Golden Age Literature Research Articles

The rogue in African literature: trickster or pícaro?

A lot of African fiction has developed characters that have been often classified by scholars as trickster figures, linking them to the widespread seminal characters of the oral traditions of numerous societies. This often tends to be an oversimplification and this study looks to consider a more specific set of characteristics of literary tricksters by comparing them to the related figure of the pícaro, as it originates in Spanish Golden Age literature.

Idoya Puig and Karl McLaughlin, eds. Spanish Golden Age Texts in the Twenty-First Century: Teaching the Old Through the New; Alba Carmona. Las reescrituras fílmicas de la comedia nueva: Un siglo en la gran pantalla

Idoya Puig and Karl McLaughlin, eds. <i>Spanish Golden Age Texts in the Twenty-First Century: Teaching the Old Through the New</i>; Alba Carmona. <i>Las reescrituras fílmicas de la comedia nueva: Un siglo en la gran pantalla</i>

El muerto disimulado/Presumed Dead

El muerto disimulado/Presumed Dead

The Nature of Hate and the Hatred of Nature in Hispanic Literatures by Beatriz Rivera-Barnes

Reviewed by: The Nature of Hate and the Hatred of Nature in Hispanic Literatures by Beatriz Rivera-Barnes William Flores Rivera-Barnes, Beatriz. The Nature of Hate and the Hatred of Nature in Hispanic Literatures. Lexington Books, 2021. Pp. 235. ISBN 978-1-498-59648-0. The Nature of Hate and the Hatred of Nature in Hispanic Literatures is an impressive multidisciplinary collection of eleven insightful chapters that converge on the unifying themes of hate and ecophobia in major literary and cinematic works produced in the Spanish-speaking world. The first part of the book contains three chapters related to the Iberian world, while the second part encompasses eight chapters referring to Latin American film and literature. The introduction provides a rich discussion on ecocritical theory that includes Simon C. Estok’s view on ecophobia and a synthesis of Timothy Morton’s theory of dark ecology, to help the reader understand the ecocritical approximation of the book. Furthermore, the introduction provides a valuable academic discussion on what hate and the hatred of nature are, while using a historiographical approach that includes an examination of biblical narratives, medieval events and literature, and current ecocatastrophes. For those interested in Spanish Golden Age literature, the first chapter investigates psycho-philosophical elements in Fernando de Roja’s La Celestina. The chapter presents hate as an intrinsic component of the characters’ self, being generated by love in the form of an excessively manifested passion. Concurrently, the second chapter explores the hate that comes from intimacy as portrayed in Lope de Vega’s La creación del Mundo, El robo de Dina, Fuenteovejuna, and El castigo sin venganza. The chapter highlights how these adaptations of the stories of Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Amnon raping Tamar, or the rape of Dinah exemplify the propagation of hate through generations. The third chapter studies Miguel de Unamuno’s Abel Sánchez, a work based on the biblical story of Cain and Abel. This chapter provides a reading of that book as a representation of the hate that comes from the God of the Old Testament, human hate, and the resulting curse of nature. By examining narrative techniques that include stream of consciousness and introspective mono-dialogues, chapter three highlights that hate results from intimacy and is catalyzed by an envy that consumes, devours, and destroys humans and their natural environment. Utilizing an eclectic approach, the fourth chapter studies a variety of cinematic and literary texts that describe Lope de Aguirre’s search for El Dorado and Cabeza de Vaca’s foundering in the Florida Everglades. The chapter examines films including Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, Wrath of God, Carlos Saura’s El Dorado, Roland Joffe’s The Mission, Nicolás Echevarría’s Cabeza de Vaca, Icíar Bollaín’s También la Lluvia, and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, in addition to literary works such as Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Cabeza de Vaca’s Chronicle of the Narvaez Expedition, Rivera’s La vorágine, and a selection of jungle tales written by Horacio Quiroga. This chapter successfully examines and portrays these works as “doomed expeditions” that reflect hatred for nature in an existing, created, or re-created form. The fifth chapter explores hate while examining Alonso Carrió’s Lazarillo de ciegos caminantes, and Ernesto Guevara’s Diarios de motocicleta and Otra vez. This chapter is a pleasure to read as it presents, in rich narrative style, how these literary works can be juxtaposed while analyzing journeys that explore the Latin American reality of corruption and abuse. Rivera-Barnes connects the corruption and exploitation from colonial times as presented in Carrió’s Lazarillo with the abuses of neocolonialism exposed in Che Guevara’s narratives to provide a canvas of the continuity of colonialism and its foundational hatred of indigenous peoples and their natural environment. Furthermore, in the case of Che Guevara’s accounts, hatred is also examined as a tool to fight oppression. [End Page 149] Using a historical approach, the sixth chapter studies twentieth-century narratives written by Alejo Carpentier, Manuel Zapata Olivella, and Enrique Buenaventura, to explore literary representations of hatred that portray the 1791 rebellion in Haiti and the making of Haiti...

