Cambridge Iberian and Latin American Studies

Series · 11 books · 1982-1989

By Anthony J. Cascardi, Dorothy Sherman Severin, David T. Gies, and more

Books in series

[(Galdos and the Irony of Language)] [By (author) Diane F. Urey ] published on

1982

A structural analysis of irony in the novels of Gald'os, the foremost Spanish novelist of the 19th century. The author explores the ironic possibilities under three main depiction of characters, description of places and the narrative voice.

The Love Poetry of Francisco De Quevedo

An Aesthetic and Existential Study

1983

Olivares, Julian

The Limits of Illusion

A Critical Study of Calderón

1984

This is the first thorough study of Calderón in comparison with other important dramatists of the Lope de Vega and Tirso de Molina in Spain, Racine and Corneille in France, and Shakespeare and Marlowe in England. Cascardi studies Calderón's paradoxical engagement with illusion in its philosophical guise as scepticism. He shows on the one hand Calderón's moral will to reject illusion and on the other his theatrical need to embrace it. Cascardi discusses plays from every period to show how in Calderón's best work illusion is not rejected; instead, scepticism is absorbed. Calderón is placed in and defined against the philosophical line of Vives, Descartes, and Spinoza. Of central importance to this argument is Calderón's idea of theatre and the various transformations of that idea. This emphasis will give the book an additional interest to students, readers in philosophy and comparative literature.

Sur

A Study of the Argentine Literary Journal and its Role in the Development of a Culture, 1931–1970

1986

This book tells the story of Sur, Argentina's foremost literary and cultural journal of the twentieth century. Victoria Ocampo (its founder and lifelong editor) and Jorge Luis Borges (a regular and influential contributor) feature prominently in the story, while the contributions of other major writers (including Eduardo Mallea, William Faulkner, André Breton, Virginia Woolf, Alfonso Reyes, Octavio Paz, Waldo Frank, Aldous Huxley and Graham Greene) are discussed. Politically speaking, Sur represented a certain brand of liberalism, a resistance to populism and mass culture, and an attachment to elitist values which offended against the more dominant phases of Argentine thought, from Peronism to the varied forms of nationalism, socialism and Marxism. Dr King examines the journal's roots, its development and its demise, relating it to other journals circulating at the time, and highlighting vital issues debated in its pages, such as Argentine attitudes towards fascism during the Second World War.

Keepers of the City

The Corregidores of Isabella I of Castile (1474-1504)

1987

The corregidores were Castilian royal officials who functioned as mayors and superior judges in the provinces, cities, towns, and villages they were sent to oversee. At the head of urban militias they took part in the War of Succession and the Granada War. The corregidores thus had significant dealings with the peasantry, urban masses, the merchants, the nobles, the aristocracy, the officials of the Inquisition. Through its study of their many varied duties, this book offers a panoramic view of Castile during the late medieval and Renaissance eras. Despite their importance, a major study has never before been devoted entirely to their activities during the reign. This study also incorporates a major effort at periodisation of Isabella's reign, the first attempted in modern times. Overall, the book offers a tripartite dissection of the queen's career in power and an assessment of the differing states of the operations of corregidores over her three decades.

Theatre and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Spain

Juan De Grimaldi as Impresario and Government Agent

1988

The Frenchman Juan de Grimaldi was instrumental in the development of the Spanish theatre in the 1820s and 30s, at a time when censorship, repression, and economic chaos had left it in a state of stagnation. As impresario and stage director, he trained actors in the new style of declamation, made physical changes in sets and lighting, translated recent French plays into Spanish, and encouraged the writing of original Spanish plays. His own magical comedy, La Pata de Cabra (1829), was outstandingly successful. Grimaldi was also a wealthy businessman and newspaper editor, and the patron of many important Spanish Romantic writers. He was active in politics, vigorously defending the moderate policies of the Queen Regent, María Cristina, and of Prime Minister Ramón de Nerváez. Even after his return to Paris, Grimaldi continued to work secretly as an agent of the Spanish government. Based on original archival materials, this is the first in-depth study of Grimaldi's involvement in the literary and political progress of nineteenth-century Spain.

