In my work as an early modernist in Mexico and the United States, I am determined to show that scholars and students with various cultural backgrounds can approach foundational literary works of the English canon, such as Shakespeare’s plays.
Publications
Peer-Reviewed Articles
Gutiérrez-Popoca, Emiliano. “Apprentice Spirits and Noble Slaves: Servile Agency and the Limits of Service and Slavery in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.” Renaissance Drama 52, no. 1 (March 2024): 51–79. https://doi.org/10.1086/730210.
This essay explores the unclear boundaries between service and slavery in Prospero’s relationship with Ariel and Caliban. This relationship is informed by social mobility and precarious service in sixteenth-century England, and early modern colonialism. I identify the agency of the player as servant in the theater companies as a response to the racialized commodification of servants in colonial settings. I argue that Ariel and Caliban play central roles within Prospero’s playwrighting project gaining agency from servile positions through their theatrical abilities. I identify a subjectivity that springs from their adaptation to new roles required by their unstable employment.
Gutiérrez-Popoca, Emiliano. “The Independent Parasite: Mosca’s Theatrical Service in Volpone.” Ben Jonson Journal, vol. 29, no. 1, May 2022, pp. 46–64. Edinburgh University Press Journals, https://doi.org/10.3366/bjj.2022.0327.
This article explores the relationship between Volpone and Mosca as a master-servant bond grounded on roleplaying and theatricality. I argue that Mosca’s growing importance as an actor within Volpone’s theatrical schemes for wealth acquisition lead Mosca to envision detachment from his master and to gain an independent self. Mosca’s independence is legally recognized by the Venetian authorities only for a moment in the final act before he is discovered and punished. Notwithstanding its conservative ending, the play reveals paths of advancement for the parasite through deceit and theatricality. In addition, Mosca’s soliloquies reveal an introspective mind that delights in his role of parasite. I relate this introspection to a form of subjectivity arising from the precarious employment of household servants in early modern London, which prompted their adaptation to a variety of roles.
English-Spanish Translation
My publications include translations and introductions to poems by English authors like John Donne and George Herbert into Spanish. I seek to create texts that work as alternative poems, evoking the complexity of the original’s imagery, tone, and effect.
Gutiérrez Popoca, Emiliano. “”El alma en paráfrasis”. El soneto ‘Prayer I’ de George Herbert y su traducción como soneto en español.” Cánones y fugas, el soneto como ejercicio de traducción literaria: teoría y práctica, Gabriel Linares González and Mario Murgia Elizalde (editors), 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/10391/7492
—————————-. “Pequeños mundos de ingenio y arte: traducción y comentario de seis sonetos religiosos de John Donne”. Anuario de Letras Modernas. Vol. 7, 2012. Mexico: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, UNAM. http://ru.ffyl.unam.mx/handle/10391/4235