Lyric Complicity: Poetry and Readers in the Golden Age of Russian Literature by Daria Khitrova

Reviewed by: Lyric Complicity: Poetry and Readers in the Golden Age of Russian Literature by Daria Khitrova Elena Pedigo Clark Daria Khitrova. Lyric Complicity: Poetry and Readers in the Golden Age of Russian Literature. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2019. x + 296 pp. ISBN 978-0299322106. Daria Khitrova's book Lyric Complicity: Poetry and Readers in the Golden Age of Russian Literature provides a fascinating new perspective on the heavily-studied era of early nineteenth-century Russian literature. By combining close reading and cultural background with "historical pragmatics," or the study of what people used poetry for at the time it was written, as her methodological basis, Khitrova is able to show how poetry influenced its readership and vice versa. She argues that, rather than there being a strict line between readers and poets in that period, Golden Age poets often wrote their poems in order to create a particular effect in the "real world," whether as album verse, love declaration, or political statement. Readers, meanwhile, participated actively in the production of poetry by memorizing it, copying it, circulating it, and recreating their own versions of particularly felicitous lines. This approach emphasizes the living, interactive nature of the poetry of the era, explains the rise of the lighter forms of verse that took place during the first three decades of the nineteenth century, and gives a clearer picture of how it was integrated into (high) society. The book is divided into two parts: "Functions and Uses," which covers how verse was used in different situations, either by the original poet or by the readers who appropriated the verses for their own ends; and "One, Two, Many: To Whom Poems Speak," which examines the uses of pronouns and modes of address in lyric poetry. It is concluded by "The Art of Epilogue: Critique of the Golden Age in Eugene Onegin," which describes how Pushkin tried to break free of the reader-poet interdependence of the time, instead attempting to achieve poetic independence. Although the book is by necessity fairly Pushkin-centric, it also includes numerous works by other significant authors of the time, such as Konstantin Batyushkov, Vasily Zhukovsky, Denis Davydov, Anton Del´vig, Pyotr Vyazemsky, and Yevgeny Baratynsky. This breadth of focus provides a rich idea of what the literary milieu of the time was like, and shows the interaction between the main literary figures of the day and how that was instrumental in the development of their poetry. The combination of close reading of individual works with an examination of their intended and actual uses—as gleaned from letters, diary entries, margin notes, and so on—gives interesting background to the production and reception of what have become canonical works of Russian poetry. [End Page 197] An example of Khitrova's approach is the discussion of how Sofia Del´vig, wife of the poet Anton Del´vig, used Baratynsky's poem "Dissuasion" ("Ne iskushai menia bez nuzhdy…"), which had become a popular song, as part of her affair with Alexander Vulf. Khitrova traces the development of the affair, as outlined in the participants' letters and diaries, and how "Dissuasion," itself a "post-love" elegy, was used by the couple to covertly express their feelings and play love games. This is followed by a close reading of "Dissuasion," with particular attention paid to the use of semantics and word roots in order to create a sense of ambiguity that allowed the lovers to appropriate it for their own various interpretations. This dual lens through which Khitrova examines the poem gives fresh meaning both to the poem itself and to the circumstances around its original reception. Similar readings are performed on other significant works of the time. Of particular interest is her interpretation of Pushkin's "Vol´nost" and Eugene Onegin, and how Pushkin used these works to set out his own poetic course, one that emphasized artistic independence over author-reader interaction. Lyric Complicity is a highly specialized book intended for a specialist audience, but despite the dense and scholarly topic, it is a pleasure to read with an engaging writing style. Researchers of any facet of Golden Age literature will find it interesting, but its greatest utility may be...

