The Estoria de los godos is a paraphrase and summary of the Latin text DeRebus Hispaniae, or Historia Gothica, written by Archbishop don Rodrigo Ximenez de Rada and completed in 1243. The creation of the Estoria de los godos was prompted by a genuine desire to afford the less learned inhabitants of Castile the opportunity to know more about the history of their culture and civilization. It served as a model for historiographers of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This etymological study of all the common names occurring in the text will serve to facilitate the reading comprehension of those interested in Spanish history who may have difficulty understanding and interpreting the language of the 13th century.

This study explores the meaning and importance of flamenco in the works of two of the most important and influential figures in 20th-century Spanish culture, the poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca and the film-maker Carlos Saura. Lorca and Saura shared a fascination for flamenco as a medium for the existential ideology of the marginalized and disenfranchised and this work evaluates the development of these themes through a close, contextual study of their works, which are linked explicitly by Saura's film adaptation of Lorca's Bodas de sangre and, more profoundly, by their use of flamenco to express ideas of sexual and political marginalization in pre- and post- Francoist Spain respectively. The study demonstrates that an understanding of the symbolism, visual style, characters, themes and performance system of flamenco is key to a greater understanding of the social, sexual, political and existential themes in the works of Lorca and Saura.

While many scholars have approached Don Juan in terms of myth, this study argues for the understanding of Don Juan as a discourse of gender relations, changing over time. Using examples from the plays by Tirso de Molina, Moliere, Mozart, Zorrila, Shaw and Frisch, it argues that Don Juan's entire identity as a male individual is constructed around women, but that over time - reflecting a growing sense of crisis in the male individual - the women appear more and more pathological in their desire for Don Juan. In contrast with early modern works where women fend for themselves in a positive manner, the heroines of later Don Juan works actively prey on the individual male.This book argues that these changes in approach to the female characters, and, in tandem, the developing identity of the male protagonist, suggest Don Juan as dischronic discourse rather than myth.

Th author explains that his study is an inquiry into how theorists, critics, and artists--especially writers--have used the mirror as a metaphor. Following a theoretical discussion concerning material and figurative mirrors, Schlig (Spanish, Agnes College) examines this metaphor from various angles--art as mirror, mirrors in art, mirrors as art. He then traces the importance of mirrors through the major aesthetic movements of 18th- and 19th-century Spain, including Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism and Naturalism, and the Avant-Garde. Annotation : 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).