Connecting Past and Present: Exploring the Influence of the Spanish Golden Age in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

In this volume, experts on the Spanish Golden Age from the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the United States offer analyses of contemporary works that have been influenced by the classics from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Part of the formation of a sense of national identity, always a problematic concept in Spain, is founded in the recognition and appreciation of what has come beforehand, and no other era in the history of Spanish literature and drama represents the talent and fascination that Spaniards and non-Spaniards alike possess with the artistic legacy of this country. In order to establish properly a context for the study of literature or history, one cannot always study the works, writers, or era in isolation; rather, performing scholarly studies on these topics as a continuation of what has come before reveals that many thoughts, concepts, character types, criticisms, and social issues have been thoroughly explored by our literary ancestors. This era is referred to as the Golden Age not only because of the voluminous production of art, literature, drama and poetry, but also because writers such as Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Pedro Calderon de la Barca, influenced by the re-birth of the Classical masters, presented the reading and viewing public with genuine human emotions and experiences in a more comprehensive manner than in previous eras. In the twentieth century, Spain faced a series of political crises; the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) and the Franco Dictatorship (1939-75), followed by the Transition and the concept of historical memory, have provided contemporary Spanish writers with the impetus and freedom to express their views. A frequent source of inspiration has been the Golden Age, that epoch of history that produced such political and religious upheaval, and this book explores the manner in which contemporary Spaniards have reached into the past to connect with their present world.
About the Author: Aaron M. Kahn has held the post of Lecturer in Spanish at the University of Sussex since 2008. He studied at Ohio University in the USA, and completed his doctorate in Golden Age Spanish Literature at the University of Oxford (Linacre College). Focussing mainly on sixteenth-century drama, his publications include a monograph, two edited volumes, and numerous peer-reviewed articles in scholarly journals. Most recently, his two articles on the play La conquista de Jerusalen have contributed to the attribution of this anonymous play to Miguel de Cervantes. He has been commissioned by Oxford University Press to compile the Oxford Handbook of Cervantes, a comprehensive reference for students, scholars and all who are interested in Cervantes's works; it will be printed in 2016 or 2017.