Avatares de lo invisible: Espacio y subjetividad en los siglos de oro by Luis F. Avilés

Reviewed by: Avatares de lo invisible: Espacio y subjetividad en los siglos de oro by Luis F. Avilés Aliza Levenson (bio) and Ana Laguna (bio) Luis F. Avilés. Avatares de lo invisible: Espacio y subjetividad en los siglos de oro. Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert, 2017. 228 pp. ISBN: 978-84-16922-04-8. Luis Avilés's title, Avatares de lo invisible, alludes to the wide range of figurative and literal spaces that manifest their weight in the fluid subjectivities (racial, ethnic, and gendered) portrayed by Spanish Golden Age literature. If some loci are unsurprising in this spatial inquiry—the house, the court, the battlefield—the nuanced analysis of how selected texts position their subjects existentially, socially, and politically results in new and refreshing revelations. Avilés illustrates the experiential consequences of these spatial appropriations, demonstrating how both physical spaces and invisible liminalities shape literary characters and topoi in the early modern cultural tradition. The interwoven relationship between self and space is revealed in the idea of "amor distante y de oídas," explored in the first chapter. Avilés reads texts like Ibn Hazm de Córdoba's El Collar de la paloma, Razón de Amor, and Don Quijote, highlighting a spatially mediated concept of love that recalls classical referents like Cicero's De amicitia. In the second chapter, Avilés leaves love behind to focus on the view of the court presented by Antonio Guevara in his Menosprecio de corte y alabanza de aldea (1539). Here, he deconstructs the idea of self-fashioning through a granular exploration of how the court's public and private spaces determine the internal and external selves of courtly subjects, who are painfully aware of the official processes and "invisible" machinations that might approve of, support, or betray them. For Avilés, the weight of this pressured awareness is akin to a yoke, un yugo, that severely limits the subject's freedom of movement. Avilés reads a similar environment in Guevara's idea of aldea: an external space almost as threatening to one's internal self as the court, despite the apparently greater liberties that this rural escape affords. In his third chapter, Avilés complicates the idea of an external and "prescriptive" space of conflict by focusing on the Christian and Moorish frontier of Granada, which he reads as a hybrid space shaped as much by dialogue and exchange as by conflict and warfare. In El Abencerraje, those opposing forces are manifested in the warring antagonists, Abencerraje and Abindarráez, who, despite being formidable opponents, are able to craft—thanks to the erosion of war and the vulnerability of exile—an intimate space conducive to mutual understanding, and even kinship. Contrary to historical reality, and to Covarrubias's view of the borderland as a site of clear division between lands [End Page 206] and political jurisdictions (107), Avilés sees the frontier as a porous, liminal space full of varying possibilities for dialogue and cooperation. The last chapter explores, through Lazarillo de Tormes, a much different space: the domestic environment that signifies both a shelter and a social achievement (un buen puerto). Avilés insists on the shelter dimension, since the domestic space allows the early modern subject a place to hide, to remain invisible from the social pressures or external expectations that surround him. This notion that the subject is an aspiring, autonomous entity shaped in relation to others is supported by critics like Judith Butler and Nietzsche and correlated, on a purely literary level, to the anonymity of the novel. For Avilés, such anonymity is not coincidental, as it provides the author a larger narrative autonomy, and even shelter from social and moral constraints (157). Specialists and students of the Spanish Golden Age will appreciate the wide array of literary sources and theoretical approaches employed in Avilés analysis, which includes—besides Cicero, Butler, and Nietzsche, critics like Foucault and Claudio Guillén. Through this eclectic framework, the author provides an intriguing view of early modern subjectivity in constant dialogue with its surrounding spatial demarcation. Rather than presenting a world turned into a stage, Avilés uncovers the disparate worlds of separate stages that determine...

«¡San Jorge, mata la araña!» (Rastros de la convivencia con las imágenes en el Siglo de Oro)

A través de alusiones a santos, extraídas de la literatura del Siglo de Oro, en este artículo se ha tratado de ponderar la importancia que la tradición iconográfica tuvo en el conocimiento que el hombre de esa época poseía sobre el santoral tradicional.

"Este maldito linaje": maurofilia o maurofobia en Jorge Toledano, de Lope de Vega

The term “maurophilia” was coined by Georges Cirot in a series of articles pub-lished in the Bulletin Hispanique during the years of the Second World War. Since then, the idealized image of the Moor in the many genres of Golden Age literature has been interpreted as a nostalgic look at the Islamic cultural past, or as an expression of dissenting voices in a space overwhelmed by the ubiquitous surveillance of the Inquisition, the persecution of minorities, and the obsession with blood purity as structuring criteria for social hierarchies. This article revises the concept of maurophilia in light of Lope de Vega’s Jorge Toledano (1595-97), a rarely studied captivity play, in which the idealized relations between Moors and Christians serve as an instrument to exalt notions of lineage and genealogical purity, as well as to repudiate the Morisco communities during the years leading up to the expulsion.

