Hispanic Baroques: Reading Cultures in Context ed. by Nicholas Spadaccini and Luis Martín-Estudillo (review)

108 Reviews D D D D D complementa los argumentos de la autora, además de constituir una enriquecedora delicia visual. Por todo lo anterior recomiendo que esta monografía no sólo sea libro recomendable para seminarios de pre-grado, sino lectura obligatoria en cursos de postgrado de literatura e historia colonial latinoamericana. De igual manera debe ocupar un lugar especial en la biblioteca de quienes se dedican a estos estudios. Una nota curiosa es que este libro fue impreso en papel ecológico y sin cloro, detalles que seguramente habrían fascinado a la protagonista. No me queda la menor duda de que este trabajo de Rosa Perelmuter ha de convertirse en otro clásico de la crítica sorjuanina. Guillermo de los Reyes University of Houston Correction by Crystal Chemris: In the review of Spadaccini, Nicholas and Luis Martín Estudillo, eds. Hispanic Baroques: Reading Cultures in Context (Hispanic Issues 31. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt UP, 2005), in Calíope 12.1 (2006): 104-07, the name of the coauthor of the introductory essay to the collection, Luis Martín Estudillo, was accidentally omitted. The reviewer apologizes for the oversight. 104 REVIEWS D D D D D center of De los nombres de Cristo and the poemario in recognition of the richness of intertextual echoes. Alcántara’s study continues exploring these relationships in the third chapter, explaining the significance of the emblem, inspired by Horace, which came to represent Fray Luis’s productivity despite his incarceration: the tree which flowers anew after having been chopped off with an axe. The centerpiece of Fray Luis’s life’s work, De los nombres de Cristo, is examined by Alcántara in chapter four as a work of “expression” as theorized by Gadamer, in this case a text that would provide readers with a substitute for the Bible. Alcántara succeeds in making the reader appreciate the design of the characters and structures of the dialogue, suggesting that an understanding of De los nombres de Cristo, can guide the reader through the original poems. In Chapter V Alcántara uses the theoretical concepts which he has shown to be internal to the rest of Fray Luis’s Castilian works to read his poetry. He argues that Fray Luis is writing a poetry akin to scripture and embedded with consistent metaphors of the garden, path, and mountain. At the center point of the poemario, images of both Fray Luis’s emblem and the mountain reverberate with multiple classical, biblical, and personal meanings, making poetic discourse the bridge which links representations of immanent reality to transcendent truth for Fray Luis. While one wishes for more elaboration by Alcántara on his suggestion that there is no poetic escape in Fray Luis’s uses of harmony, and while a few of the best theoretical insights in the book are relegated to footnotes, this study is a significant advance in the discussion of Fray Luis’s conception of language and its role in the theoretical complexity of 16th century peninsular poetics. Alcántara’s insights, for example into Fray Luis’s relationship to Augustine, the importance of law and justice in La perfecta casada, and poetry as a substitute for mysticism, open pathways for further discussion. The book is an excellent model of any study that wants to analyze 16th century Spanish poetry separate from the canons established by Renaissance poetics and arrive at a richer and more complex reading. Dana Bultman The University of Georgia Spadaccini, Nicholas and Luis Martín-Estudillo, eds. Hispanic Baroques: Reading Cultures in Context. Afterward by Edward H. Friedman. Hispanic Issues 31. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP, 2005. HB. 324pp. ISBN 0-8265-1498-7. PB. ISBN 0-8265-1499-5. RESEÑAS D D D D D 105 Hispanic Baroques: Reading Cultures in Context, one of the latest volumes in the highly esteemed Hispanic Issues series, belongs on the bookshelves of all scholars of the Hispanic Baroque as a complement to such classics as Roberto González Echevarría’s Celestina’s Brood: Continuities of the Baroque in Latin American Literature; John Beverley’s Una modernidad obsoleta: Estudios sobre el barroco; Mabel Moraña’s Relecturas del Barroco de...