Ganelin, C: Golden Age Comedia

Drawing on the groundbreaking Spanish scholarship and editions of earlier generations and relying on research conducted in Spanish archives, this pioneering group of English-speaking scholars offers a new treatment of familiar material. The editors yoke together widely varying critical practices, including incisive New Critical readings and far-reaching explorations that draw on the most current European critical thought. In addition to these more strictly literary studies, there are interdisciplinary essays focusing on seventeenth- and twentieth-century reception and the social makeup of the comedia audience. The whole thus presents a balanced picture of the many ways in which the comedia can be viewed, and the contributors complement each other's work in often surprising ways, illuminating the same corpus from a number of perspectives. The volume, published in honor of Professor Vern Williamsen, brings together three heretofore disparate universes of discourse and affirms the viability of a multiplicity of approaches. It suggests that text, theory and performance are all inextricably entwined and that a balanced view of the comedia is not possible without taking all three into consideration. The reader is thus presented with the richness of the comedia corpus and the wealth of critical approaches that mutually illuminate each other.