Divine Providence and Human Morality: The Ironic Perspective of La venganza de Tamar

Abstract

The deuteronomist editors of the book of Samuel provide two narrative perspectives in the points of view of divine providence and individual morality. In La venganza de Tamar Tirso uses the Biblical story of David familiar to the audience yet changes the emphases in order to magnify each of the two narrative perspectives. He alters II Samuel 13 in order to influence the audience's perception of the characters: David, Amón, Tamar and Absalón are all made guilty in part for the crimes committed in the play. The spectator simultaneously perceives not only the two different biblical points of view in the story but also the difference between the biblical story and what is happening on the stage. Tamar is both an enactment of the working of divine providence and a meditation on the human sources of the tragedy.