “in-between” distinct polarities. This understanding of Alva makes him relevant for examining sources and influences in proto-Latinx writing, including his way of dealing with language. This chapter analyzes Alva’s Nahuatl translation of Antonio Mira de Amescua’s El animal profeta y dichoso patricida, to argue that Alva is not “in-between” polarities, but rather is a cultural mediator that created and managed new contexts. Hence, Alva is a co-creator, not mere translator, who managed to reach two distinct audiences, Jesuit priest and Nahua elite, in one coherent text. He makes use of his positionalities, particularly in his portrayal of free will, strategically and intentionally to exercise his position of power as a priest and noble Nahua. Finally, his role as mediator contributes to the Latinx archive, providing an alternative to Gloria Anzaldúa’s notion of “nepantla.” Instead, the process of “malinalli” in Aztec metaphysics becomes another way of conceptualizing a mixing together. This is exemplified in his process of translation.

Information

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Works Cited

Alva Ixtlilxochitl, Don Bartolomé de. “Comedia famosa de lope de bega carpio del animal Propheta y dichoso patriçida.” Nahuatl Theater: Volume 3 Spanish Golden Age in Mexican Translation, edited by Sell, Barry D., Burkhart, Louise M., and Wright, Elizabeth R.. University of Oklahoma Press, 2008, pp. 162319.Google Scholar
Alva Ixtlilxochitl, Don Bartolomé de. Confesionario mayor y menor en lengua mexicana. Francisco Salbago, 1634.Google Scholar
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/ La frontera: The New Mestiza. Aunt Lute Books, 1987.Google Scholar
Bartosik-Vélez, Elise. “Translatio Imperii: Virgil and Peter Martyr’s Columbus.” Comparative Literature Studies, vol. 46, no. 4, 2009, pp. 559588.Google Scholar
Benetello, Claudia. “Transcreation as the Creation of a New Original.” Exploring Creativity in Translation Across Cultures, edited by Bogenç Demirel, Emine, Cordisco, Mikaela, Di Martino, Emilia, Le Disez, Jean-Yves, Regattin, Fabio, and Segers, Winibert. Aracne, 2017, pp. 237247.Google Scholar
Bouzy, Christian. “Emblemas, empresas y hieroglíficos en el Tesoro de la lengua de Sebastián de Covarrubias.” Literatura emblemática hispánica: actas del I Simposio Internacional, edited by Poza, Sagrario López. Universidad de Coruña, 1996, pp. 1342.Google Scholar
Bruce-Novoa, Juan. “Shipwrecked in the Sea of Signification: Cabeza de Vaca’s Relación and Chicano Literature.” Reconstructing a Chicano/a Literary Heritage, edited by Herrera-Sobek, María. University of Arizona Press, 1993, pp. 323.Google Scholar
Brylak, Agnes. “Hurtling off a Precipice, Falling into a River: A Nahuatl Metaphor and the Christian Concept of Sin.” Ethnohistory, vol. 66, no. 3, 2019, pp. 489513.10.1215/00141801-7517904CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burkhart, Louise. “Moral Deviance in Sixteenth-Century Nahua and Christian Thought: The Rabbit and the Deer.” Journal of Latin American Lore, vol. 12, no. 2, 1986, pp. 107139.Google Scholar
Burkhart, Louise. “Nahuatl Baroque: How Alva Mexicanized the Spanish Dramas.” Nahuatl Theater: Volume 3 Spanish Golden Age in Mexican Translation, edited by Sell, Barry D., Burkhart, Louise M., and Wright, Elizabeth R.. University of Oklahoma Press, 2008, pp. 3549.Google Scholar
Burkhart, Louise. The Slippery Earth: Nahua-Christian Moral Dialogue in Sixteenth-Century Mexico. University of Arizona Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Cabranes-Grant, Leo. “From Scenarios to Networks: Performing the Intercultural in Colonial Mexico.” Theatre Journal, vol. 63, 2011, pp. 499520.10.1353/tj.2011.0135CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campos, Haroldo de. “Translation as Creation and Criticism.” Novas: Selected Writings Haroldo de Campos, edited by Bessa, Antonio Sergio and Cisneros, Odile, translated by Diana Gibson. Northwestern University Press, 2007, pp. 312326.Google Scholar
Carochi, Horacio. Arte de la lengua mexicana. Juan Ruiz, 1645.Google Scholar
Carrasco, David. Quetzalcoatl and the Irony of Empire: Myth and Prophecies in the Aztec Tradition. University Press of Colorado, 2000.Google Scholar
Chaudhuri, Una. “The Future of the Hyphen: Interculturalism, Textuality, and the Difference Within.” Interculturalism and Performance, Marranca, Bonnie and Dasgupta, Gautam. PAJ Publications, 1991, pp. 192207.Google Scholar
Collantes de Terán, Juan. “Noticias teatrales para el virreinato de Nueva España durante el siglo XVI.” Philologia Hispalensis, vol. 1, no. 1, 1986, pp. 1738.10.12795/PH.1986.v01.i01.02CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Contreras, Sheila Marie. Blood Lines: Myth, Indigenism, and Chicana/o Literature. University of Texas Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Fuchs, Barbara. Mimesis and Empire: The New World, Islam, and European Identities. Cambridge University Press, 2001.10.1017/CBO9780511486173Google Scholar
Garibay Kintana, Ángel María. Historia de la literatura náhuatl, Segunda Parte. Editorial Porrúa, S. A., 1971.Google Scholar
Kauffmann, Leisa. “Alva Ixtlilxochitl’s Colonial Mexican Trickster Tale: Nezahualcoyotl and Tezcatlipoca in the Historia de la nación chichimeca.” Colonial Latin American Review, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 7083.10.1080/10609164.2013.877252CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klor de Alva, Jorge J.Aztec Spirituality and Nahuatized Christianity.” South and Meso-American Native Spirituality: From the Cult of the Feathered Serpent to the Theology of Liberation, edited by Gossen, Gary H.. The Crossroads Publishing Company, 1993, pp. 173197.Google Scholar
