A Tale Blazed Through Heaven examines developments in the representation of the classical tale of Mars, Venus, and Vulcan in the literature and painting of the Golden Age of Spain (c.1526-1681). Anchored in close analysis of individual primary texts, the five chapters that comprise this study assess how poets and painters breathed new life into the tale inherited from Homer, Ovid, and others, examining some of the ways in which the story of Mars, Venus, and Vulcan was disguised, developed, expanded, mocked, combined with or played off against different subjects, or otherwise modified in order to pique the interest of successive generations of readers and viewers. Each chapter discusses what particular changes and shifts in emphasis reveal about the tale itself, specific renderings, the aims and intentions of individual poets and painters, and the wider context of the literary and visual culture of Early Modern Spain. Discussing a range of poems by both canonical (Garcilaso de la Vega, Luis de Góngora, Lope de Vega, etc.) and less well-known writers (Juan de la Cueva, Alonso de Castillo Solórzano, Salvador Jacinto Polo de Medina, etc.), and culminating in detailed examination of select mythological works by Philip IV's court painter, Diego Velázquez, this book sheds light on questions relating to aspects of classical reception in the Renaissance, the rise of specific poetic styles (epic, mock-epic, burlesque, etc.), the interplay between the sister arts of poetry and painting, and the continual process of imitation and invention that was one of the defining features of the Spanish Golden Age.

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In this anthology, Vincent Barletta, Mark L. Bajus, and Cici Malik treat the Iberian lyric in the late Middle Ages and early modernity as a deeply multilingual, transnational genre that needs to break away from the old essentialist ideas about language, geography, and identity in order to be understood properly. More and more, scholars and students are recognizing the limitations of single-language, nationalist, and period-bound canons and are looking for different ways to approach the study of literature. The Iberian Peninsula is an excellent site for this approach, where the history and politics of the region, along with its creative literature, need to be read and studied together with the way the works were composed by poets and eventually consumed by readers. With a generous selection of more than one hundred poems from thirty-three poets, Dreams of Waking is unique in its coverage of the three main languages—Catalan, Portuguese, and Spanish—and lyrical styles employed by peninsular poets. It contains new translations of canonical poems but also translations of many poems that have never before been edited or translated. Brief headnotes provide essential details of the poets’ lives, and a general introduction by the volume editors shows how the poems and languages fruitfully intersect. With helpful annotations to the poetry, as well as a selected bibliography containing the most important editions and translations from all three of the main Iberian languages, this volume will be an indispensable tool for both specialists and students in comparative literature.

the first time that these sonnets have been brought together in one book translations that are not just accurate guides to the meaning of the originals but also enjoyable sonnets in their own right Offers detailed and incisive critical commentary on each of the poems; a complete and readable introduction.

Humanism and Religion in Early Modern Spain brings together twenty-five essays by renowned historian Terence O’Reilly. The essays examine the interplay of religion and humanism in a series of writings composed in sixteenth-century Spain. It begins by presenting essential background: the coming together during the reign of the Emperor Charles V of Erasmian humanism and various movements of religious reform, some of them heterodox. It then moves on to the reign of Philip II, focusing on the mystical poetry and prose of St John of the Cross. It explores the influence on his writings of his humanist learning – classical, biblical and patristic. The third part of the book concerns a verse-epistle by John’s contemporary, Francisco de Aldana. One chapter presents the text with a parallel version in English, whilst two others trace its debt to Florentine Neoplatonism, particularly the thought of Marsilio Ficino. The final part is devoted to the humanism of the poet and Scripture scholar Luis de León, and specifically to the confluence in his work of biblical and classical motifs. This book is essential reading for scholars and students of early modern Spanish history, as well those interested in literary studies and the history of religion. (CS 1102).

Present scholarly conversations about early European and global modernity have yet to acknowledge fully the significance of Spain and Spanish cultural production. Poetry and ideology in early modern Spain form the backdrop for Imperial Lyric, which seeks to address this shortcoming. Based on readings of representative poems by eight Peninsular writers, Imperial Lyric demonstrates that the lyric was a crucial site for the negotiation of masculine identity as Spain’s noblemen were alternately cajoled and coerced into abandoning their identifications with images of the medieval hero and assuming instead the posture of subjects. The book thus demonstrates the importance of Peninsular letters to our understanding of shifting ideologies of the self, language, and the state that mark watersheds for European and American modernity. At the same time, this book aims to complicate the historicizing turn we have taken in the field of early modern studies by considering a threshold of modernity that was specific to poetry, one that was inscribed in Spanish culture when the genre of lyric poetry attained a certain kind of prestige at the expense of epic. Imperial Lyric breaks striking new ground in the field of early modern studies.