Review of Tilting Cervantes: Baroque Reflections on Postmodern Culture

This article is a review of Tilting Cervantes: Baroque Reflections on Postmodern Culture by Bruce R. Burningham

Review of El teatro español del siglo de oro: métodos y enfoques críticos

This article is a review of El teatro español del siglo de oro: métodos y enfoques críticos

Review of Marcia Welles’s Persephone’s Girdle: Narratives of Rape in Seventeenth-Century Spanish Literature

This article is a review of Persephone's Girdle: Narratives of Rape in Seventeenth-Century Spanish Literature by Marcia L. Welle

Re-Writing in the Margins: Caro's Valor, agravio y mujer as Challenge to Dominant Discourse

The title of this paper deliberately establishes a dialogic relationship with Paul Julian Smith's work Writing in the Margin; at the same time, it suggests the possibility of the "re"-writing of dominant discourse in marginalized works. The concept of marginality holds significant implications for the consideration of literature beyond those directly addressed in Smith's work. In this discussion, I will use Ana Caro's comedia, Valor, agravio y mujer, to question assumptions underlying Smith's provocative treatise. His interpretive strategy, informed by post-structuralist theory, does not sufficiently allow for the challenge to both social and artistic norms posed by the self-conscious, metatheatrical elements of Golden Age theatre. The constant play with gender roles and the honor code in Caro's texts represents a rewriting of societal standards; moreover, her consistent manipulation of generic conventions critically engages "canonical" comedias. I will argue that in order to explore "writing in the margin" we must carefully consider works that have been marginalized; otherwise, we as critics may falsely claim to appropriate the place of "the Others," thereby propagating exclusionary practices that merely re-center rather than de-center discourse

Back to Basics: What Every Comediante Should Know: Confessions of a Panel Organizer

Last fall, when visiting a graduate seminar composed of students who had just completed a course on the comedia, I was amazed at what I learned. When I asked something about the function of polymetry in La vida es sueño, the students chorused, "You mean it was written in poetry?" This brief interaction made me realize how much we take for granted when dealing with our students. When approaching theater, we must consider those aspects that distinguish it from other literary genres. We must highlight its polysemic nature as text and performance. We must guide students as they explore the various realms that comprise theater—especially since many of them have very limited experience

The Comic Function of Two Mothers: Belisa and Angela

Much of the existing criticism dealing with the mother figure in the comedia consists of broad generalizations. The present study analyzes the comic function of two very different mother characters in an attempt not only to provide a greater understanding of their respective comedias (Lope's La discreta enamorada and Mira's La casa del tahur), but also to demonstrate that such generalizations tend to obscure important distinctions rather than illuminate them

Beyond Romance: metafiction in Persiles

Mediante un estudio de los niveles narrativos del Persiles, este trabajo demuestra que la obra dista mucho de ser una imitación fiel de la novela bizantina. La manipulación constante de las normas genéricas, indicio de la naturaleza metaficcional del texto, distancia al lector del mundo ficticio a la vez que cuestiona la relación entre lo real y lo ficcional. A veces, el juego con las convenciones literarias resulta cómico, lo cual desdice la afirmación prevalente que la obra carece de ¿humor.¿ Se espera que el reconocimiento de estos elementos textuales llevará a una reconsideración del Persiles como una parte íntegra de la creación cervantina