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Reviewed by:
  • Objects of Culture in the Literature of Imperial Spain ed. by Mary E. Barnard and Frederick A. de Armas
  • Ana M. Gómez-Bravo
Mary E. Barnard and Frederick A. de Armas, eds. Objects of Culture in the Literature of Imperial Spain. University of Toronto Press. xxii, 328. $75.00

The relationship between the written word and tangible objects constitutes a vantage point from which to engage in a situated study of literature. The essays in this volume are written by literary scholars who think about the material world as a key factor in works of poetry, prose, and theatre in imperial Spain. The volume’s approach is firmly rooted in literary studies, and many of the essays cite rhetorical sources alongside references to others’ works on clothing, art, or textual artifacts such as books of hours and amulets. Ultimately, the volume presents an emphasis on the textual life of objects, with some of the essays tracing the often meandering paths of concrete elements of the material life in which authors and books exist and which become incorporated into the texts. A main focus is the literary strategies developed by key authors in imperial Spain and their meaning. The intent can be of an aesthetic, social, political, or religious nature depending on the text.

The volume is organized in three parts, the first of which explores the function played by material objects in supplying argument material and furthering the narratives in works by Garcilaso de la Vega, Jorge de Montemayor, Félix Lope de Vega, Miguel de Cervantes, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Damián Salucio del Poyo, Luis Vélez de Guevara, and Tirso de Molina. Paintings, tapestries, and architectural and natural spaces, alongside everyday objects such as cards, are shown to be used to advantage in creating a visual imagery that is suggestive of ways in which individuals craft personal and social identities. Part 2 explores the strategies by which immaterial concepts such as time, music, and language are materialized in texts by colonial chroniclers such as Francisco de López Gómara and Bernal Díaz del Castillo and by poets like Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, as well as in picaresque writings. These essays highlight the ways in which words and texts can become objects and can mingle as such with their material circumstances.

Part 3 comprises essays that explore the subversive power of objects as developed in picaresque texts by Segunda Celestina and Miguel de Cervantes. Food and clothing appear as the contested sites where social organization is interrogated and exposed for its literary and political values. In addition, textual artifacts like the Oración de la emparedada, and artifacts and concepts such as an enchanted head, a Titian painting, and a labyrinth traced to a tradition of classical antiquity, are shown to engage different subversive practices involving women and religious practices, engaging Inquisitorial politics in the first case and ancient gods and goddesses in the second.

The essays as a whole suggest fruitful venues through which to engage material culture for literary scholars. Woven into the volume pages are a [End Page 150] constellation of topics and approaches that propose ways in which to productively combine the study of such diverse topics as status, prestige, gender, props, and texts as artifacts with consideration of their format.

While the collection is squarely focused on the literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it invites dialogues with comparable practices in other centuries. Examples include the medieval tradition of divination devices such as the enchanted talking heads mentioned by Fernández de Madrigal and cited in cancionero poetry, the idea of the labyrinth developed in Juan de Mena’s Laberinto, and the meaning of food in the work of Arcipreste de Hita, particularly in relation to religious, social, and ethnic differences. Further areas of study such as the role of texts and their support as represented in art objects are suggested by the images of paintings and engravings included in the chapters. The photo of Antonio de Pereda’s painting Sueño del Caballero featured on the book jacket features books, unrolled music sheets, and playing cards thrown on a table with...

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