Rewriting Love in the Renaissance Assignment 3
Abstract
This is a rewriting of three poems by the Spanish poet Francisco de Quevedo. The
themes of his poems include love, life, death and the restrictions of expression in
Renaissance times. This short story aims to expose these themes in the context of the
21st century.
To do this I have used an illness called 'Locked-in syndrome' which I believe conveys in
a strong and shocking way, the frustrations of Quevedo when writing these poems.
The adaptation of these poems resulted in a story that perhaps seemed to end with no
hope. However the hope of the narrator is merely different to what the reader expects
or perhaps wants. This was necessary in order to be true to the original texts.
The short story should stand alone for a reader who is unfamiliar with Quevedo's work.
However for someone that has read the three poems that I have chosen to adapt the
strong images should be visible.
Rewriting Love in the Renaissance Assignment 3
Tired eyes
I am trapped. Trapped in this hospital. Trapped in this bed. And worst of all, trapped inside this body.
The past two days have been the longest and most frustrating of my life. I didn't feel like myself on
Thursday. I knew something wasn't right but by the time I realised it, it was too late. I was pitching a
new proposal to the board when it suddenly became difficult to speak. I could hear myself but the
noise that was coming from my mouth sounded nothing like the words I wanted to say. Immediately
after, I began to have difficulty seeing the faces around me, I could hear their voices but nothing
they said made sense to me. The noise was loud and confusing. All I wanted was for it to stop. The
next thing I knew I was in hospital. I heard the doctors tell my wife I had taken a serious stroke and I
watched her break down before my eyes. I wanted to tell her I would be ok but the words just
wouldn't come. "Sleep," I thought to myself, "you need sleep. You can tell her later when you wake
up". I have told myself this for two days. Each time I try to speak nothing comes out and I tell myself
I am just too weak, it will come. But it's no use. I have to face it, I am trapped.
Alma has barely left my side in the two days that I've been here. Her eyes are puffy, her skin pale.
The most positive and remarkable woman I have ever met now seems hopeless with pain written all
over her face. She reaches to hold my hand and as I feel her cold skin on mine I long to squeeze her
hand back to reassure her but nothing happens. I try with all my might but I can't move a single
muscle in my body. I want to scream. I want to escape. But I am completely and utterly trapped in
this realm of horror that is my own body. I feel like I'm going to erupt but from the outside I look
motionless, almost tranquil.
Another doctor walks into the room and introduces himself to Alma as a neurologist. "Hi, you must
be Mrs. Dixon, I'm here to see your husband, I understand he had a stroke a few days ago?" Alma
shook his hand and nodded, once again fighting back tears. The doctor then looked at me, looked at
me right in the eyes, something no other doctor had done since I'd woken up. He stared at me as if
he were searching for something, something he could only find in my eyes. And then he spoke. "Hi
Rewriting Love in the Renaissance Assignment 3
Luke, I'm Dr. Johnston. Can you hear me?" "Yes I can hear you!" I screamed from within, but again
no noise came out, I couldn't even open my mouth. I tried again. Nothing. I was yelling from inside
but from the exterior I was completely and utterly silent. Again he stared for a while, deep into my
eyes without saying a word and then he spoke again, his voice calm and clear. "I'm going to be
looking after you Luke, you had a stroke a few days back and we're going to see what way's best to
treat you but first, if you can, blink once if you can hear me." Blink? Could I blink? With all the power
in my body I could muster I thought about it, willing my eyes to blink, willing him to not look away.
And I did it. I blinked. And as I blinked I saw Alma's eyes fill up with tears again, but not the same
tears she had cried for the past two days, these were tears of hope.
Dr. Johnston smiled ever so slightly and turned from me to Alma and back to me again. "What does
this mean?" Alma asked her voice quivering, "is he going to be ok? Can he hear me?". The doctor
paused for a moment as if selecting his words carefully. A moment seemed like an eternity while I
was awaiting his response. "Answer her!" I screamed from within. I willed him to speak, I needed to
know the answers. "Luke, " he said, ignoring her questions "blink twice if you're still with me." Once
again it took immense effort but this time I knew I could do it. I blinked twice and he nodded.
