Within the rich tradition of Spanish theater lies an unexplored dimension reflecting themes from classical mythology. Through close readings of selected plays from early modern and twentieth-century Spanish literature with plots or characters derived from the Greco-Roman tradition, Michael Kidd shows that the concept of desire plays a pivotal role in adapting myth to the stage in each of several historical periods. In Stages of Desire, Kidd offers a new way of looking at the theater in Spain. Reviewing the work of playwrights from Juan del Encina to Luis Riaza, he suggests that desire constitutes a central element in a large number of Greco-Roman myths and shows how dramatists have exploited this to resituate ancient narratives within their own artistic and ideological horizons. Among the works he analyzes are Timoneda's Tragicomedia llamada Filomena, Castro's Dido y Eneas, and Unamuno's Fedra. Kidd explores how seventeenth-century playwrights were constrained by the conventions of the newly formed national theater, and how in the twentieth century mythological desire was exploited by playwrights engaged in upsetting the melodramatic conventions of the entrenched bourgeois theater. He also examines the role of desire both in the demythification of prominent classical heroes during the Franco regime and in the cultural critique of institutionalized discrimination in the current democratic period. Stages of Desire is an original and broad-ranging study that highlights both change and continuity in Spanish theater. By elegantly combining theory, literary history, and close textual analysis, Kidd demonstrates both the resilience of Greco-Roman myths and the continuing vitality of the Spanish stage.

Spain in the twentieth century gave birth to an array of astounding artistic and literary talent, including the passionately iconoclastic writer Federico Garcia Lorca. But his works were ill received in the homophobic atmosphere of institutionalized Spanish criticism. Because of this atmosphere, even today's critics have effectively marginalized and disavowed intimations of homo-affectivity and homoeroticism in the great Spanish works. This book first appeared in Spain in 1991 as counter-discourse against those prevailing ideological structures. Before its appearance, no significant work had focused on the position of Spanish culture towards homosexuality or on how homosexuality could affect the works of canonical writers. Engaging with homosexuality as an imperative source of meaning in artistic work, this volume rigorously studies the works of Federico Garcia Lorca and several of his marginalized homosexual contemporaries, including Emilio Prados, Luis Cernuda, Juan Gil-Albert, and Salvador Dali. The study relies on the textual evidence presented by these authors to define the homosexual culture as one plagued by the realities of rejection, fear of the law, self-doubts, the lack of an authorized language with which to convey emotions, the awareness of disgust around the individual, the need to accept marginality to find sexual or emotional satisfaction, and the knowledge of one's own social divergence, all of which have an enormous influence on any artist's work. With this new and updated translation, this work offers English-speaking readers the opportunity to focus on formal aspects of literary expressions of homosexuality.

This ebook is a selective guide designed to help scholars and students of Islamic studies find reliable sources of information by directing them to the best available scholarly materials in whatever form or format they appear from books, chapters, and journal articles to online archives, electronic data sets, and blogs. Written by a leading international authority on the subject, the ebook provides bibliographic information supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consult and editorial commentary to make it clear how the cited sources are interrelated related. This ebook is a static version of an article from Oxford Bibliographies Online: Renaissance and Reformation, a dynamic, continuously updated, online resource designed to provide authoritative guidance through scholarship and other materials relevant to the study of European history and culture between the 14th and 17th centuries. Oxford Bibliographies Online covers most subject disciplines within the social science and humanities, for more information visit www.oxfordbibliographies.com.

This ebook is a selective guide designed to help scholars and students of Islamic studies find reliable sources of information by directing them to the best available scholarly materials in whatever form or format they appear from books, chapters, and journal articles to online archives, electronic data sets, and blogs. Written by a leading international authority on the subject, the ebook provides bibliographic information supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consult and editorial commentary to make it clear how the cited sources are interrelated related. This ebook is a static version of an article from Oxford Bibliographies Online: Renaissance and Reformation, a dynamic, continuously updated, online resource designed to provide authoritative guidance through scholarship and other materials relevant to the study of European history and culture between the 14th and 17th centuries. Oxford Bibliographies Online covers most subject disciplines within the social science and humanities, for more information visit www.oxfordbibliographies.com.

In this comprehensive and well-grounded study, Birgitta Mark examines the idea of mysticism, exploring the evidence and possible explanations for mystical experiences, including the latest scientific theories of consciousness and neuronal activity. As a case-study she explores in-depth the writings and later scholarly interpretations of the mystical experiences of St John of the Cross, the 16th Century Spanish philosopher who sought to transcend mere physical existence through meditation and hardship . This well researched book will be of great interest to scholars of religion and psychology and others who wish to learn more about mystic states and the people who have sought to achieve them throughout history.