Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review“An excellent synthesis of all that has been done on Zayas up to the present as well as a major step beyond those works in both its theoretical consistency and its engaging readings of the stories.”
—William Blue,University of Kansas
“Where the application of psychoanalytic categories to seventeenth-century texts might, to some, seem methodologically questionable, Maria de Zayas Tells Baroque Tales of Love and the Cruelty of Men stands as an extraordinarily productive instance of this practice. Our understanding of the cultural dimensions of the texts and of their paradoxical nature is immensely enriched. Impressive in its lucid weaving together of twentieth-century and early modern definitions of the psyche, Baroque aesthetics, as well as Counter Reformation ideology, the study is a most valuable addition to the growing bibliography of Zayas. To all those interested in this author, and, more generally, in questions of subject and gender in Tridentine Spain, it will prove an inspiring source of reflection.”
—Ariandna Garcia-Bryce Renaissance Quarterly
“Greer brings a welcome psychoanalytical perspective to Zayas’ novellas. Focusing on the various meaning of ‘desire,’ she investigates both the author’s need to win over readers, and the role that sexual desire plays in structuring the fiction.”
—Anne J. Cruz Bulletin of Spanish Studies