"Good." He paused for a second and then continued "Luke, unfortunately as a result of the stroke
you are paralysed. We call it Locked-in Syndrome. This is when you're fully aware of what's going on
around you but your muscles are paralysed and unable to respond. I'm so sorry. I know this is bad
news. There is no cure as such," he turned and looked at Alma "but we will do everything in our
power to help. Many others have been in your situation and recovered fully. It's a long process but it
is possible." Alma stared at me as if waiting for a reaction but of course she couldn't see the
explosion that had gone off inside me. To her I looked like a blank canvas, a motionless cadaver. Dr.
Johnston talked for a while longer but I was too tired to concentrate, even blinking had tired me.
What had happened to the successful business man who went to the gym three times a week? What
had happened to the man who played football every Saturday, the man who loved to travel and
spend time outdoors? It was time to face facts, that man was gone. My inner self is the only thing
that exists now. What would happen to me now? How would Alma cope? Those questions would
have to wait. For now I needed sleep.
As I drifted off everything became better. Life was the way it should be again.
"My beautiful Alma." I say as I see her enter the room, "I've missed you." I put my arms around her
and I feel her skin on mine, my warm hands find her waist. I run my hands up her back caressing her
cold porcelain skin beneath her top. She looked so perfect and she was all mine for those moments.
Rewriting Love in the Renaissance Assignment 3
That is, until I woke up. As I stirred from my sleep I could no longer reach her, she was gone. I woke
up sweating and thirsty. The very moment I woke up I wanted to fall back to sleep, or else to never
dream again because the pain of losing her again would be too much. If I could be with her in my
dreams I'd rather sleep forever than be back in this life that felt like death.
Since the first day I met the neurologist he has addressed both me and Alma, unlike the other
doctors who speak only to my wife. No, not Dr Johnston, this man knows I'm in here. I'm trapped but
he knows it and I pray to God that he is going to be the man to help me escape from this horrible
place. As time goes on though, not even Dr Johnston and his encouraging words bring me hope
anymore.
The most frustrating part is that my soul, my inner being, wants to do so much. My soul longs to live
again, I mean really live not merely exist. It's the simple things that I miss the most; like sitting
upright by myself, walking around, eating and tasting food in my mouth. It's funny how one day can
change the things you once took for granted into the things you long to do the most. Unfortunately
though these things aren't going to happen because my soul isn't in control of my body, my brain is.
Every day now runs into the next. I no longer know what passing time feels like. Alma says I've been
in hospital for three weeks now but to me it seems like forever. She is so loyal and devoted, she
comes and sits by my bed each day and tells me stories about what happened during her day. I
wanted so much to laugh yesterday when she told me how her mum all of a sudden talks about me
as if I'm an angel when we never saw eye to eye before my stroke. I suppose you can't speak ill of
the dead eh? I'm forgetting what it's like to live. Dr. Johnston did some tests and he says that my
brain is more active than it was three weeks ago, which is a good sign. "It's a long process" he tells
me every time I see him "Hang in there." But I no longer want to hang in there. It's not that I've lost
hope but rather that what I hope for has changed. I long to die because I know my love will remain
even after I'm gone. I know that if I die my poor Alma will be free, free from this burden and able to
get on with her life. My body will be nothing more than dust and ash when I die, but my love will
remain in them, I'm sure of it. I'm sick of blinking. My eyes are tired. I want to shut them and dream
forever.
Rewriting Love in the Renaissance Assignment 3
Commentary
The short story “Tired eyes” is an adaptation of three sonnets by Francisco de Quevedo; Sonnets 81,
103 and 1081. An adaptation often conceals the original source and changes the setting or
characters whilst maintaining the same ideas or concepts of the model. Film editor Walter Murch on
his adaptation of Italian writer Curzio Malaparte's work conveys his aims to be loyal to his source but
states that “you sometimes have to betray the surface of the text... to communicate the deeper
truth in the second."2 My aim was synonymous with Murch’s: to be true to the core images of all
three poems. However I have opted to write a prose in order to merge all three effectively. During
this fusion I decided that assigning one section of the story to a single poem would result in a stilted,
unnatural narrative. Therefore, since particular images and themes of Quevedo’s poetry can be seen
running all through the story, this commentary will address each incorporated element,
demonstrating where they are evident in the prose. When writing “Tired eyes” I felt it imperative to
preserve the ideas present during the Spanish Baroque, in particular desengaño and Neostoicism
which are often thought of as the most important principles of this period, an era often seen to hold
a “more recognizably modern world view” 3 in comparison to the Renaissance. The Baroque was a
period when the philosophy of Neo-Platonism and the rise of the Spanish Vernacular were no longer
dominating ideas.
