The Currency of Cultural Patrimony: The Spanish Golden Age by Bayliss, Robert;

Long description:

The Spanish Golden Age, a cultural narrative that has developed and over four centuries, remains a key element of how Spaniards articulate cultural identities, both within Spain and to the outside world. The Currency of Cultural Patrimony examines the development of this narrative by artists, intellectuals, historians, academics, and institutions. By defining the Spanish Golden Age as a diachronic problem, it examines several of Spain?s most canonical golden-age literary narratives (including Don Quixote, Fuenteovejuna, and Las mocedades del Cid) as texts whose institutionalization, mediation, and commercialization over the course of four hundred years inform their meaning both for contemporary Spaniards and for the field of Hispanic Studies around the world. Spain?s persistent deployment of this cultural patrimony as the canonical epicentre of a national literary tradition has stimulated diverse and often contradictory interpretations, the cumulative effect of which informs their reception by each new generation of Spaniards. This book?s analysis of how this patrimony is interpreted according to both tradition and current circumstances illuminates new angles from which scholars can approach some of Hispanism?s most persistent and vexing questions, including the growing divide between popular and academic understandings of the Spanish nation?s ?classics.?

'This book is a refreshing look at how the early modern cultural heritage has been marketed and used.'

Javier Irigoyen-Garc

Table of Contents:

INTRODUCTION: THE CULTURAL PATRIMONY OF THE SPANISH GOLDEN AGE

CHAPTER ONE: LOPE DE VEGA AND THE PERFORMANCE OF SPANISHNESS

CHAPTER TWO: DON QUIXOTE DE LA MANCHA, ?MADE IN SPAIN?

CHAPTER 3: REPATRIATING THE CID: SPANISH CULTURAL RECONQUISTA IN THE ERA OF GLOBALIZATION

CONCLUSION: THE SPANISH GOLDEN AGE AND EMPIRE, THEN AND NOW