#10

Language, Authority, and Indigenous History in the Comentarios reales de los Incas

1988

The Comentarios reales de los Incas, a classic of Spanish Renaissance prose narrative, was written by Garcilaso Inca de la Vega, the son of an Inca princess and a Spanish conquistador. It is filled with ideological tensions and apparent contradictions as Garcilaso attempts to reconcile a pagan New World culture with the fervent Christian evangelism of the period of the discovery and conquest of America. This study of the Commentarios, is original both in adopting the perspective of discourse analysis and in its interdisciplinary approach. Margarita Zamora examines the rhetorical complexities of the Comentarios, and shows how Garcilaso turned to the linguistic strategies of humanist philology and hermeneutics rather than traditional historiography in order to present Inca civilization to the Europeans. Zamora's book reveals how Garcilaso's views of the Incas were shaped by his dual background, his commitment to humanism and Christianity, by the expectations he had of his readers, and by the disruptive practices of his time.

#11

The Strife of Tongues

Fray Luis de Leon and the Golden Age of Spain

1988

Fray Luis de León (1527–91) is known chiefly as the author of some of the finest poetry of the Spanish Golden Age, but he also wrote important prose works in both Latin and Spanish, and produced eloquent translations into Spanish of biblical and classical texts. He spent five years imprisoned in solitary confinement by the Spanish Inquisition, fighting to clear himself of a series of accusations against his views on the Bible. Acquitted on all counts, he returned to teach at the University of Salamanca. This book examines the controversies in which Fray Luis was caught up, and investigates the complex influences upon his writings of his prison experiences, his indebtedness to Judaism, his interests as a linguist, and his work as a biblical scholar and theologian. Colin Thompson looks afresh at Fray Luis' most famous poems and prose works, and explores his understanding of language as a means of enabling God to speak to humanity and humanity to rise to God.

#12

An Introduction to the Politics and Philosophy of José Ortega y Gasset

1989

This book provides a general survey of the life and work of the Spanish philosopher and essayist Ortega y Gasset (1183–1955), author of the widely read The Revolt of the Masses. Dr Dobson divides his study into sections devoted to Ortega's political thinking and to his philosophy, rooting these in the context of contemporary Spain and discussing the wider implications of their influence. He examines Ortega's position with regard to the Civil War, his ambivalent espousal of socialism, his emphasis on the importance of the select individual in the modernisation of society and creation of a nació vital; the appropriation of his ideas by Primo de Rivera in the cause of fascism. This book is intended to be accessible to both Hispanists and general readers with an interest in literature, history, intellectual and political thought and philosophy.

#13

Tragicomedy and Novelistic Discourse in Celestina

1989

The late fifteenth-century Spanish masterpiece Celestina is one of the world's classics. In this important study, Dorothy Sherman Severin investigates how Fernando de Rojas' work in dialogue, which parodies earlier genres, is a precursor of the modern novel. In Celestina, the hero Calisto parodies the courtly lover, the heroine Melibea lives through classical examples and popular students' knowledge, the bawd and go-between Celestina deals a blow to the world of wisdom literature, and Melibea's father Pleberio gives his own gloss on the lament. There is also a fatal clash between two literary worlds, that one of the self-styled courtly lover (the fool) and the prototype picaresque world of the Spanish Bawd and her mentors (the rogues). The voices of Celestina are parodic, satiric, ironic and occasionally tragic, and it is in their discourse that the dialogue world of the modern novel is born. In order to make this book accessible to a wider English-speaking readership, quotations from the text are accompanied by English translations, mainly from the seventeenth-century English version by James Mabbe.

#14

The Origins of Peasant Servitude in Medieval Catalonia

1988

This 1991 book describes the history of peasants in Catalonia, the wealthiest and politically dominant part of the medieval Kingdom of Aragon, between the ninth and fifteenth centuries. It focuses on the period from 1000 to 1300, when free peasants who had held property under favourable frontier conditions were progressively subjugated by their lords. Between 1462 and 1486 Catalan peasants mounted the most successful peasants' war of the Middle Ages, and achieved the formal abolition of servitude. Professor Freedman seeks to explain both the process by which servitude was strengthened over the centuries, and its eventual weakening before a direct moral and military challenge. He addresses both the causes of enserfment and the limitations on its effectiveness. The book integrates archival evidence with the theories of society elaborated by medieval jurists. Comparisons are drawn between Catalonia and other regions, and its experience is situated within a spectrum of different social and economic conditions.

