Studies on Women's Poetry of the Golden Age

This collection of fourteen scholarly essays on women's poetry from Spain's early modern period shows that women did indeed have a Golden Age, and that they were significant cultural actors in the realms of poetic production. The studies of secular verse demonstrate how female poets of this period devised strategies to confront the dominant masculine poetic discourse, while the essays on sacred poetry explore the multiple manifestations of female piety and mysticism. The women's words are brought to life and modern readers helped to understand the socio-cultural, interpersonal, and aesthetic components of the poets' oeuvre. The volume, a companion to Julian Olivares' and Elizabeth Boyce's revised anthology "Tras el espejo la musa escribe: Lirica femenina de los Siglos de Oro", constitutes an authoritative critical enterprise focused on the recuperation of the female literary voice, and marks an important step forward in the battle to include women's writing as part of Spain's literary canon. Contributors include: Electa Arenal, Aranzazu Borrachero Mendibil, Anne J. Cruz, Adrienne L. Martin, Rosa Navarro Duran, Julian Olivares, Inmaculada Osuna, Amanda Powell, Elizabeth Rhodes, Stacey Schlau, Lia Schwartz, Alison Weber, and Judith Whitenack. Julian Olivares is Professor of Spanish at the University of Houston and editor of "Caliope, Journal of the Society for Renaissance and Baroque Hispanic Poetry".