In this fourth volume of Joseph E. Gillet's monumental study, Propalladia and Other Works of Bartolomé De Torres Naharro, all students of Renaissance drama will find a wealth of material on the origins of the modern European theater. Torres Naharro created the cloak-and-sword play almost a century before Lope de Vega. The common­places of romantic comedy appeared, for the first time on any stage, in his Comedia Ymenea published at Naples in 1517. Two of his works, the Soldadesca and the Tinellaria—evocations of the roistering life of the barracks and of a cardinal's scullery—are remarkable examples of dramatic realism avant Ia lettre. The influence of Torres Naharro and his work on the Spanish drama of the sixteenth century was all pervasive. In this volume, all the material gleaned by Dr. Gillet in extensive research is brought into clear focus to show Torres Naharro as a man of the Renaissance and a man of the theater. Of the greatest interest is the exposition of his intuition of the distinction between poetic and historic truth—commedias a fantasia and a noticia—long before the recovery of the true text of Aristotle's Poetics, and of the substratum of primitivism in many of his plays: ritual societies, the medicine man, the right to tribute, social discipline, name changing, loss of memory, sports, games, acrobatics, sorcery, riddles, genealogies, weddings, propitiation and death song, resuscitation, license and chastity, and so on. And this dramatic activity occurred early, antedating most of the Italian plays of the sixteenth century.

A wide-ranging, accessible reference for students of Spanish or Spanish American literature covering fiction, poetry, drama, anonymous classics, and more. In Dictionary of Spanish Literature, Maxim Newmark presents a concise yet informative overview of significant authors and works in Spanish literature, as well as important topics and terminology. Outstanding Spanish literary critics, the major movements, schools, genres, and scholarly journals are also included. An essential resource for any Spanish literature scholar, this volume provides an expansive overview of the topic, spanning both centuries and continents.

Essays on Spanish writers of the sixteenth-century, a period of territorial expansion, political hegemony and cultural prosperity in the face of ideological repression. Discusses the Hapsburg dynasty, the impact of the Counter-Reformation and the Inquisition had on censorship and literary production, and the Spanish passion for the theater that increased during the 1600s, during the pinnacle of the Golden Age of drama.

Includes bibliographical material and "Review."

Since its original appearance in 1949, Irving A. Leonard's pioneering Books of the Brave has endured as the classic account of the introduction of literary culture to the Spanish New World. Leonard's study documents the works of fiction that accompanied and followed the conquistadores to the Americas and argues that popular texts influenced these men and shaped the way they thought and wrote about their experiences. UC Press's 1992 edition combines Leonard's text with a selection of the documents that were his most valuable sources—nine lists of books destined for the Indies. Containing a wealth of information, these lists provide the documentary evidence for what is perhaps Leonard's greatest contribution: his demonstration that royal and inquisitorial prohibitions failed to control the circulation of books and ideas in colonial Spanish America. Rolena Adorno's introduction reaffirms the lasting value of Books of the Brave and chronicles developments in cultural-historical studies that have shed light on the role of books in Spanish American colonial culture. Adorno situates Leonard's work at the threshold between older, triumphalist views of Spanish conquest history and more recent perspectives engendered by studies of native American peoples. With its rich descriptions of the book trade in both Spain and America, Books of the Brave has much to offer historians as well as literary critics. Indeed, it is a highly readable and engaging book for anyone interested in the cultural life of the New World. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1992.