The Cervantes Encyclopedia (review)

Reviews227 Armas exposes the influence of Italian frescos and tapestries on the Numancia plays of Cervantes and Rojas Zorrilla. De Armas observes a conflation ofsexual and imperial desire and ofSpanish and Roman myths ofmonarchical origin. His fascinating interpretation ofRojas's plays suggests that Spanish audiences could identify with Numancia, but also with the imperialistic desire ofthe Romans. Scholarly criticism often centers on one aspect of art to the exclusion ofall others, but art does not exist in a vacuum. Although very few essays relate the comedia to other media, Echoes and Inscriptions demonstrates the importance of viewing the artistic endeavor as a continuum by presenting an expansive range of critical approaches and topics that associate Early Modern literatures with past and present works and artists. Such diversity will inevitably provide insight, and perhaps example, for all comediantes. Matthew J. Dean Mancing, Howard. The Cervantes Encyclopedia. 2 vols. Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood P, 2004. 863 pp. Howard Mancing's two-volume encyclopedia on Cervantes is, without a doubt, an important and useful reference tool. Mancing provides brief commentaries and plot summaries of Cervantes's works; an entry for every character who appears in the writings and for each of the major episodes in the fictions; entries that relate to historical, geographical, literary , and cultural contexts, including the plastic arts and music; a consideration of the contributions of Cervantes's contemporaries to arts and letters; critical and theoretical terms; references to the reception of Cervantes's works and the resulting corpus of criticism; and an impressive list ofinternational writers (and other artists) who influenced or were influenced by Cervantes. Many ofthe entries include a briefbut carefully chosen bibliography. Mancing's encyclopedia is a worthy complement to Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce's Enciclopedia cervantina (1997) and César Vidal's Enciclopedia del Quijote (1999), whose points of emphasis are somewhat different. If one had to choose a single word to describe The Cervantes Encyclopedia, that word could be meticulous. The attention to detail, the range of entries, and the interplay ofthe big picture, anecdotal 228BCom, Vol. 57, No. 1 (2005) elements, and space between them leaves the reader truly admirado, -a (v. "Admiration" 6). For the student of the Comedia, the encyclopedia offers background, plot summaries, and bibliography on the plays and interludes, as well as entries on characters, places, themes, theaters and playwrights in early modern Spain, and numerous other topics. For example, the letter A includes Actor(s), Actor theory, Gaspar de Aguilar, Alanís (a small Andalusian town noted for its wine and mentioned in several plays), Ali, Ali Bajá, Ali Izquierdo, Woody Allen, George Almar (a British playwright who in 1833 presented a two-act musical drama based on Don Quijote [16-17]), Serafín and Joaquín Alvarez Quintero, Amurates (the Gran Turco of Sultana, whose name is not mentioned until Act 3), Auto sacramental, and Rafael Azcona. Under Ca alone, there can be found Cadi, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Canon of Toledo, Capacho (Sultana), Captive (Baños), Captivity, Caravino (Numancia), Roberto Carpio, Carraolano {Cueva), Carrascosa (Rufián), Carrascosas de Antequera (Rufián), Cart of Death, La casa de los celos, Alexander T. Case (American author of a 1965 play on Sancho Panza, with music by Leigh Harline [111]), Alejandro Casona, Castile, Guillen de Castro, Catalina (Baños), Doña Catalina de Oviedo (Sultana), Catalina la Otomana ("In Sultana 2, a name Amurates proposes using for Doña Catalina de Oviedo, which she rejects" [115]), Cathay, Catholic Monarchs, Catiline (Baños), Cato the Censor, Cave of Salamanca (with a separate entry for La cueva de Salamanca), and Cazalla de la Sierra (Elección, Entretenida, Rufián). Pedro Sans Falguera, Alfonso Sastre, William Shakespeare, Antonio José da Silva, Richard Steele, and August Strindberg are among those figures under S, and Orson Welles and Lost in La Mancha have entries. A small sampling can hardly do justice to the project. The encyclopedia will aid those exploring the works of Cervantes. Mancing effectively covers the primary texts, but a key merit ofthe work is its treatment ofthe impact ofCervantes on the English-speaking world. For those especially dedicated to things Cervantine, leafing through the volumes—at random, by...