Department of Spanish and Portuguese

Topic: Spanish Literature of the Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries

Note: Graduate students only.

This graduate survey of early modern prose, poetry and theater, explores the dynamics of power, gender, race and genre in novellas by María de Zayas and Miguel de Cervantes, dramatic works by Lope de Vega, Cervantes, Calderón and Ana Caro, and poetry by Garcilaso, Luis de Góngora and Francisco de Quevedo, among others (including the prolific author “anonymous”). This is a genre-based exploration of mostly canonical texts that will be studied for their aesthetic and socio-historical interest. We will also interrogate the traditional historiography of this period—known since the 19th Century as “Golden Age” or “Siglo de Oro”—conceived of as a glorious period of artistic and monarchical splendor following the “reconquest” of Iberia and the “discovery” and colonization of America. To this end, for instance, we will explore instances of Islamophobia and Islamophilia in some of these texts.

HISP-S 528   #30384      3:00P-4:15P     MW    PV 270   Professor Steve Wagschal