The story consists of three characters: a man named Luke Dixon, his wife Alma and Dr. Johnston, a
neurologist. The story is set in a hospital due to the stroke that the narrator and protagonist Luke
1
Francisco de Quevedo, Poemas Escogidos edición de José Manuel Blecua, cuarta edición, (Madrid: Editorial
Castalia, 1989)pp. 155, 178 and 182. All further references to Quevedo’s Sonnets will refer to this edition
2
Katz, Joy, ‘Adaptation’ Poetry Foundation (27 March 2013) http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/245692
[accessed 07/01/2015]
3
Jeremy Robbins, ‘Renaissance and Baroque: continuity and transformation in early modern Spain’ in
The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature, ed. by David T. Gies ( Cambridge University Press, 2004),
pp.136-158
Rewriting Love in the Renaissance Assignment 3
has suffered. As a result he has been left with “Locked-in Syndrome”, an illness where the patient is
conscious of their surroundings but completely paralysed. The choice of the name Alma (“soul”) was
deliberate, firstly because the concept of Neostoicism stated that the human being was a compound
of two contradictory planes: one was the body (physical matter) which represented the imminence
of death and the other was the soul which represented the spiritual and eternal. Luke in this short
story symbolizes the first plane and in order to demonstrate this, his character makes many
references to death. Alma is used to characterize the second plane and for that reason is named
“soul”. This symbolizes the relationship between life and death that was fundamental to Neostoic
ideas and links the cradle and the grave (as Quevedo himself did through his treatise La cuna y La
sepultura). The grave (the death of the protagonist Luke) becomes the cradle of the soul (the
‘liberation’ of his wife Alma) which leads to my second reason for this name choice: to allude to line
three of Sonnet 103.
Cerrar podrá mis ojos la postrera
sombra que me llevare el blanco día,
y podrá desatar esta alma mía
The speaker describes his alma being set free which I have displayed through the personification of
the soul in the character of Alma. This is particularly evident in the final paragraph of the story when
the protagonist says “I know that if I die my poor Alma will be set free, free from this burden”. In
addition to this the name “Alma” also refers to Sonnet 108 which begins “En los claustros del alma la
herida yace callada;’. Furthermore the fact that the story is told from one man’s perspective
highlights the notions of self-reflection (another typically Baroque idea) and solipsism which José
Manuel Gonzalez de Sevilla states are “perfectly reflected” in Sonnet 108. 4
4
Gonzalez de Sevilla, José Manuel, Spanish Studies in Shakespeare and his Contemporaries edited by José
Manuel Gonzalez de Sevilla (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2006) p. 103
Rewriting Love in the Renaissance Assignment 3
Throughout the prose I have presented Locked-in Syndrome as the “reino del espanto” of Sonnet
108. This same term was used by Quevedo’s predecessor Garcilaso de la Vega in Sonnet XV
describing the Hades visited by Orpheus in search of his love Eurydice.5 Orpheus was a hero often
employed by Renaissance poets in order to parallel themselves to his abilities and strengths. In
using this same term Quevedo thus makes reference to the Orphic myth depicted in this Sonnet,
however does so in a way that identifies with Orpheus’s failure, a clear “alternative to traditional
Petrarchan lyric”. 6 Failure related to the desengaño of the Baroque therefore making it a suitable
theme and ironically a reason for the poet’s success. This “reino del espanto” is explicitly
interpolated into the story in the third paragraph when Luke describes his body as “a realm of
horror”. It is again introduced, this time implicitly when he describes the sensation of being on the
brink of internal eruption and later the “explosion” that takes place inside him upon hearing the
news from the doctor. These latter two images are specifically used to pertain to the “largas voces
negro llanto” (line 10) that Quevedo writes of in Sonnet 108. The poet’s voice describes his insides as
a volcano that has erupted and leaves only the entities left in its aftermath, that is, “humo” and
“ceniza”. This ‘eruption’ is caused by the absence of the beloved. Similarly the character Luke uses
this volcanic imagery to describe the “Hades” of his own body, a place where there are many
thoughts boiling below the surface but from the exterior are concealed.