Lee, Jongsoo. The Allure of Nezahualcoyotl: Pre-Hispanic History, Religion, and Nahua Poetics. University of New Mexico Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Lockhart, James. “Double Mistaken Identity: Some Nahua Concepts in Postconquest Guise.” Of Things of the Indies: Essays Old and New in Early Latin American History, edited by Lockhart, James. Stanford University Press, 1999, pp. 98119.Google Scholar
Lockhart, James. The Nahuas After the Conquest: A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, Sixteenth through Eighteenth Centuries. Stanford UP, 1992.Google Scholar
Maffie, James. Aztec Philosophy: Understanding a World in Motion. University Press of Colorado, 2014.10.5876/9781607322238CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maravall, José Antonio. Culture of the Baroque: Analysis of a Historical Structure, translated by Terry Cochran. University of Minnesota Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Martínez-San Miguel, Yolanda. Saberes americanos: subalternidad y epistemología en los escritos de sor Juana. Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana/ University of Pittsburgh, 1999.Google Scholar
Martínez-San Miguel, Yolanda, and Arias, Santa (eds.). The Routledge Hispanic Studies Companion to Colonial Latin America and the Caribbean (1492–1898). Routledge, 2021.Google Scholar
Matava, Robert Joseph. “A Sketch of the Controversy de auxiliis.” Journal of Jesuit Studies, vol. 7, no. 3, 2020, pp. 417446.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mira de Amescua, Antonio. “El animal profeta y dichoso patricida.” Teatro Completo, vol. 5, edited by de la Granja, Agustín. Universidad Diputación, 2005, pp. 29152.Google Scholar
Mysyk, Avis Darlene. “Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca in Cuahquechollan (Valley of Atlixco, Mexico).” Estudios de la Cultura Náhuatl, vol. 43, 2012, pp. 115138.Google Scholar
Olguín, B. V.Caballeros and Indians: Mexican American Whiteness, Hegemonic Mestizaje, and Ambivalent Indigeneity in Proto-Chicana/o Autobiographical Discourse, 1858–2008.” MELUS, vol. 38, no. 1, 2013, pp. 3049.10.1093/melus/mls010CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olko, Justyna. “Language Encounters: Toward a Better Comprehension of Contact-Induced Lexical Change in Colonial Nahuatl.” Politeja, vol. 12, no. 38, 2015, pp. 3552.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paz, Octavio. “Translation: Literature and Letters.” Theories of Translation: An Anthology of Essays from Dryden to Derrida, translated by Irene del Corral. University of Chicago Press, 1992, pp. 152162.Google Scholar
Pratt, Rebekah L.From Animal to Meat: Illuminating the Medieval Ritual of Unmaking.” eHumanista, vol. 25, 2013, pp. 1730.Google Scholar
Ruiz de Alarcón, Hernando. Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions that Today Live Among the Indians Native to this New Spain, 1629, translated and edited by Andrews, J. Richard and Hassig, Ross. Univedrsity of Oklahoma Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Sahagún, Fray Bernardino de. Florentine Codex, vols. 13, translated by Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson. The School of American Research and the U of Utah, 1950–1982.Google Scholar
Saldaña-Portillo, Josefina. “Who’s the Indian in Aztlán? Re-Writing Mestizaje, Indianism, and Chicanismo from the Lacandón.” The Latin American Subaltern Reader, edited by Rodríguez, Ileana. Duke University Press, 2001, pp. 402423.Google Scholar
Sampson Vera Tudela, Elisa. “The Tricks of the Weak: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and the Feminist Temporality of Latina Literature.” The Cambridge History of Latina/o American Literature, edited by González, John Morán and Lomas, Laura. Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp. 7492.10.1017/9781316869468.005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwaller, John Frederick. “Don Bartolomé de Alva, Nahuatl Scholar of the Seventeenth Century.” A Guide to Confession Large and Small in the Mexican Language, 1634, edited by Sell, Barry D. and Schwaller, John Frederick. University of Oklahoma Press, 1999, pp. 315.Google Scholar
Schwaller, John Frederick. “The Expansion of Nahuatl as a Lingua Franca among Priests in Sixteenth-Century Mexico.” Ethnohistory, vol. 59, no. 4, 2012, pp. 675690.10.1215/00141801-1642707CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sell, Barry D. et al. Nahuatl Theater, Volume 3: Spanish Golden Age Drama in Mexican Translation. Uninversity of Oklahoma Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Townsend, Camilla. Malintzin’s Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico. University of New Mexico Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Valladares Reguero, Aurelio. “Santidad y libre albedrío en el teatro de Mira de Amescua: ‘El animal profeta.’La comedia de santos: coloquio internacional Almagro, 1, 2 y 3 de diciembre de 2006, edited by Pedraza Jiménez, Felipe B. and García González, Almudena. Universidad de Castilla La Mancha, 2008, pp. 155177.Google Scholar
Venuti, Lawrence. Contra Intrumentalism: A Translation Polemic. University of Nebraska Press, 2019.10.2307/j.ctvgc62bfCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Venuti, Lawrence. “Translation as Cultural Politics: Regimes of Domestication in English.” Textual Practice, vol. 7, no. 2, 1993, pp. 208223.10.1080/09502369308582166CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vilarroig Martín, Jaime. “El desencuentro entre Suárez y Báñez en torno a la polémica de Auxiliis.” Franciscanum, vol. 61, no. 172, 2019, pp. 115.10.21500/01201468.4461CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wise, Carl A.Eclipsed Autonomy: Celestial Images and the Free Will Debate in Antonio Mira de Amescua’s Álvaro de Luna Plays.” Bulletin of the Comediantes, vol. 66, no. 2, 2014, pp. 109122.10.1353/boc.2014.0022CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Accessibility standard: Inaccessible, or known limited accessibility

