Astraea, Astrea, Astria or Austräa, in ancient Greek religion, is a daughter of Astraeus and Eos. She is the virgin goddess of justice, innocence, purity and precision. She is closely associated with the Greek goddess of justice, Dike. She is not to be confused with Asteria, the goddess of the stars and the daughter of Coeus and Phoebe. The main belt asteroid 5 Astraea is named after her, and her name was also suggested for the planet Uranus.
Pedro Calderón de la Barca was a Spanish dramatist, poet, writer and knight of the Order of Santiago. He is known as one of the most distinguished Baroque writers of the Spanish Golden Age, especially for his plays.
The word ekphrasis, or ecphrasis, comes from the Greek for the written description of a work of art produced as a rhetorical or literary exercise, often used in the adjectival form ekphrastic. It is a vivid, often dramatic, verbal description of a visual work of art, either real or imagined. Thus, "an ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art." In ancient times, it might refer more broadly to a description of any thing, person, or experience. The word comes from the Greek ἐκ ek and φράσις phrásis, 'out' and 'speak' respectively, and the verb ἐκφράζειν ekphrázein, 'to proclaim or call an inanimate object by name'.
José María Andrés Fernando Lezama Lima was a Cuban writer, poet and essayist. He is considered one of the most influential figures in Cuban and Latin American literature. His novel Paradiso is one of the most important works in Spanish and one of the best novels of the 20th Century according to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo.
Benito Pérez Galdós was a Spanish realist novelist. He was a leading literary figure in 19th-century Spain, and some scholars consider him second only to Miguel de Cervantes in stature as a Spanish novelist.
Emilia Pardo Bazán y de la Rúa-Figueroa, countess of Pardo Bazán, was a Spanish novelist, journalist, literary critic, poet, playwright, translator, editor and professor. She is known for introducing naturalism into Spanish literature, for her detailed descriptions of reality, and for her ground-breaking introduction of feminist ideas into the literature of her era. Her ideas about women's rights for education also made her a prominent feminist figure.
Life Is a Dream is a Spanish-language play by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. First published in 1636, in two different editions, the first in Madrid and a second one in Zaragoza. Don W. Cruickshank and a number of other critics believe that the play can be dated around 1630, thus making Calderón's most famous work a rather early composition. It is a philosophical allegory regarding the human situation and the mystery of life. The play has been described as "the supreme example of Spanish Golden Age drama". The story focuses on the fictional Segismundo, Prince of Poland, who has been imprisoned in a tower by his father, King Basilio, following a dire prophecy that the prince would bring disaster to the country and death to the King. Basilio briefly frees Segismundo, but when the prince goes on a rampage, the king imprisons him again, persuading him that it was all a dream.
María de Zayas y Sotomayor wrote during Spain's Golden Age of literature. She is considered by a number of modern critics as one of the pioneers of literary feminism, while others consider her simply a well-accomplished baroque author. The female characters in de Zayas's stories were used as vehicles to enlighten readers about the plight of women in Spanish society, or to instruct them in proper ways to live their lives.
Bárbara Mujica is an American scholar, novelist, short story writer, and literary critic. She is an Emeritus Professor of Spanish at Georgetown University. Her novels include Frida (2001), Sister Teresa (2007), and Miss del Río (2022).
Francisco Moreno-Fernández is a Spanish dialectologist and sociolinguist.
Germán Gullón, literary critic and writer, is a professor of Spanish literature and member of the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam. He has authored, beside his scholarly works and essays, two books of short stories, Adiós, Helena de Troya and Azulete, and two novels, Querida hija and La codicia de Guillermo de Orange.
Hispanism is the study of the literature and culture of the Spanish-speaking world, principally that of Spain and Hispanic America. It may also entail studying Spanish language and cultural history in the United States and in other presently or formerly Spanish-speaking countries in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, such as Equatorial Guinea and the former Spanish East Indies.
The Phantom Lady is a play by Spanish playwright Pedro Calderón de la Barca. It was written and performed in 1629 and was published for the first time in the Primera parte de comedias de don Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1636).
The Widow from Valencia is a play written by the Spanish playwright Lope de Vega. It was written circa 1600 as a result of Lope's visit to the city with his new patron, the future Count of Lemos. They were there for the marriage of the King Philip III with Margaret of Austria. However, the play was not published until 1620 in the fifteenth part of his Comedias, where it is dedicated to Marcia Leonarda, that is to say, to Lope’s beloved Marta de Nevares.
Ottmar Ette is Professor of Romance languages and Comparative literature at University of Potsdam.
Spanish Golden Age theatre refers to theatre in Spain roughly between 1590 and 1681. Spain emerged as a European power after it was unified by the marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile in 1469 and then claimed for Christianity at the Siege of Granada in 1492. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw a monumental increase in the production of live theatre as well as in the importance of the arts within Spanish society.
Ruth Fine is a professor of Spanish and Latin-American literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Blanca López de Mariscal or Blanca Guadalupe López Morales is a Professor emeritus and researcher in literature at Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey, México.
El pintor de su deshonra, sometimes known as El pintor, is a 1640s play of the Spanish Golden Age theatre by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. It is one of the author's three famous wife-murder plays, along with A secreto agravio, secreta venganza and El médico de su honra, where private revenge of an aggrieved husband, in this case a painter by the name of Juan Roca, ultimately becomes very public.
Mabel Moraña is a renowned intellectual and academic who has worked internationally in the fields of literary and cultural criticism in Latin America, being the author of numerous interdisciplinary publications that articulate perspectives on Philosophy, Anthropology, History, and Cultural theory. Currently she is the William H. Gass Professor in Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. She is also the Director of the Latin American Studies Program at the same institution. Her research work spans from the Colonial Period, particularly focusing on the Baroque, to the present. Her main contributions are in the areas of the study of national cultures, modernity, postcolonialism, and the history of ideas. Moraña has published articles and books on Andean cultures, Mexican literature and culture, as well as transnational issues. She has contributed to the critical development of categories such as the monstrous, migration, violence, issues related to gender, race and ethnicity, critiques of modernity, Postcolonial Theory, among other topics.
