The first comprehensive study in English of one of the most important bodies of verse in European literature.

This original and lucidly written book introduces the reader to the Baroque, the richest period of Spanish literature and culture. Jeremy Robbins shows how its creativity responded directly to the unprecedented sense of uncertainty fostered by developments across Europe. He argues that it was above all this scepticism which led Spaniards to employ literature and art to question the boundaries of reality and illusion. The result was the creation of some of the most inventive, entertaining, challenging and powerful works of imagination in Europe. Currently there exists no other concise introduction to Spanish Baroque literature and culture. The book considers in detail works by the major novelists, dramatists, poets and painters. Part of its novel approach is the attention the author gives to key issues such as honour and identity, the influence of social and literary institutions like the court and the church, and the place of women as both creators and consumers of culture. It also considers neglected literary forms, such as the aphorism and the emblem, as well as the immensely popular and influential political and moral writings of the day. A comprehensive glossary to major and minor figures is included.

This ambitious book attempts to rehistoricize the Golden Age of Spain (ca. 1550-1680) by placing literary production in its socio-cultural context. Drawing on theories of cultural materialism and making use of historical analysis, George Mariscal focuses on the ways in which the problem of subjectivity is constructed in the writing of the period, particularly the poetry of Francisco de Quevedo and Cervantes' Don Quixote.

By engaging in dialogue the voices of both male and female writers who participated both in the broader courtly love tradition and in the theatrical production of early modern Spain, this book demonstrates that all representations of desire are gender-inflected.

'You have dark eyes. Gleams there that promise darkness'. Spanish poetry is astonishing in its richness and variety. This anthology covers the two great flowerings of Spanish verse: the first, which lasted to the end of the seventeenth century, and second, from the mid-nineteenth century through the Spanish Civil War, to the present. This third edition has been revised to represent more fully the poetry of resistance that emerged during the Franco years, giving more space to older poets such as Jorge Guillén and the great survivor of the Lorca generation and Nobel Prize winner Vicente Aleixandre, as well as a number of more contemporary poets who have forged a new era in Spanish poetry. This edition also includes an introduction discussing the history and world significance of Spanish poetry. 'No body of lyrical poetry is so seriously under-estimated by British readers as the Spanish' - J. M. Cohen. This book is translated and edited with an introduction by J. M. Cohen.