Political Violence and Sacrifice in Lope de Vega’s El bastardo Mudarra.

Abstract

This article examines Lope de Vega’s El bastardo Mudarra as a symbolic representation of political violence, mimetic rivalry and sacrificial mechanisms within the sociopolitical context of Spain’s Golden Age. Methodologically, it is a critical-interpretive study grounded in comparative textual analysis and theoretical frameworks drawn from René Girard (mimetic desire and sacrifice) and Georges Bataille (sacrality, consumption and ritual violence), along with historical scholarship regarding the tensions between Old Christians, conversos and moriscos. The main objective is to demonstrate how Lope’s play dramatizes the political and ethnic tensions of early modern Spain—particularly issues related to purity of blood, interreligious coexistence and the national disillusionment following imperial decline—and how these tensions are mediated through narrative structures of sacrifice and reconciliation. The study shows that the conflict between Castilian clans operates as a form of mimetic rivalry escalating into sacrificial violence (the slaughter of the seven Infantes), which ultimately restores social order. The scope of the article is to highlight the symbolic role of Mudarra, the hybrid Moor-Christian protagonist, as an embodiment of political and cultural reconciliation. His mixed lineage represents the possibility of overcoming rigid ethnic divisions and imagining a more inclusive collective identity. Consequently, the play is read as Lope de Vega’s theatrical proposal for recognizing Spain’s inherent multicultural composition and for resolving internal conflict through a sacrificial and cathartic framework aligned with Girardian theory.