Description
Book SynopsisCasuistry and Early Modern Spanish Literature examines a neglected yet crucial field: the importance of casuistical thought and discourse in the development of literary genres in early modern Spain. Faced with the momentous changes wrought by discovery, empire, religious schism, expanding print culture, consolidation of legal codes and social transformation, writers sought innovation within existing forms (the novella, the byzantine romance, theatrical drama) and created novel genres (most notably, the picaresque). These essays show how casuistry, with its questioning of example and precept, and meticulous concern with conscience and the particularities of circumstance, is instrumental in cultivating the subjectivity, rhetorical virtuosity and spirit of inquiry that we have come to associate with the modern novel.
Table of ContentsContents Casuistry and Early Modern Spanish Literature A Neglected Relationship Marlen Bidwell-Steiner and Michael Scham Justice, Blindfolded: Law and Crime in the Celestina Marlen Bidwell-Steiner Artful Rhetoric: The Case of Lázaro de Tormes Edward H. Friedman The Intrusion of an Apocryphal Guzmán as a (Legal, Moral and Literary) ‘Case’ in Mateo Alemán’s Authentic Second Part David Alvarez Roblin Theological Casuistry and Casuistical Preposterousness: The Fallacious Cases of La pícara Justina David Mañero Lozano The Exploration of Circumstance: Casuistry and the Emergence of the Novela Bizantina in Alonso Núñez de Reinoso’s Historia de los amores de Clareo y Florisea, y de los trabajos de Ysea (1552) Anita Traninger Comic Casuistry and Common Sense: Sancho Panza’s Governorship Michael Scham The Lawyers’ Tales. Legal Casuistry and the Spanish Golden Age Novella (Cristóbal Suárez de Figueroa, Alonso de Castillo Solórzano) Mechthild Albert Opinion, Idolatry, and Indigenous Consciousness: Bartolomé de las Casas’ Approach to Human Sacrifice José Cárdenas Bunsen Staging Penance: Scenes of Sacramental Confession in Early Modern Spanish Drama Hilaire Kallendorf Index
