Personagens femininas no teatro jesuítico - a fúria de Jezabel

Abstract

Queen Jezabel, created in 1562 by Miguel Venegas for the Tragédia de Acab, was the first and perhaps the most powerful female character of the sixteenth-century Jesuit theater. In a drama produced by and for male actor, in front of a preferably male audience, Jezebel ends up being te most odious character of the play, not just to match the biblical character that inspired her character, but also because she conveys express a misogyny that is somewhat something unique within Jesuit theater. From haughty andseductive, Jezebel becomes the personification of rage and dementia, to portray the female condition that, deprived of reason, is dragged up to the mos extreme situations by the blindness of passions. The characterization of Jezebel is based not only on her own words and actions, but especially in the words the other characters say about her. A careful reading of the play reveals the multiplicity of meanings of this character: the historical meaning of Queen Jezebel, wife od Ahab, who persecuted the prophets of Yahweh, hides another temporary allegorical-historical sense. She evoes the figure of Elizabeth I of England, the protagonist of religios persecution, who came to be called the "second Jezebel". But beyond those two senses, the figure of Jezebel wins timeless sense as well. Identified with Eve herself, the mother of all mankind, in the end Jezebel symbolizes the feminine nature, not only unable to master the passions, but even totally dominated by them and therefore the author of the worst crimes. The greatness of this character derives not only from the zeal of the preacher. The figure of Jezebel builds on the ethos of other characters from antiquity. The wrath of Jezebel evokes the wrath of Qeen Dido, the ambition and cruelty of Clytemnestra, the deep desire for vengeance of Medea. Being one of the fre female characters that can be found in the scholar dramatic repertoire of the 16th century, her dramatic power made her the possible model for two characters of the famous French classical theater. The Queen Agrippina, from the play Britannicus (1669) and Atalia /1691), both by Racine, eem t obe inspired by Queen Jezebel of Miguel Venegas. Indeed, although the Ratio Studiorum of 1599 totally prohibited female roles, the wife of Ahab knew in Europa a number of representations, which have their archetype in this tragedy, which marked the first generation of Jesuit playwrights.