Ascent to Glory: How One Hundred Years of Solitude Was Written and Became a Global Classic by Alvaro Santana-Acuña (review)

Abstract

Molina. Although Gómez Martos notes that it was common for these plays to have a Spanish setting, even when written by French or English authors, this play is quite unique in its exploration of the favorite’s conflicts between their personal interests and their life as the monarch’s favorite. The final chapter focuses on England, and discusses several English plays, but concentrates mainly on Sejanus His Fall by Ben Jonson. While both French and English works are studied from a Neostoic perspective—much like La paciencia en la fortuna—the author hints at other possible lenses through which these plays could be read. The brief concluding chapter brings all three plays back together, noting that the newly discovered La paciencia could add significantly to our knowledge of dramas on favorites from Spain particularly as well as within the wider European context. He reprises the importance of Neostoicism in the early modern European world, particularly its relationship to the figure of the favorite. Staging Favorites is ambitious in its scope but ultimately too brief to reach its goals. The three plays analyzed are all very interesting in their own right and lend themselves to the comparisons the author wishes to make. However, the field of favorites in Spanish literature is still wide open, as the inclusion of the one play does not make for an in-depth study. Neostoicism does allow the author to make connections across the social and political contexts of these three nations. Gómez Martos was also the person who discovered La paciencia en la fortuna during archival research, and a critical edition of the play would be a most welcome addition for scholars of early modern theater. Staging Favorites demonstrates just how much scholarship is still to be done in the field of the drama on favorites, and I look forward to Gómez Martos’s future contributions.