Juan del Encina and Lucas Fernández: Conflicting Attitudes towards the Passion

The spectrum of attitudes towards the Passion in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries ranges between two poles: the emphasis on the suffering humanity of Christ (e.g., Diego de San Pedro's Pasión trobada) and the emphasis on the joy of redemption (e.g., the alumbrados). These two attitudes had social as well as religious resonances. Lucas Fernández' Auto de la pasión is closer to the first. The morbid attention to the details of Christ's torture and death leads to violent attacks on the Jews as perpetrators of Christ's murder, feeding the flames of caste conflict in Castilian society. Encina's Representación a la pasión, while incorporating elements of the first, is closer in spirit and meaning to the second. The play stresses the collective nature of original sin as well as redemption, easing social tensions with its messianic vision of universal brotherhood. (YY-B)