Sobre la aproximación a la obra dramática de Calderón de la Barca en la Educación Secundaria: del currículo al libro de texto

El objetivo del presente artículo consiste en proponer una aproximación crítica a la perspectiva desde la cual se estudia la obra del dramaturgo Calderón de la Barca en la Educación Secundaria. Para ello partiremos de las indicaciones que nos ofrece el currículo estatal, publicado en el Real Decreto 1105/2014 por el que se establece el currículo básico de la Educación Secundaria Obligatoria y del Bachillerato, a través de los contenidos de la materia Lengua Castellana y Literatura. Desde este punto examinaremos un corpus de veinticinco libros de texto de diferentes editoriales españolas publicados entre 2015 y 2016, con la finalidad de analizar cómo se enfoca el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje de la obra de este autor en el primer ciclo de la ESO y en el primer curso de Bachillerato, la etapa y curso a las que se asocia la didáctica de la literatura española del Siglo de Oro.

Los viajes a Tierra Santa en los Siglos de Oro: entidad y fortuna de un género olvidado

Los libros de peregrinación a Tierra Santa, como libros de viajes y a la vez obras de devoción, constituyen un género editorial bien delimitado en los Siglos de Oro, al que pertenece una treintena de obras. En general fueron reeditadas y tres de ellas —las de Antonio de Aranda, Francisco Guerrero y Antonio del Castillo— alcanzaron más de una docena de ediciones cada una. Sin embargo, no tienen la mínima presencia en las historias de la literatura, a pesar de ser obras narrativas que compitieron en el favor del público con las ficciones sentimentales, las pastoriles y las de caballerías. Por esto y otras muchas razones, este género merece ser estudiado e incorporado al canon de nuestra literatura áurea.

Lope Reserved: Facets of Eroticism in the «Rimas» (1604)

This article focuses on Lope’s Rimas (1604) to analyze the erotic elements in some of the book’s two-hundred sonnets. In order to do so, and after a brief state of the art on eroticism in Golden Age literature, we advance some methodological questions that we will examine later in the Rimas, a corpus that we analyze underscoring those sonnets that critics have defined as «erotic», as well as those that we add to the list because of their sexual content. In particular, we will classify these texts according to the different meanings we give to the word «erotic», on the one hand, and, on the other, according to the different characteristics of the topic, be it in relation to poetic subgenres (burlesque, mythological) or in their degree of eroticism. Finally, we will reflect on the evolution of Lope’s erotic poetry during Philip III’s reign, during which the Rimas were published.

The Black Legend in the Spanish Golden Age Literature

espanolUna nota a proposito de dos libros recientes sobre la Leyenda Negra en la literatura del Siglo de Oro. EnglishA note about two recent books on the Black Legend in the Spanish Golden Age literature.

Quevedo y los estudios de animales: una lectura de “Consultación de los gatos” (núm. 750)

espanolEste articulo estudia el poema «Consultacion de los gatos» desde la perspectiva de los estudios de animales (Animal Studies). En el analisis, se observa que Quevedo trasciende el empleo antropomorfico que se atribuye a las figuras animales en la literatura de su epoca. Ademas, pone en primer plano el maltrato del gato, otro elemento muy popular en la sociedad, para mostrar compasion hacia este animal, a la vez que critica los vicios de sus amos. Dandole protagonismo al gato y exponiendo el abuso que sufre a diario, Quevedo sigue de cerca el tratamiento narrativo en torno al can que elabora Cervantes en el Coloquio de los perros. De esa forma, el poema sobresale por su originalidad dentro del panorama de la poesia satirico-burlesca que se ocupa de los animales en el Siglo de Oro. EnglishThis article explores the poem «Consultacion de los gatos» following the Animal Studies approach. The analysis reveals that Quevedo goes beyond the anthropomorphist perspective to interpret animal figures that was customary in Golden Age literature. The author also highlights the abuse of the cat, another typical element of his period, to show compassion toward this animal, while criticizing the vices of its masters. Making the cat protagonist of the poem and showing its everyday life sufferings, Quevedo replicates closely the narrative model elaborated by Cervantes in Coloquio de los perros. As a result, Quevedo’s poem stands out among the satiric poetry that deals with animals in Golden Age literature.

