This Tight Embrace. Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza (1566–1614) by Carvajal, Luisa de Mendoza

Resenas ca 177 to be convincing arguments for maintaining their individuation. However , I soon realized that this break from traditional scholarship might discourage an easy repetition of some of the assumptions about the moderate stance of part one and the radical feminism of part two. While we all recognize the differences between parts one and two of works such as Don Quijote and Guzman de Alfarache, we seldom edit (or even read) these works separately. In contrast, Catedra publishes two separate critical editions (edited by different scholars) of Zayas's Novelas and the Desenganos that appear to be completely unconnected. Perhaps Brownlee's approach will encourage the publication of a new scholarly edition that unites both collections of Zayas's short prose fiction. While Brownlee's conclusion (which engages the concept of the baroque excess to account for some of the contradictions in Zayas) may not satisfy all readers, I found it an appropriate way of emphasizing the open-endedness and unstable nature of Zayas's work. In this way, the labyrinth to which the title refers becomes an accurate descriptor for both Brownlee's study and Zayas's fiction, or as the author concludes: "The reader remains subject to, and the subject of, Zayas's labyrinth" (165). During such a dynamic moment in Zayas scholarship , The Cultural Labyrinth ofMaria de Zayas proves to be an insightful and well-written study that stimulates a welcome reconsideration of how Zayas complicates multiple reading and writing subject positions in both early modern and postmodern contexts. Sherry Velasco Washington University, St. Louis Carvajal y Mendoza, Luisa de. This Tight Embrace. LuisadeCarvajal y Mendoza (1566-1614). Ed., trans., and intro. by Elizabeth Rhodes. Milwaukee: Marquette UP, 2000. PB.xiv +311pp. ISBN 0-87462-7044 . Among the many happy outcomes of literary scholarship of the last thirty years has been the concerted effort to recover and publish works by women authors of the early modern period. Aided by the bibliographic research conducted by Manuel Serrano y Sanz at the turn of the twentieth century, scholars have expanded on his Apuntes para una biblioteca de escritoras espanolas by fleshing out his material on the women authors whom he included and by exploring other sources for further additions to the growing canon of women-authored texts. In This Tight Embrace, Elizabeth Rhodes makes a significant contribution 178 BO Reviews to this endeavor by offering a bi-lingual edition of the works of Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza, who was born in Spain in 1566 and died in England in 1614. Heretofore, Carvajal's works have appeared in few published editions and usually in fragmentary form. Beyond Serrano y Sanz's brief comments and citations, researchers relied on the two editions of some of her works prepared by the Jesuit Camilo Maria Abad. These include her Epistolario y poesias (1965) and her Escritos autobiograficos (1966). More recently, Maria Luisa Garcia-Nieto Onrubia published an edition of the Poesias completas (1990) and Julian Olivares and Elizabeth Boyce included a number of her poems in Tras el espejo la musa escribe (1993). Drawing on these recent studies as well as archival material and biographies written shortly after her death, Rhodes provides an edition of both prose and poetry by Carvajal. She appends to it her own biography of this very complex woman as well as introductions and copious footnotes to elucidate and contextualize Carvajal's writings. As was the case for many women of her time and place, Luisa de Carvajal addressed disparate audiences in her written work. Rhodes carefully delineates these groups in her prologue and in the brief introductions to each section. In the case of Carvajal's Historia de su vida espiritual, for example, the audience consisted of male confessors, principally Michael Walpole, who insisted that she provide an account of her inner life. The result conforms to the hagiographical style of writing characteristic of the genre by women in similar circumstances, as Rhodes notes (viii). In contrast, her poems appear to be written for herself, although they do contain imagery and symbolism evocative of some of the experiences described in her life story. Other works, such as the vows and spiritual instructions to her followers, lay...