In Benjamin’s Library, Jane O. Newman offers, for the first time in any language, a reading of Walter Benjamin’s notoriously opaque work, Origin of the German Tragic Drama that systematically attends ...to its place in discussions of the Baroque in Benjamin’s day. Taking into account the literary and cultural contexts of Benjamin’s work, Newman recovers Benjamin’s relationship to the ideologically loaded readings of the literature and political theory of the seventeenth-century Baroque that abounded in Germany during the political and economic crises of the Weimar years.
To date, the significance of the Baroque for Origin of the German Tragic Drama has been glossed over by students of Benjamin, most of whom have neither read it in this context nor engaged with the often incongruous debates about the period that filled both academic and popular texts in the years leading up to and following World War I. Armed with extraordinary historical, bibliographical, philological, and orthographic research, Newman shows the extent to which Benjamin participated in these debates by reconstructing the literal and figurative history of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century books that Benjamin analyzes and the literary, art historical and art theoretical, and political theological discussions of the Baroque with which he was familiar. In so doing, she challenges the exceptionalist, even hagiographic, approaches that have become common in Benjamin studies. The result is a deeply learned book that will infuse much-needed life into the study of one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century.
Baroque Horrors turns the current cultural and political conversation from the familiar narrative patterns and self-justifying allegories of abjection to a dialogue on the history of our modern fears ...and their monstrous offspring. When life and death are severed from nature and history, "reality" and "authenticity" may be experienced as spectator sports and staged attractions, as in the "real lives" captured by reality TV and the "authentic cadavers" displayed around the world in the Body Worlds exhibitions. Rather than thinking of virtual reality and staged authenticity as recent developments of the postmodern age, Castillo looks back to the Spanish baroque period in search for the roots of the commodification of nature and the horror vacui that accompanies it. Aimed at specialists, students, and readers of early modern literature and culture in the Spanish and Anglophone traditions as well as anyone interested in horror fantasy, Baroque Horrors offers new ways to rethink broad questions of intellectual and political history and relate them to the modern age.
Fruto de un estudio histórico-cultural sobre el lugar subalterno que ocuparon los vendedores ambulantes entre los siglos XVI y XVII, este artículo analiza las ambiguas significaciones con las que ...fueron retratados en diferentes campos, y muy singularmente en la literatura, que los asoció a embaucadores, charlatanes, vagabundos, placeras apicaradas, emigrantes miserables y minorías étnico-religiosas. Sin embargo, y a pesar del estigma, sus formas de expresión y especialmente sus pregones cristalizaron como género folclórico-literario, conjugando algunos de los elementos de la cultura cómica popular típica del mundo de la plaza, las ferias y la fiesta.
An analysis of the role of baroque and neo-baroque aesthetics in technotexts, reframing critical debate of contemporary experiments in literary practice in the late age of print. Works by Jonathan ...Safran Foer, Chris Ware and David Clark are investigated alongside other authors and media such as digital media, film, visual art and interface design.
The Theater of Truth argues that seventeenth-century baroque and twentieth-century neobaroque aesthetics have to be understood as part of the same complex. The Neobaroque, rather than being a return ...to the stylistic practices of a particular time and place, should be described as the continuation of a cultural strategy produced as a response to a specific problem of thought that has beset Europe and the colonial world since early modernity. This problem, in its simplest philosophical form, concerns the paradoxical relation between appearances and what they represent. Egginton explores expressions of this problem in the art and literature of the Hispanic Baroques, new and old. He shows how the strategies of these two Baroques emerged in the political and social world of the Spanish Empire, and how they continue to be deployed in the cultural politics of the present. Further, he offers a unified theory for the relation between the two Baroques and a new vocabulary for distinguishing between their ideological values.
Taking as a starting point the expression ‘virtuosa osadía’ that appears in the prologue Al que leyere, this study proposes to consider the theme of feminine boldness as a possible key for reading ...María de Zayas's Novelas amorosas y ejemplares. Indeed, the ‘virtuosa osadía’ that the feminine authorial voice claims in the paratext resonates with a network of words in the text (atrevimiento, locura, libertad, determinación, ánimo, arrojarse, aventurarse) that form the contours of a «feminine boldness» that truly inhabits Zayas’s text. The second part of our study analyses the different figures of feminine boldness, studying in particular the expression of female desire, the women who appropriate male roles and attributes (weapons, the act of speaking and writing in a culture where the models offered to women are models of silence), and finally, their impact on space. Finally, the study analyses the limits of this feminine boldness, in particular through a systematic study of the resolutions (or denouements) of the plots in the fiction.
Tomando como punto de partida la expresión ‘virtuosa osadía’ que aparece en el prólogo Al que leyere, el presente estudio propone considerar la temática del atrevimiento femenino como una posible clave de lectura de las Novelas amorosas y ejemplares de María de Zayas. En efecto, la ‘virtuosa osadía’ que la voz autorial femenina reivindica en el paratexto entra en resonancia con una red de palabras en el interior del texto (atrevimiento, locura, libertad, determinación, ánimo, arrojarse, aventurarse) que conforman los contornos de un “atrevimiento femenino” que habita verdaderamente el texto zayesco. La segunda parte de nuestro estudio analiza las diferentes figuras del atrevimiento femenino, estudiando, en particular, la expresión del deseo femenino, las mujeres que se apropian roles y atributos masculinos (las armas, la palabra, la pluma), y por fin, su incidencia en el espacio. Por fin, el estudio analiza los límites de este atrevimiento femenino, en particular a través de un estudio sistemático de los desenlaces.
Prenant comme point de départ l’expression ‘virtuosa osadía’ qui apparaît dans le prologue Al que leyere, cette étude propose de considérer le thème de l’audace féminine comme une possible clé de lecture des Novelas amorosas y ejemplares de María de Zayas. En effet, la « vertueuse audace » que la voix d’auteur féminine revendique dans le paratexte entre en résonance avec un réseau de mots au sein même du texte (atrevimiento, locura, libertad, determinación, ánimo, arrojarse, aventurarse) qui dessinent les contours d’une « audace féminine » qui habite véritablement le texte de María de Zayas. La deuxième partie de notre étude analyse les différentes figures de l’audace féminine, en étudiant notamment l’expression du désir féminin, les femmes qui s’approprient des rôles et des attributs masculins (les armes, la parole, la plume), et enfin, l’incidence de cette audace féminine sur l’espace. Enfin, l’étude examine les limites de cette audace féminine, notamment à travers une analyse systématique des dénouements.
PDF
