Courtiers, Courtesans, Picaros, and Prostitutes: the art and artifice of selling one's self in Golden Age Spain
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Description
This work examines the place of literature in Golden Age Spain by exploring the implications of the shifting means of evaluating the worth of the individual in a culture bent on preserving traditional societal divisions. A blend of textual analysis of canonical literature and theoretical concerns, the examination of traditionally divergent sets of literary genres explores two disparate worldviews, the cultural elite versus the marginalized. The book analyzes questions of social mobility and linguistic performance: how battles for the acquisition and preservation of status lead to the ultimate revelation of the ‘self’s’ verbal and intellectual skills as merely a ruse. The emergence of a ‘self’ defined by its success in social exchange then becomes a parallel for commercial exchange in a developing capitalist society.
Keywords
Gracián y Morales, Baltasar -- Criticism and interpretation -- 1601-1658; Picaresque literature, Spanish -- History and criticism; Social classes in literature;
Document Type
Book
ISBN
978-1889431772
Publication Date
2002
Publisher
University Press of the South
City
New Orleans
Department
Department of Languages and Literatures
Object Description
xii, 231 pages ; 22 cm
Language
en
Recommended Citation
Cooley, Jennifer Jo, "Courtiers, Courtesans, Picaros, and Prostitutes: the art and artifice of selling one's self in Golden Age Spain" (2002). Faculty Book Gallery. 315.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/facbook/315
