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Baltasar Fra Molinero
This reedition of chapter 2 of Baltasar Fra-Molinero’s foundational monograph, La imagen de los negros en el teatro del Siglo de Oro, commemorates the thirty-year anniversary of its original publication in 1995 with Siglo XXI Editores. The study surveys comic depictions of Blackness across a wide range of theatrical texts— including comedias, autos sacramentales, entremeses, and dances—examining works by major playwrights like Gil Vicente, Lope de Rueda, Lope de Vega, and Calderón de la Barca, alongside shorter comic pieces by Simón Aguado, Quiñones de Benavente, and anonymous creators. For contextualization, the study engages early modern lexicography, emblem books, medical treatises, and historical accounts of Corpus Christi festivals. Analysis illuminates the comic dimensions of the theatrical device of habla de negros, which marked racial difference with speech that mixed Africanisms with elements from Portuguese and other Iberian languages. The author also identifies several character types including the infantilized Black male; the Black female seeking social advancement; and women of mixed Black and European heritage ( mulatas), who often elicited nuanced treatment. The study also examines how music and dance performances by Black characters reinforced racial stereotypes while also reflecting the social conditions of enslaved Black people in Spanish society.
