SOURCE: Abraham, James T. “The Other Speaks: Tirso de Molina's Amazonas en las Indias.” In El arte nuevo de estudiar comedias: Literary Theory and Spanish Golden Age Drama, edited by Barbara Simerka, pp. 143-61. Lewisburg, Penn.: Bucknell University Press, 1996.

In the following essay, Abraham deconstructs Amazonas en las Indias, the second play of Tirso's Pizarro trilogy, in order to demonstrate how the playwright privileges European culture and negates that of Native Americans.

The encounter between Europeans and the native peoples of America provides much material for debate and analysis by scholars in all areas of study. Perhaps no other event in modern history has created more opportunities to evaluate, mostly from a European perspective, the culture and values of Western European nations during the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. Spurred by economic, religious and social pressure, Europe became obsessed with expanding its empire and with the inhabitants of...