From Prison to Palace: Space in Golden Age Spanish Literature

Space is both living entity and literary device. The literary voices of a text refer to its various forms of enunciation, thereby situating the narrative in an often emblematic place. This locus can in turn form and define character behavior. There are public and private spaces; open and closed spaces; monumental loci (churches, squares, palaces); daily spaces (streets, roads); religious spaces (convents) and profane ones (corral de comedias). There is also the frontier as mythic space/s. Based on canonical texts of the period, this course will scrutinize the representation of space as cultural artifact and as a sign of identity. (1 unit)

Required texts: 1) El Lazarillo de Tormes, ed. Francisco Rico (Madrid: Cátedra); 2) El Abencerraje, ed Francisco López Estrada (Madrid: Cátedra); 3) Cervantes, Novelas ejemplares, ed. Harry Sieber, 2 vols. (Madrid: Cátedra); 4) Tirso de Molina, El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra, ed. Ignacio Arellano (Espasa Calpe, Austral); 5) Lope de Vega, El perro del hortelano, ed. A. Carreño (Espasa-Calpe, Austral); 6) Calderón de la Barca, La vida es sueño, ed. Ruano de la Haza (Clásicos Castalia). A selection of literary theory from a coursepack will also be an important part of the course.