Prismatic Reflections on Spanish Golden Age Theater

This volume, organized in five major sections, honors the myriad scholarly contributions of Matthew D. Stroud to the field of Early Modern Spanish theater. Building upon Stroud’s seminal studies, each section of essays simultaneously claims and wrestles with aspects of the rich legacy generated by his explorations. The essays included in this volume consider the moral, ethical, and legal backdrop of uxoricide, explorations of the meaningful intersections of psychoanalytic theory and the comedia, and engage the topics of women, gender, and identity. They also bridge the gap between dramatist and actors and between page and stage as they consider everything from the physical demands on Early Modern actresses to the twenty-first-century performance possibilities of comedias. Moreover, these essays incorporate studies that transcend temporal, spatial, political, and cultural limits, continuing to push at the edges of traditional scholarship characteristic of Stroud’s pioneering research. Both scholars and students will find this cohesive, compelling collection of interest across a wide spectrum of disciplines from theater history to performance studies, from philosophy to queer studies.

Gwyn E. Campbell (PhD, Princeton) is Professor of Spanish at Washington and Lee University. Her co-edited volumes include: Zayas and Her Sisters: An Anthology of Novelas by 17th-century Spanish Women Writers; Zayas and Her Sisters, II: Essays on Novelas by 17th-century Spanish Women Writers; and a critical edition of Leonor de Meneses’s El desdeñado más firme. Amy R. Williamsen (PhD, University of Southern California) is Professor of Spanish at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. In addition to her book Co(s)mic Chaos: Exploring Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda, her co-edited volumes include: Critical Reflections: Essays on Spanish Golden Age Literature in Honor of James A. Parr; Engendering the Early Modern Stage: Women Playwrights in the Spanish Empire; Ingeniosa Invención: Studies in Honor of Professor Geoffrey Stagg; and María de Zayas: The Dynamics of Discourse.