Thine and Mine: The Spanish “Golden Age” and Early Modern Studies

Abstract

Don Quixote, having shared the goatherds' rustic meal on his second sally, takes up a handful of acorns and launches into his lecture on the Golden Age: “Dichosa edad y siglos dichosos aquellos a quien los antiguos pusieron nombre de dorados, y no porque en ellos el oro, que en esta nuestra edad de hierro tanto se estima, se alcanzase en aquella venturosa sin fatiga alguna, sino porque entonces los que en ella vivían ignoraban estas dos palabras de tuyo y mío” ‘Blessed the time, and blessed the centuries, called by the ancients the Golden Age—and not because, then, the gold which we in our age of iron so value came to men's hands without effort, but because those who walked the earth in that time knew nothing of those two words, thine and mine.’ Bewildering as his harangue was for the listening goatherds, Don Quixote's introduction invites consideration of the location, ownership, and definition of the Spanish “Golden Age.” These aspects illuminate the challenge the period presents to early modern studies and vice versa.