The PDF of this book is known to have missing or limited accessibility features. We may be reviewing its accessibility for future improvement, but final compliance is not yet assured and may be subject to legal exceptions. If you have any questions, please contact accessibility@cambridge-org.demo.remotlog.com.

Content Navigation

Table of contents navigation
Allows you to navigate directly to chapters, sections, or non‐text items through a linked table of contents, reducing the need for extensive scrolling.
Index navigation
Provides an interactive index, letting you go straight to where a term or subject appears in the text without manual searching.

Reading Order & Textual Equivalents

Single logical reading order
You will encounter all content (including footnotes, captions, etc.) in a clear, sequential flow, making it easier to follow with assistive tools like screen readers.
Short alternative textual descriptions
You get concise descriptions (for images, charts, or media clips), ensuring you do not miss crucial information when visual or audio elements are not accessible.
Full alternative textual descriptions
You get more than just short alt text: you have comprehensive text equivalents, transcripts, captions, or audio descriptions for substantial non‐text content, which is especially helpful for complex visuals or multimedia.

Visual Accessibility

Use of colour is not sole means of conveying information
You will still understand key ideas or prompts without relying solely on colour, which is especially helpful if you have colour vision deficiencies.
Use of high contrast between text and background colour
You benefit from high‐contrast text, which improves legibility if you have low vision or if you are reading in less‐than‐ideal lighting conditions.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge-org.demo.remotlog.com is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×