Sonnet 103, “Cerrar podrá mis ojos”, also signposts the Orphic myth and begins with “references to
eyesight (the cause of Orpheus’s failure)”. 7 Contrary to this, eyesight in the beginning of my
adaptation in fact represents “success” in two moments: when the neurologist studies Luke’s eyes
and believes that he is still conscious and when Luke is able to communicate for the first time
through blinking. However in order to stay true to the theme of failure (more specifically failure
5
Garcilaso de la Vega, Poesías castellanas completas, edición de Elias L. Rivers, Second edition (Madrid:
Editorial Castalia, 2010) p. 57
6
Isabel Torres, Love Poetry in the Spanish Golden Age: Eros, Eris and Empire, (Suffolk: Tamesis 2013) p. 196
7
Ignacio Navarette, Orphans of Petrarch, Poetry and Theory in the Spanish Renaissance (Los Angeles: University
of California Press 1994)
Rewriting Love in the Renaissance Assignment 3
through eyesight) I ended the prose with “I’m sick of blinking. My eyes are tired”. Eyesight which
begins as the reason for hope in the life of the protagonist later becomes his downfall and failure
aligning with this leitmotif in Quevedo’s work.
Having not yet mentioned Sonnet 81, which begins “¡Ay Floralba!”, let us now look at how its main
imagery and metaphors can be seen in the short story I have written. At the core of the Sonnet is
the inability to say what the poet’s voice desires due to discreción and the conventions of the period.
I chose to use the shocking imagery of paralysis to show how strong this boundary would have been
for Quevedo to breach. Both the poet and the character of Luke Dixon are only able to voice their
true feelings through the safety valve of dreams, a means to express what is building up beneath the
surface. In “¡Ay Floralba!” the speaker asks himself “¿Dirélo?”, and then reasons that “Sí, pues que
sueño fue”. Similarly Luke is only able to be intimate with his wife again and speak to her in his
dream which enables him to cross the boundary of his illness. Both speakers voice the desire to
either never dream again or to sleep forever because waking up from their dreams is too painful. In
order to reflect Quevedos line “que si duermo, que jamás despierte” I used the lines “I’d rather sleep
forever than be back in this life that felt like death” also making reference to the “life as death”
imagery in the final two lines of Sonnet 81:
y vi que estuve con la muerte,
y vi que con la vida estaba muerto
I also ended my short story with the words “My eyes are tired. I want to shut them and dream
forever”.
In this poem Floralba is described using words such as nieve and cielo in order to present her as pure
and unattainable in contrast to the speaker who describes himself as infierno. Because of that, Alma
in “Tired eyes” is described as having cold porcelain skin in the dream which is a sharp contrast to
the narrator’s warm hands.
Rewriting Love in the Renaissance Assignment 3
When Luke wakes from his dream he is extremely thirsty and later speaks of his longing to eat again.
I employed these images because, as Walters states, they are “frequently used by Quevedo to
convey the dire consequences of the failure of his amatory aspirations”8. This is particularly evident
in “En los claustros del alma” when he speaks of hidrópico to illustrate this insatiable longing for the
beloved. I therefore applied this same imagery in order to demonstrate Luke’s parallel desire for his
wife.
Finally, love’s transcendence of death is a recurrent theme in much of Quevedo’s work and can be
seen in “Cerrar podrá mis ojos” when the poet’s voice describes himself as “polvo enamorado”
showing that love conquers death. For this reason the character of Luke in the prose longs to die,
knowing that his love will remain even after death. “Death is no longer something to be defied but
something to be anticipated as it brings purification”.9
In conclusion, due to the nature of “Locked-in syndrome” I believed it a faithful way of presenting
the images present in the Sonnets 81, 103 and 108 by Quevedo, particularly the inabilitiy to speak
and the consequences of this on the speaker’s mind and body. Throughout the adaption of the
three poems by Quevedo I have incorporated the themes of solipsism, desengaño, the inability/fear
to speak and love’s transcendence of death. I felt it imperative to maintain many of the cardinal
images of the poems including the soul as eternal, failure through eyesight and insatiable thirst and
hunger caused by the ausencia of the beloved. Like in every story the ending is crucial and I
contemplated the recovery of the character Luke as the denouement. However this ending seemed
incongruous with the concept of desengaño in the Baroque and with themes such as death and
failure which are irrefutably present in Quevedo’s poems.