Ego contra mundum: Sobre Don Juan y Don Quijote

AbstractThis article analyses two figures of the Spanish Golden Age Literature, Don Juan and Don Quixote, which involve a series of questions or problems typical of philosophy. They don´t expose a theoretical problem rather they represent it, they stage it; they are characters closed in themselves, in their madness, in their dream or solitude. This brief paper attempts to establish the relationship and the differences between Don Juan and the Quixote, as well as to expose the question of the self, and the theme of melancholy represented in these characters.Keywords: Melancholy, baroque, Spanish Literature, Don Juan, Don Quixote.

Pomadas y ungüentos de bruja en la literatura del siglo de oro

Pomadas y ungüentos de bruja en la literatura del siglo de oro

Lope de Vega’s Presence in «El Ministerio del Tiempo»

Lope de Vega has recently appeared on the small screen as a recurring character in the TVE series El Ministerio del Tiempo (‘The Ministry of Time’). We have been offered a renovated perspective on Lope de Vega as a human being, distancing ourselves from the purely eulogistic position inherited from his 19th and early 20th-century biographers. The series has attempted to reevaluate what the life and work of one of the greatest Golden Age playwrights might mean for modern day spectators, seen from the perspective of popular culture and fiction. This article proposes to examine the three episodes in which Lope appears («Tiempo de gloria» from the first season, «Tiempo de hidalgos» from the second, and «Tiempo de esplendor» from the third) to understand what the series is suggesting about the relationship between Golden Age literature and the contemporary reality of the televisual audience. The series speaks of the distance between the average citizen and the classics, where the contemporary characters (Julian and Pacino) express their ignorance (and suspicion) of literature. In addition, I interview the creator of the series, Javier Olivares, on how the episodes use popular culture and fantasy elements to inspire a reevaluation of classical Spanish literature and analyse to what extent El Ministerio del Tiempo manages to build a bridge between the literature of the Golden Age and the present.

Insights on Original Narrative Fiction in the Political of Diego de Saavedra, Fajardo, Andrés Mendo, and Francisco Garau

This study explores the function of several types of narrative fiction utilized by three of the most distinguished political emblematists of the Hispanic Baroque: Diego Saavedra Fajardo, Andrés Mendo (who borrows liberally from the work of Solórzano Pereira) and the expressly anti-Machiavellian works of Francisco Garau. We consider the rationale behind choosing the emblem as a vehicle to express Counter-reformation political thought and we trace an evolution that leads to one of the books of Garau, which reveals itself to be a highly original work that propagates traditional rhetorical procedures and at the same time it conceals a radical skepticism affecting both the form and content of the work.Keywords: Emblems, Spanish Political Literature, Golden Age Literature, Narrative Fiction

Hacia una didáctica de la literatura áurea en el siglo XXI

&lt;p&gt;En el presente artículo se traza una panorámica general de la didáctica de la literatura áurea para ofrecer, a continuación, una aproximación al uso de herramientas que faciliten la enseñanza de la producción literaria del Siglo de Oro en el siglo XXI en las enseñanzas no universitarias, si bien pueden ser aplicadas a cualquier periodo literario.&lt;/p&gt;

El portal BIDISO: pasado, presente y futuro inmediato. Un ejemplo de evolución en aplicaciones de las HD

The BIDISO portal (Spanish Golden Age Digital Library), created by the Interdisciplinary Seminar for the Study of Spanish Golden Age Literature (SIELAE) of the University of A Coruna, Spain, provides research sources in the fields of literature, history, history of printing and libraries of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. BIDISO provides access to databases and digitized editions (facsimile and transcribed texts) of Spanish emblem books, news pamphlets, polyantheae (Golden Age encyclopedias) and library inventories. This paper presents an overview of the evolution of the BIDISO research lines, a description of the resources currently offered at our sites and a preview of the new tools we are developing. They are considered as a example of the importance of combining technological and humanistic research for the development of knowledge.

«Tiempos hay de acometer y tiempos de retirar»: literatura áurea y edición digital

Any state of the art on textual criticism entails a deep reflection on the digital medium. Many national traditions have already faced the transformation of the editorial model: a model that implies, above all, a different method of execution and a new presentation of the materials. We are currently at a crucial moment in which – calling to mind Sancho’s words before the imminent participation of Don Quixote in a joust – we must decide whether or not to undertake the “new” practices within the field of digital editing. In studies of Renaissance and Spanish Golden Age literature, several projects of a high philological level and digital value have been carried out. This article intends to review some of the most emblematic and committed projects to digital humanities, and to evaluate to what extent they fit with the good practices of digital scholarly edition.