"This anthology of "new" approches to literary study takes its name from Lope de Vega's Arte nuevo de hacer comedias. Like Lope's poem on poetics, this volume also operates as a defense, in the sense that many of the articles include a defense of the usefulness of literary theory in general, and of their chosen approach in particular, for enriching the study of the comedia." "In these essays, it is the not quite new art of "estudiar" rather than "hacer" drama that is the central concern, the contributors defending theoretical innovations approximately twenty years after James Parr, in the pages of Hispania, issued his challenge to Hispanists to update their approach. This volume, which combines innovative scholarship with the "metacriticism" that many critics advocate in all literary study, is directed both the students of literature and to scholars who wish to expand their knowledge of the many different areas of theoretical inquiry that comediantes are currently exploring."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

By engaging in dialogue the voices of both male and female writers who participated both in the broader courtly love tradition and in the theatrical production of early modern Spain, this book demonstrates that all representations of desire are gender-inflected.

A panoramic, state-of-the-art handbook destined to chart a course for future work in the field of early modern Hispanic theater studies. It begins in the closet with an essay on Celestina as closet drama and moves out into the court to explore intersections with courtly love. An essay on the comedia and the classics demonstrates this genre’s firm grounding in the classical tradition, despite Lope de Vega’s famous protestations to the contrary. Distinct but related genres such as the autos sacramentales and the entremeses also make an appearance. The traditional themes of honor and wife-murder share the stage with less familiar topics like the incorporation of animals into performance. This volume covers the urban space of the city in Spain and Portugal as well as uncharted territories in the New World and Japan. Essays on emblems and the picaresque round out this anthology, along with studies of theatrical representations of early modern innovations in science and technology. The book concludes with two different psychoanalytical approaches, focused on melancholy and Lacanian tragedy, respectively. This collection incorporates the work of younger scholars along with established names in the field to synthesize the most exciting recent work on the comedia and related forms of early modern Hispanic theatrical production. Contributors include: Ignacio Arellano, Frederick de Armas, Henry Sullivan, Edward Friedman, A. Robert Lauer, Manuel Delgado, Adrienne Martín, Enrique García Santo Tomás, Matthew Stroud, Teresa Scott Soufas, Enrique Fernández, María Mercedes Carrión, Robert Bayliss, Ted Bergman, Cory Reed, Maryrica Lottman, Christina Lee, and Enrique Duarte.

In Knowing Subjects, Barbara Simerka uses an emergent field of literary study-cognitive cultural studies-to delineate new ways of looking at early modern Spanish literature and to analyze cognition and social identity in Spain at the time. Simerka analyzes works by Cervantes and Gracían, as well as picaresque novels and comedias. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, she brings together several strands of cognitive theory and details the synergies among neurological, anthropological, and psychological discoveries that provide new insights into human cognition. Her analysis draws on Theory of Mind, the cognitive activity that enables humans to predict what others will do, feel, think, and believe. Theory of Mind looks at how primates, including humans, conceptualize the thoughts and rationales behind other people's actions and use those insights to negotiate social relationships. This capacity is a necessary precursor to a wide variety of human interactions-both positive and negative-from projecting and empathizing to lying and cheating. Simerka applies this theory to texts involving courtship or social advancement, activities in which deception is most prevalent-and productive. In the process, she uncovers new insights into the comedia (especially the courtship drama) and several other genres of literature (including the honor narrative, the picaresque novel, and the courtesy manual). She studies the construction of gendered identity and patriarchal norms of cognition-contrasting the perspectives of canonical male writers with those of recently recovered female authors such as María de Zayas and Ana Caro. She examines the construction of social class, intellect, and honesty, and in a chapter on Don Quixote, cultural norms for leisure reading at the time. She shows how early modern Spanish literary forms reveal the relationship between an urbanizing culture, unstable subject positions and hierarchies, and social anxieties about cognition and cultural transformation.

Antología de escritoras españolas de la Edad Media y el Siglo de Oro ofrece una selección de obras literarias de ocho escritoras medievales, renacentistas y barrocas. Cada capítulo presenta una extensa introducción sobre la autora y su obra. Esta antología contribuye a mejorar el conocimiento de los estudiantes sobre la lengua, la literatura y la cultura españolas, al igual que ofrece una lectura desde la perspectiva de género de estas escritoras. Acompañada de textos originales modernizados al castellano actual, notas aclaratorias, actividades y una extensa y actualizada bibliografía, Antología de escritoras españolas de la Edad Media y el Siglo de Oro muestra la evolución de voces femeninas a lo largo de estos siglos. Las actividades sugeridas para cada capítulo ayudan a exponer y a reflexionar sobre la relevancia cultural que en la actualidad tienen los argumentos que estas mujeres proponent en sus trabajos. Esta antología será de gran utilidad para estudiantes de literatura y cultura españolas de niveles de grado y graduado e, igualmente, para los estudiantes hispanohablantes de literature comparada y de estudios de género.

The counter-epic is a literary style that developed in reaction to imperialist epic conventions as a means of scrutinizing the consequences of foreign conquest of dominated peoples. It also functioned as a transitional literary form, a bridge between epic narratives of military heroics and novelistic narratives of commercial success. In Discourses of Empire, Barbara Simerka examines the representation of militant Christian imperialism in early modern Spanish literature by focusing on this counter-epic discourse. Simerka is drawn to literary texts that questioned or challenged the imperial project of the Hapsburg monarchy in northern Europe and the New World. She notes the variety of critical ideas across the spectrum of diplomatic, juridical, economic, theological, philosophical, and literary writings, and she argues that the presence of such competing discourses challenges the frequent assumption of a univocal, hegemonic culture in Spain during the imperial period. Simerka is especially alert to the ways in which different discourses—hegemonic, residual, emergent—coexist and compete simultaneously in the mediation of power. Discourses of Empire offers fresh insight into the political and intellectual conditions of Hapsburg imperialism, illuminating some rarely examined literary genres, such as burlesque epics, history plays, and indiano drama. Indeed, a special feature of the book is a chapter devoted specifically to indiano literature. Simerka's thorough working knowledge of contemporary literary theory and her inclusion of American, English, and French texts as points of comparison contribute much to current studies of Spanish Golden Age literature.

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