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enríquez, isabel
ENRÍQUEZ (Henríques), ISABEL (fl. 1660), Spanish poet.
According to Miguel de *Barrios, she was “famous in the
Academies of Madrid for her rare talent.” In 1636 Isaac *Cardozo
dedicated to her his Panegýrieo... del color verde. At some
date after this she fled to Amsterdam, where she openly professed
Judaism. It was here that she was befriended by Barrios,
who dedicated two poems to her in his Aplauso métrico
(1673). In his Relación de los poetas, Barrios cites a décima of
hers and describes her as the author of a volume of verse. Together
with Isabel *Correa, Isabel Enríquez is reputed to have
been a member of Belmonte’s Academia de los Sitibundos in
Amsterdam.
Bibliography: M. de Barrios, Relación de los Poetas y Escriptores
Españoles de la Nación Judayca (1683), 56; Kayserling, Bibl,
52; Brugmans-Frank, 455.
[Kenneth R. Scholberg]
ENRÍQUEZ (Henriquez) BASURTO, DIEGO (b. 1621),
*Marrano poet, son of Antonio Enríquez *Gomez. Probably
born in Spain, he lived with his father in Rouen, France, and
later moved to the Low Countries. Apparently while in Antwerp,
Enríquez was the target of a vicious lampoon written
in 1664. Enríquez wrote a sonnet in praise of his father’s Siglo
pitagórico. A longer poem, El Triunpho de la Virtud y Paciencia
de Job, dedicated to Anne of Austria, employs a variety of
verse forms and is divided into six “visions,” with intercalated
portions of the Psalms (Rouen, 1649).
Bibliography: Roth, Marranos, 246, 333; Kayserling, Bibl,
26; Barrera, Catálogo del teatro antiguo español (1860), 136; I.S. Revah,
Spinoza et le Dr. Juan de Prado (1959), 24, 74–76.
[Kenneth R. Scholberg]
ENRÍQUEZ (or Henríquez) GÓMEZ, ANTONIO (pseudonym
of Enrique Enriquez de Paz; 1601–1663), Spanish playwright
and poet. Born in Segovia Cuenca, he was the son of a
Portuguese Converso family that had been persecuted by the
Inquisition for several generations. From 1577 the family began
to practice Judaism in secret. They kept the Sabbath and
festivals, observed some of the laws and customs pertaining to
kashrut, and performed certain acts that were distinctly Jewish.
His grandfather Diego de Mora was arrested for judaizing
in 1588 and died in an Inquisition prison. Some members of
the family escaped to France where they openly practiced Judaism.
His father Diego Enríquez de Mora was arrested and
tried in 1624 and then left for France. Once his Christian wife
died, his father married a second wife, this time from a Converso
family. Antonio lived in Cuenca, Seville, and Madrid.
Together with other Converso writers and poets, Antonio was
at the court of Felipe IV. Antonio, whose mother was an old
Christian, also married an old Christian but raised his children
as Jews. His literary career was a great success. He wrote
about 40 plays and many prose and poetry pieces. For purely
racist reasons his literary work was almost totally ignored until
recent times. His works bear clear testimony of his “Jewish”
identity. Gómez had a distinguished military career, rising to
the rank of captain and receiving the decoration of Knight of
the Order of San Miguel. Together with his son, Diego Enríquez
Basurto (who also became a well-known author), Enríquez
Gómez left Spain in about 1636 and lived for a time
in France, in Bordeaux and Rouen, where most of his books
were published. He later moved to Holland, where he reverted
openly to Judaism; he was symbolically punished in absentia
at an auto-da-fé in Seville on April 13, 1660. Enríquez Gómez
felt very bitter that he had to live away in a country where his
mother tongue, in which he produced masterpieces, was not
spoken. For some unknown reason, he returned to Spain in
around 1649 and lived in Seville under a false name. He intended
to continue to live as a Jew and had plans to move to
Naples. He continued to write using a pen name Fernando de
Zárato y Castronovo. For more than ten years he was able to
remain incognito. His real identity was discovered because of
the drama he wrote. The Inquisition examined the background
of the playwright whose work aroused its suspicion. In 1660
he was burnt in effigy. He was arrested in 1661 and was thrown
into prison where his life ended in 1663.
Enríquez Gómez was a lyric, dramatic, and epic poet,
as well as a noted satirist. His major works include the Academias
morales de las musas, dedicated to Anne of Austria
(Bordeaux, 1642), and El siglo pitagórico y vida de don Gregorio
Guadaña (Rouen, 1644). The latter, a novel in verse and
prose, presents a series of 14 transformations of a soul in different
bodies, satirizing various classes of society. Enríquez
Góez also wrote Luis dado de Dios a Luis y Ana (Paris, 1645),
dedicated to Louis XIII of France; Torre de Babilonia (Rouen,
1649); and a biblical epic about Samson, El Sansón nazareno
(Rouen, 1656). In the prologue to this last work, Gómez refers
to his authorship of 22 plays. These are mainly concerned with
themes of honor, love, and friendship and half are based on
biblical subjects. In many of his works Enríquez Gómez very
strongly criticized the Inquisition. Enríquez Gómez composed
a ballad dedicated to the martyr Lope de Vega (Juda el Creyente),
who was burned at Valladolid on July 25, 1644.
Revah’s research has clarified many dark points in Gómez’s
biography and introduced his literary creation to the
wider academic and literary world.
Bibliography: Kayserling, Bibl, 49; J. Caro Baroja, Judíos en
la España moderna y contemporánea, 3 (1961), index; H.V. Besso, Dramatic
Literature of the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam in the XVIIth and
XVIIIth Centuries (1947), index; C.A. de la Barrera y Leirado, Catálogo
bibliográfico y biográfico del teatro antiguo español (1860), 134–42;
Roth, Marranos, 246, 333; Revah, in: rej, 118 (1959–60), 50–51, 71–72;
idem, in: REJ, 131 (1962), 83–168; M. Gendreau-Massaloux, in: REJ,
136 (1977), 368–87; J. Antonio Cid, in: Homenaje a Julio Caro Baroja
(1978), 271–300; L.R. Torgal, in: Biblos, 55 (1979), 197–232; J. Rauchwarger,
in: REJ, 138 (1979), 69–87; A. Márquez, in: Nueva Revista de
Filología Hispánica, 30 (1881), 513–33; G.F. Dille, in: Papers on Language
and Literature, 14 (1978), 11–21; idem, Antonio Enríquez Gómez
(1988); idem, in: Pe’amim, 46–47 (1991), 222–34; A. Márquez, Literatura
e Inquisición en España (1478–1834) (1980), 113–20; T. Oelman,
in: Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 60 (1983), 201–9; idem, Marrano Poets
of the Seventeenth Century: An Anthology of the Poetry of João Pinto
Delgado, Antonio Enríquez Gómez, and Miguel de Barrios (1982); C.H.
446 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6