‘Covering the Skeletons with Flesh and Blood’ : Spanish Golden Age Drama in English and Dutch Nineteenth-Century Literary Histories

Abstract

Many current views about the early modern period are still determined by nineteenth-century interpretations. In this period national identities and historical and literary canons started to get forged, consolidating the Golden Age as the key era in the national-historical consciousness. The Spanish Golden Age was identified as the core of the Spanish literary canon and singled out by foreign scholars as the perfect mirror of Spanishness, in all its Hispanophilic and Hispanophobic connotations. This chapter delves into the legacy of Spanish cultural influence at the time of the forging of national dramatic canons. It explores how Spanish Golden Age literary influence is negotiated within England and the Netherlands and linked to their own national dramatic traditions.