El Caballero de Dios y la muy noble reina: María de Molina's patronage of the Libro del Caballero Zifar

This article analyzes the political discourses on chivalry and gender in Libro del Caballero Zifar and provides textual evidence in support of the theory that María de Molina was an original patron of this anonymous work from the cathedral school of Toledo. Using the portrait of the queen in the prologue as a point of departure, this study explores the intertextuality of Libro del Caballero Zifar and contemporary royal chronicles, elucidating the manner in which the political discourse of the former supports the political propaganda of the latter, ultimately creating a legitimizing discourse for María de Molina's rule as queen of Castile-León at the turn of the fourteenth century.     

Descubrimiento,geografía y origen de los discursos hispanoamericanos

Imaginación del Nuevo Mundo. Diez estudios sobre los inicios de la narrativa hispanoamericana. By JOSE JUAN ARROM. México: Siglo XXI Editores, 1991. Pp. 196.

Signs, Songs, and Memory in the Andes: Translating Quechua Language and Culture. By REGINA HARRISON. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989. Pp. xvii, 233.

The Armature of Conquest: Spanish Accounts of the Discovery of America, 1492–1589. By BEATRIZ PASTOR. Translated by LYDIA LONGSTRETH HUNT. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992. Pp. x, 317.

Mil leguas por América. De Lima a Caracas 1740–1741. Diario de don Miguel de Santisteban. Preliminary study by DAVID J. ROBINSON. Bogotá: Banco de la República, 1992. Pp. 323.     

Cartografía emocional entre la China y la Gloria: Agustín de Foxá, Víctor Ruiz Iriarte y la Modernidad

Both Agustín de Foxá and Víctor Ruiz Iriarte premiered their first plays very near the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939. The two playwrights appear to belong to the same imaginative and poetical vein, but in fact Foxá yearns for an impossible return to an idealized past, in a pessimistic lamentation against Modernity—that is, precisely, his exotic drama Cui-Ping-Sing. The poetical theatre Ruiz Iriarte endorses in Un día en la Gloria, and thinks apt to Modern times, is based in a radical optimism—the idea that fantasy can always transform and improve a disappointing reality.     

Lo que le sucedió a María Zambrano: Dulcinea

Don Quijote is constantly present in María Zambrano’s works, especially in the years of exile. Along her career, Zambrano wrote many essays about Cervantes, in which she reflects on love, always about the character of Dulcinea. One of these essays, significantly titled “Lo que le sucedió a Cervantes: Dulcinea,” raises the lack of love as the most important topic in Quijote, and discusses from this point of view the ideal image of Dulcinea contradicted by the carnal Aldonza.     

“Vivo sin vivir en mí”: YouTube y la poesía de santa Teresa de Jesús

ABSTRACT

The poetry of Saint Teresa of Jesus has not aroused the same interest from the critics as has her prose. There are several reasons for this. However, her poetry has remained in the memory of anyone who has come in contact with it, as well as in public manifestations, one of which is the phenomenon of new media—in particular, YouTube. Consequently, this article presents an analysis of Teresa de Jesus's poem “Vivo sin vivir en mí” (“Live without living in me”) in the context of new media, specifically YouTube, in order to further analyze the oral-auditory impact of her work as a strategy of representation in the reception of her writing and, therefore, expand the communicative possibilities of her writing style close to the spoken language, beyond her time and context.     

Topoiesis: Procesos de espacialización en la literatura (crítica y metodología)

ABSTRACT

Space in literary texts has been widely studied but poorly systematized. There is no valid method of analysis that gives space a critical meaning. For instance, critics have eluded the fact that time and space cannot be considered separately. On the other hand, they have used concepts or methods from disciplines aside literature such as anthropology, biology, psychology, or geography that do not help clarify the meaning or signification of a literary text. We begin this article by giving a review of the main theoretical and critical positions regarding space in literature from the second half of the twentieth century. We do this in order to evaluate the main results those studies have attained. Later on, we propose a methodology that may clarify the significance of space in a literary text. The concept topoiesis (as far as we know, it has not been used in the humanities) represents for us a key word. It helps us to distinguish one main process where space can turn from a signification practice to the production of meaning in a literary text.     

The reader of confession in María Zambrano

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is an attempt to understand the concept of ‘confession’ as a literary genre in the works of Spanish philosopher María Zambrano. Firstly, we will try to understand confession within Zambrano's most relevant philosophical concepts, in particular her study La confesión: género literario y método [Confession. Literary Genre and Method]. Secondly, we will offer reinterpretation to confession in dialogue with theories of Reception by Wolfgang Iser and Hans Robert Jauss, and other authors like St. Agustin, Rosa Chacel, Mikhail Bakhtin, Miguel de Unamuno and Michel Foucault. Finally we will highlight the performative aspect of confession as something that is truly relevant to Zambrano’s theory. Zambrano understands confession as a method that can bring people's experiences closer to knowledge, and therefore a method that can change life. In this context, we propose that the reader of confession plays a fundamental role in understanding Zambrano’s conception.