This book is the first comprehensive study of Ovid’s influence during early modern Spain since Rudolph Schevill’s Ovid and the Renascence in Spain (1913). This time, fifteen specialists have contributed to a volume with a great variety of perspectives and surprising cohesiveness

Lopez Alemany, Ignacio

NC DOCKS at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

English

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Ovid in the Age of Cervantes [Review]  By: Ignacio Lopez Alemany  Ovid in the Age of Cervantes. Ed. Frederick de Armas. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010. In Hispanófila. 167 (2013): 97-98.  Made available courtesy of Romance Studies Publications: http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hsf.2013.0005  ***© Romance Studies Publications. Reprinted with permission. No further reproduction is authorized without written permission from Romance Studies Publications. This version of the document is not the version of record. Figures and/or pictures may be missing from this format of the document. ***  Abstract:  This book is the first comprehensive study of Ovid’s influence during early modern Spain since Rudolph Schevill’s Ovid and the Renascence in Spain (1913). This time, fifteen specialists have contributed to a volume with a great variety of perspectives and surprising cohesiveness.  Keywords: Ovid | Cervantes | Book review | Spain | Frederick de Armas  Article:  ***Note: Full text of article below  read the Persiles differently. Cervantes’ Epic Novel confirms my old suspi-cions that Cervantes failed to do what he set up to, and that he failed becausehe did everything well.JULIO BAENAUniversity of Coloradoat BoulderOvid in the Age of Cervantes. Ed. Frederick de Armas. Toronto: University ofToronto Press, 2010. 291 pp.This book is the first comprehensive study of Ovid’s influence during ear-ly modern Spain since Rudolph Schevill’s Ovid and the Renascence in Spain(1913). This time, fifteen specialists have contributed to a volume with a greatvariety of perspectives and surprising cohesiveness. The opening pages of thebook are used by the editor to explain the unusual label employed to designatethe span of time these studies cover. De Armas suggests that the early modern,or Spanish Golden Age, could be referred to as “the age of Cervantes” becausethis writer “has become a symbol of change, experimentation, and breakingwith the past” (xi). Although this is a very problematic argument to be broadlyaccepted, it serves as the point of departure for this book: the consideration ofOvid and Cervantes as literary banners of their times and the celebration ofthe latter as legitimate heir of the former.The volume is divided into four parts. The first section, entitled “Alterna-tives, diagnoses, and translations” begins with an essay about the medical andsatirical writings of the Middle Ages in which Ovid’s Remedia amoris is con-sidered a reliable diagnostic source for curing the lovesick. The followingchapters of this section study early modern approaches to Metamorphosis andits canonical status as an opportunity for self-fashioning through the examina-tion the Classical heritage, taking into account the new role of science andcurrent social issues. Finally, a lesser known text, Fasti, is studied for its pro-ductivity in didactic and humanistic writing of the time.Part two of this collection, “Ovid and Cervantes,” comprises three chaptersthat separately explore not so evident echoes reminiscent of Ovid’s Metamor-phosis in the episode of the fulling hammers (batanes), the interpolated tale of“El curioso impertinente,” as well as in some of the characters’ transformationsthroughout the novel. Although the chapters constitute a well tightened triad,the reader will miss a study of other Cervantine works with rich presence ofOvidian themes such as La Galatea or Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda.Part three, “Poetic Fables,” is an interesting read, but there is a feeling ofdisconnect between some of Ovid’s Metamorphosis tales that are referencedReseñas 97and the chapters’ interpretations of texts by Garcilaso de la Vega, Lope deVega, and Cristóbal de Castillejo. The final essay is a close reading of earlymodern texts that reflect the cultural tensions in scientific and moral discourseresulting from interpretations of Ovid’s tale of “Hermaphroditus,” and the is-sue of the “third sex.” The final part, “Ovidian Fame,” deals with re-elabora-tion of myths for the purpose of self-fashioning and constructing poetic fame.This section studies the case of poets, Garcilaso de la Vega (Third Ecglogue)and Jorge de Montemayor (La Diana), who present themselves as orphic voices.Lope de Vega (El amor enamorado) and Calderón de la Barca (El laurel deApolo) also use the Ovidian tale of Apollo and Dafne to praise themselves andto give cautionary advice to the king in their respective court plays. Anotherchapter discusses the argument that Gabriel Téllez, known to the stage as Tir-so de Molina, composed his miscellaneous work, Deleitar aprovechando, as apublic repudiation of Ovidian traditions that he had previously followed. Thelast chapter of this book is a fascinating study on Juan de Miramontes Zuázo-la’s Armas antárticas (1608-9). Here, a former African slave claims Apolloand Andromeda as ancestors of his nation, which serves to whiten his past bylinking it to Classical Antiquity. In this way, Miramontes makes the Ethiopiancommunity a worthy opponent for the Spaniards by elevating their victorythrough a connection to the Ancient world, which also gives the story a classi-cal heritage and noble literary genealogy.In summary, the reader should know that this book is a stimulating collec-tion of studies about the presence of Ovidian themes in “the age of Cer-vantes,” and although it does not provide a comprehensive study of Ovid’s in-fluence, it certainly invites further scholarship.IGNACIO LóPEZ ALEMANyUniversity of North Carolinaat GreensboroMuñoz Ogáyar, Jorge. Y al séptimo día descansó: Arturo Pérez-Reverte, crea-dor de universos posmodernos. Murcia: Nausícaä, 2009. 202 pp.Y al séptimo día descansó es un libro que se acerca críticamente a parte dela narrativa de Arturo Pérez-Reverte. A través de un primer análisis textualpormenorizado de cinco novelas [El maestro de esgrima (1988), La tabla deFlandes (1990), El club Dumas (1993), La piel del tambor (1995), La cartaesférica (2000)], y otro posterior encaminado a explorar las adaptaciones cine-matográficas de las mismas, Muñoz Ogáyar propone revelar y delinear ciertosrasgos posmodernos presentes, de acuerdo al autor, en cada una de las obrasya mencionadas. Con estas novelas, señala Muñoz Ogáyar, Pérez-Reverte es98 Reseñas

Ovid in the Age of Cervantes [Review]

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Ovid in the Age of Cervantes [Review]

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