8
Gareth Walters, Francisco de Quevedo, Love Poet (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1985)
See Orphans of Petrarch p. 225
9
Rewriting Love in the Renaissance Assignment 3
Appendix
(Poems taken from “Francisco de Quevedo Poemas Escogidos” edición de José Manuel
Blecua, Editorial Castalia, S. A., 1989)
108
Persevera en la exageración de su afecto amoroso y en el exceso de su padecer
En los claustros del alma la herida
yace callada; mas consume hambrienta
la vida, que en mis venas alimenta
llama las medulas extendida.
Bebe el ardor hidrópica mi vida,
que ya ceniza amante y macilenta,
cadáver del incendio hermoso, ostenta
su luz en humo y noche fallecida.
La gente esquivo, y me es horror el día;
dilato en largas voces negro llanto,
que a sordo mar mi ardiente pena envía.
A los suspiros di la voz del canto,
la confusión inunda l’alma mía:
mi corazón es reino del espanto.
[In the cloisters of the soul the wound lies silenced; but it consumes ravenously, the life that
is fed in my veins by a flame that spreads through my marrow. My life, thirsting insatiably,
drinks in the heat that now, as emaciated and enamoured ash, a corpse of a once glorious
conflagration, displays its light expired in smoke and night. I shun everyone and find fright in
the day; my black weeping flows in an endless wail, sending my burning sorrow to a deaf
sea. I surrendered the voice of song to sighs; confusion floods my soul; my heart is a realm
of fear.]10
10
Isabel Torres, Love Poetry in the Spanish Golden Age: Eros, Eris and Empire, (Suffolk: Tamesis 2013) p190
Rewriting Love in the Renaissance Assignment 3
103
Amor constante más allá de la muerte
Cerrar podrá mis ojos la postrera
sombra, que me llevaré el blanco día;
y podrá desatar esta alma mía
hora, a su afán ansioso linsojera;
mas no de esotra parte en la ribera
dejará la memoria en donde ardía;
nadar sabe mi llama la agua fría,
y perder el respeto a ley severa:
Alma a quien todo un Dios prisión ha sido,
venas que humor a tanto fuego han dado,
medulas que han gloriosamente ardido,
su cuerpo dejarán, no su cuidado;
serán ceniza, mas tendrán sentido.
Polvo serán, mas polvo enamorado.
[The final shadow, that will take from me white day, will close my eyes, and a single hour in
time, indulging anxious longing, will set free this soul of mine; but it will not leave behind on
that further bank, the memory on which it used to burn, my flame knows how to swim
across the cold water and lose respect for a law that is stern. A soul for which a god, no less,
has been a prison, veins which have fed moisture to so great a fire, marrows which have so
gloriously burned, it will abandon its body but not its love; they will be ask, but the ash will
be sentient still; dust they will be, but dust that is in love.]11
11
Torres, Love Poetry in the Spanish Golden Age: Eros, Eris and Empire, p. 178
Rewriting Love in the Renaissance Assignment 3
81
Amante agradecido a las lisonjas mentirosas de un sueño
¡Ay, Floralba ! Soñé que te... ¿Dirélo?
Sí, pues que sueño fue, que te gozaba
¿Y quién sino un amante que soñaba,
juntara tanto infierno a tanto cielo ?
Mis llamas con tu nieve y con tu hielo,
Cual suele opuestas flechas de su aljaba,
Mezclaba Amor, y honesto las mezclaba,
Como mi adoración en su desvelo.
Y dije: "Quiera Amor, quiera mi suerte,
que nunca duerma yo, si estoy despierto,
Y que si duermo, que jamás despierte"
Mas desperté del dulce desconcierto,
Y vi que estuve vivo con la muerte,
Y vi que con la vida estaba muerto.
[Oh Floralba! I dreamt that…. Shall I say it? Yes, for it was a dream: that I made love to you.
And who, if not a lover who was dreaming could merge such hell with such a heaven? My
flames mixed with your snow and with your ice, just as Cupid often mixed the different darts
of his quiver, and mixed them honestly, just as I (honestly) adore you when awake. And I
said: “May Love, may destiny decree that I should never sleep if I’m awake, and if I am
sleeping now, that I never wake again.” But I awoke from this sweet discord; and found that
I was alive with death, and found that with living I was dead.]12
12
Torres, Love Poetry in the Spanish Golden Age: Eros, Eris and Empire, p. 168
Rewriting Love in the Renaissance Assignment 3
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Rewriting Love in the Renaissance Assignment 3
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