An anthology of Spanish poetry, drama, fiction, legends, and religious prose from the twelfth to the mid-seventeenth century. Intended for English-speaking students of Spanish. Includes glossary, notes on vocabulary, and brief introductions to the writers.

This rich sampling of Spanish poetry, prose, and drama includes more than seventy selections from the works of more than forty writers, from the anonymous author of the great medieval epic The Poem of the Cid to such 20th-century masters as Miguel de Unamuno. The original Spanish text of each work appears with an excellent English translation on the facing page. The anthology begins with carefully selected passages from such medieval classics as The Book of Good Love by the Archpriest of Hita and Spain's first great prose work, the stories of Count Lucanor by Juan Manuel. Works by writers of the Spanish Renaissance follow, among them poems by the Marqués de Santillana and excerpts from the great dialogue novel La Celestina by Fernando de Rojas. Spain's Golden age, ca. 1550-1650, an era which produced its great writers, is represented by the mystical poems of St. Teresa, passages from Cervantes' Don Quixote and scenes from Tirso de Molina's The Love-Rogue, the drama that introduced the character of Don Juan to the world, along with other well-known works of the period. A cavalcade of stirring poems, plays and prose selections represent Spain's rare literary achievements of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The translations were chosen for their accuracy and fidelity to the originals. Among the translators are Lord Byron, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edward FitzGerald and John Masefield. As a treasury of masterly writing, as a guide for the student who wants to improve his or her language skills and as a compact survey of Spanish literature, this excellent anthology will provide hours of pleasure and fruitful study.

Naked and Alone is a comparative analysis of early modern captivity narratives that chronicle the harrowing experiences of a few Iberians and one Hessian in the New World during the century of exploration and colonization. Included among them are the tales of Jerónimo de Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca , Juan Ortiz, Hans Stade, and Francisco Núñez de Pineda y Bascuñán. After years of captivity that stripped the unfortunate men of their cultural identity, they eventually reunited with their countrymen to relate and record tales that rivaled the heroic epics. The authors thus provided most Europeans with a first glimpse into exotic New World societies considered strange and perhaps even diabolical by the colonizers. At the same time, most contemporaries used the narratives as justification for imperial prerogatives although the captives themselves came away with a deeper understanding of and appreciation for their Indian captors. Although considered by some early historians as reliable texts, the captivity narratives are rejected by this author as historically accurate depictions of the experiences—faulty memories, contemporary myth, and the authors’ subjectivity greatly impeded the veracity. He instead argues that the texts are cultural artifacts that offer useful insight to the mentalities of the age. In order to construct a histoire des mentalities, the author incorporates anthropological perspectives of myth and employs textual/contextual analysis to unlock the deeper meanings often obscured by the literary imagery. What results is an interpretation that aids understanding of sixteenth-century peoples and societies, and of the post-colonial American cultures most directly influenced by them.