Ana Garriga, co-host of the podcast Las Hijas de Felipe alongside Carmen Urbita, has published a new essay titled Oro líquido. Desorden literario, Alquimia y crisis en la España del siglo XVII (Alianza) to combat what she describes as an "ugly imperial and monolithic" image of the Baroque period. The work explores the intricate connections between economics, literature, and politics in 17th-century Spain and its American territories, moving beyond a Eurocentric perspective to highlight the mutual influence between the metropolis and the colonies.
Garriga's research was sparked by a fascination with how a century filled with copper coins managed to remain semantically attached to gold. This inquiry led her to discover promotional pamphlets for "drinkable gold," a pseudo-alchemical remedy that revolutionized the 16th century. She argues that viewing the economic crisis and literary experiments of the era through the conceptual lens of alchemical transmutations makes these phenomena significantly more understandable. In her view, when money loses its intrinsic value, language gains value because words ultimately come for free.
The essay details a specific economic turning point in 1602, when King Philip III issued a royal decree ordering that all vellón coinage be minted without any silver alloy. For the first time, coins possessed no intrinsic value whatsoever. Simultaneously, a more gradual linguistic shift occurred; Garriga notes that reading Garcilaso de la Vega followed by Góngora's Soledades reveals a "earthquake" that permanently altered how words are understood and defined.
Alchemy in the 17th century is presented not merely as a scientific pursuit but as a broad conceptual category encompassing anything that played with metals or passed one thing off as another. Garriga observed an overwhelming insistence on alchemical metaphors in works like Lope de Vega's La Dorotea and the papers surrounding the Góngora controversy. She posits that alchemy became a perfect conceptual apparatus for thinking about language changes, the malleability of words, and the unpredictable values inherent in literary work.
The role of America is central to Garriga's thesis, asserting that the Golden Age would not exist without it. She challenges the traditional view of unidirectional cultural transmission from metropolis to colony, arguing instead that America acted as a stimulant for the language, life, and knowledge of the metropolis. The reconfiguration of Spanish was determined by the shock of contact with the metallic, botanical, animal, and human reality of the Indies, leading to an awareness that words were incapable of naming reality with precision.
Garriga draws a parallel between the 17th century and the present, citing philosopher Michel Foucault's observation that gold receives its value from its pure function as a sign. She suggests that if gold is seen more as a sign than a substance, the Golden Age gains in richness and depth. While acknowledging the pessimistic view of transhistorical bridges between crises, she offers a lesson from 17th-century authors: when money devalues, language revalues.
The essay also examines the literary confrontation between Góngora and Lope de Vega as representing two opposing philosophies regarding the work of language. Garriga contrasts Lope's plain language, which avoids artificial semantic or syntactic tricks, with Góngora's evolutionary, changing, and untamed approach. This distinction highlights how alchemy was used by major authors not just for parody, but to explore the falseness central to Baroque culture and the transformative power of literary creation.
Sources: elDiario.es.