The Spectacular City, Mexico, and Colonial Hispanic Literary Culture

by Merrim, Stephanie

• ISBN13: 9780292723078
• ISBN10: 0292723075
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-11-01
• Publisher: Univ of Texas Pr

Summary

The Spectacular City, Mexico, and Colonial Hispanic Literary Culturetracks the three spectacular forces of New World literary culture-cities, festivals and wonder-from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century, from the Old World to the New and from Mexico to Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. It treats a multitude of imperialist and anti-imperialist texts in depth, including poetry, drama, protofiction, historiography and journalism. While several of the landmark authors studied, including Hernaacute;n Corteacute;s and Sor Juana Ineacute;s de la Cruz, are familiar, others have received remarkably little critical attention. Similarly, in spotlighting creole writers, Merrim reveals an intertextual tradition in Mexico that spans two centuries. Because the spectacular city reaches its peak in the seventeenth century, Merrim's book also theorizes and details the spirited work of the New World Baroque. The result is the rich examination of a trajectory that leads from the Renaissance ordered city to the energetic revolts of the spectacular city and the New World Baroque.

Author Biography

Stephanie Merrim is Royce Family Professor of Comparative Literature and Hispanic Studies at Brown University. Her previous books include Early Modern Women's Writing and Sor Juana Ins de la Cruz. She has published articles on a wide array of colonial and modern Latin American, as well as comparative, topics. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Introduction: Road Map	p. 1
Agile Platforms of the Spectacular City: The New World and the Old	p. 13
Order and Concert	p. 49
Balbuena's "La grandeza mexicana" and the Advent of the Spectacular City	p. 91
Balbuena's Spectacular City and the Creole Cause	p. 128
Engaging Plurality: Baroque Plenitude and the Spectacular City in Mexico	p. 147
"To Know the All": The Spectacular Esoteric City in Mexico	p. 195
Babel: Wild Work of the Baroque	p. 247
Appendix: Chronology of Principal Works	p. 295
Notes	p. 297
Works Cited	p. 337
Index	p. 355
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