Authors

Anthony J. Cascardi

Author · 4 books

Dorothy Sherman Severin

Author · 1 books

David T. Gies

Author · 2 books

David Thatcher Gies (b.1945) is an American hispanicist and historian of Spanish literature.

John King is the author of eight novels – The Football Factory, Headhunters, England Away, Human Punk, White Trash, The Prison House, Skinheads and The Liberal Politics Of Adolf Hitler. The Football Factory was turned into a high-profile film. A new novel – Slaughterhouse Prayer – was published on 8 November 2018. King has written short stories and non-fiction for a number of publications, with articles appearing in the likes of The New Statesman, Le Monde and La Repubblica. His books have been widely translated abroad. He edits the fiction fanzine Verbal and lives in London.

Paul H. Freedman is the Chester D. Tripp Professor of History at Yale University. He specializes in medieval social history, the history of Spain, the study of medieval peasantry, and medieval cuisine. His 1999 book Images of the Medieval Peasant won the Medieval Academy's prestigious Haskins Medal. ~~ Professor Freedman specializes in medieval social history, the history of Spain, comparative studies of the peasantry, trade in luxury products, and history of cuisine. Freedman earned his BA at the University of California at Santa Cruz and an MLS from the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. He earned a Ph.D. in History at the same institution in 1978. His doctoral work focused on medieval Catalonia and how the bishop and canons interacted with the powerful and weak elements of lay society in Vic, north of Barcelona. This resulted in the publication of The Diocese of Vic: Tradition and Regeneration in Medieval Catalonia (1983). Freedman taught for eighteen years at Vanderbilt University before joining the Yale faculty in 1997. At Vanderbilt, he focused on the history of Catalan peasantry, papal correspondence with Catalonia and a comparative history of European seigneurial regimes. He was awarded Vanderbilt’s Nordhaus Teaching Prize in 1989 and was the Robert Penn Warren Humanities Center Fellow there in 1991-1992. During that time he published his second book, Origins of Peasant Servitude in Medieval Catalonia (1991). Since coming to Yale, Professor Freedman has served as Director of Undergraduate Studies in History, Director of the Medieval Studies Program and Chair of the History Department. He has offered graduate seminars on the social history of the Middle Ages, church, society and politics, and agrarian studies (as part of a team-taught course). Freedman was a visiting fellow at the Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte in Göttingen in 2000 and was directeur d’Études Associé at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris in 1995. He also published his third book, Images of the Medieval Peasant (1999) and two collections of essays: Church, Law and Society in Catalonia, 900-1500 and Assaigs d’historia de la pagesia catalana (writings on the history of the Catalan peasantry translated into Catalan). More recently Freedman edited Food: The History of Taste, an illustrated collection of essays about food from prehistoric to contemporary times published by Thames & Hudson (London) and in the US by the University of California Press (2007). His book on the demand for spices in medieval Europe was published in 2008 by Yale University Press. It is entitled Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination. Freedman also edited two other collections with Caroline Walker Bynum, Last Things: Death and the Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (1999) and with Monique Bourin, Forms of Servitude in Northern and Central Europe (2005). A Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, Freedman is also a corresponding fellow of the Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona and of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans. He is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His honors include a 2008 cookbook award (reference and technical) from the International Association of Culinary Professionals (for Food: The History of Taste) and three awards for Images of the Medieval Peasant: the Haskins Medal of the Medieval Academy (2002), the 2001 Otto Gründler prize given by the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, and the Eugene Kayden Award in the Humanities given by the University of Colorado. He won the American Historical Association’s Premio del Rey Prize in 1992 (for The Origins of Peasant Servitude in Medieval Catalonia) and shared the Medieval Academy’s Van Courtlandt Elliott prize for the best first article on a medieval topic in 1981.

Andrew P. Dobson

Author · 5 books

British political author and Professor at Keele University. His main interest is population dynamics in birds and mammals as well as parasites and their hosts. He also deals with the application of theoretical ecology in nature conservation biology and for the control of infectious diseases.