Studies in Honor of Robert ter Horst eds. by Eleanor Ter Horst, Edward H. Friedman, and Ali S. Zaidi (review)

This compact festschrift is a heterogeneous collection of studies written by former students, colleagues, and friends of Robert ter Horst, in whose honor the pieces were collected, reflecting ter Horst's broad range of scholarly interests and refined erudition. The book contains eleven studies, covering a timespan of roughly five centuries and a wide array of literary traditions that range from medieval to contemporary Mexican and American literature. The heterogeneity of literary traditions—along with the lack of a thematic coherence or chronological order—makes it challenging to read the text as a unified monograph. This lack of unity seems, if not deliberate, at least part of the design of the collection as the editors chose to invite scholars on whom Robert ter Horst had the most influence. More difficult to explain is the editors' decision to reprint Florence B. Weinberg's article "Aspects of Symbolism in La Celestina," which was originally published in 1971, rather than asking her to either write an unpublished study or to offer an overview of the current state of affairs in relation to symbolism in La Celestina in light of the multiple studies that have been written since the publication of her article.

The book brings together a group of seasoned scholars with different interests and scholarly approaches, which offers readers both high-quality scholarship and a variegated range of studies that meet the highest standards of erudition. Besides the eleven studies, the book contains introductory notes by Eleanor ter Horst, Edward H. Friedman, and Ali Shehzad Zaidi.

William R. Blue opens the collection, focusing on travel and the transformative powers that traveling has on people and fictional characters. The roads, which are fraught with dangers, discomfort, and privation, are liminal spaces that force travelers to adapt and to adjust to the vicissitudes of the journey (16). During travel, social norms, class dynamics, and gender identities are questioned and often reversed. Like Blue, Patricia Kenworthy looks at space and spatial economies, examining the playwrights' utilization of space and décor on stage to enhance the dramatic impact (61). Edward F. Friedman's "Self-Examination and Re-Creation in Early Modern Spanish Poetry" studies Garcilaso de la Vega's sonnet 1, following a double line of inquiry. Friedman explores the potential of poetry as a locus for self-examination and even spiritual introspection. Then, he traces the influence that Garcilaso's sonnet—a reworking of Petrarch's sonnet 298—had in subsequent poets, followed by an insightful analysis of Lope de Vega's and Miguel Colodrero de Villalobo's recasts of Garcilaso's sonnet.

María Antonia Garcés and Diana de Armas Wilson address Antonio de Sosa's treatise Topography of Algiers. Garcés and de Armas Wilson collaborated in a translation of Sosa's Topographia into English; the former edited and the latter translated the work. In their respective articles for this volume, each scholar approaches Sosa's treatise from different but complementary perspectives. Garcés offers a panoramic view of the Topography. Aside from providing a sociocultural backdrop from which the text emerged, de Armas Wilson recounts her experience translating Sosa's Topographia into English, underscoring the difficulties of rendering complex dichos (sayings) into another language and the need to negotiate the meaning of words and concepts from the original language (Spanish) before committing it to English. Kirsten F. Nigro looks at the wave of violence against women (femicide) on the northern border of Mexico through the lens of two contemporary plays—Perla de la Rosa's Antígona, las voces que incendian el desierto and Sara Uribe's Antígona González—framed by the ancient motif of Sophocles's Antigone. Aside from their aesthetic value, De la Rosa's and Uribe's adaptations aim to create social awareness of the gendered violence and the government's blasé response as means of...