Prismatic Reflections on Spanish Golden Age Theater

Essays in Honor of Matthew D. Stroud

This volume, organized in five major sections, honors the myriad scholarly contributions of Matthew D. Stroud to the field of Early Modern Spanish theater. Building upon Stroud’s seminal studies, each section of essays simultaneously claims and wrestles with aspects of the rich legacy generated by his explorations. The essays included in this volume consider the moral, ethical, and legal backdrop of uxoricide, explorations of the meaningful intersections of psychoanalytic theory and the comedia, and engage the topics of women, gender, and identity. They also bridge the gap between dramatist and actors and between page and stage as they consider everything from the physical demands on Early Modern actresses to the twenty-first-century performance possibilities of comedias. Moreover, these essays incorporate studies that transcend temporal, spatial, political, and cultural limits, continuing to push at the edges of traditional scholarship characteristic of Stroud’s pioneering research. Both scholars and students will find this cohesive, compelling collection of interest across a wide spectrum of disciplines from theater history to performance studies, from philosophy to queer studies.