Maria de Zayas y Sotomayor (1590-1650?) published two collections of novellas, Novelas amorosas y exemplares (1637) and Desenganos amorosos (1647), which were immensely popular in her day. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Victorian and bourgeois sensibilities exiled her "scandalous" works to the outer fringes of serious literature. Over the last two decades, however, she has gained an enthusiastic and ever-expanding readership, drawing intense critical attention and achieving canonical status as a major figure of the Spanish Golden Age. In this first...

Pedro Calderon de la Barca (1600-1681), one of the great dramatists of Spain's Golden Age, wrote a series of mythological spectacle plays for the Habsburg courts. Written when court spectacles were an instrument of monarchical absolutism, these later works by Calderon have often been dismissed by critics as servile flattery of the royalty or mere displays of dazzling showmanship. Margaret Rich Greer argues, however, that many of the playwright's court dramas not only explore human life and social organization, but also possess artistic unity and thematic complexity that make them landmarks...

Pedro Calderon de la Barca (1600-1681), one of the great dramatists of Spain's Golden Age, wrote a series of mythological spectacle plays for the Habsburg courts. Written when court spectacles were an instrument of monarchical absolutism, these later works by Calderon have often been dismissed by critics as servile flattery of the royalty or mere displays of dazzling showmanship. Margaret Rich Greer argues, however, that many of the playwright's court dramas not only explore human life and social organization, but also possess artistic unity and thematic complexity that make them landmarks...