Beware the Poetry Political Satire and the Emergence of a Public Sphere in Madrid, 1595–1643
Produktdetaljer
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Javier Castro-Ibaseta is Assistant Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies at Rutgers University–Newark.
<p>“Castro-Ibaseta draws on a corpus of four hundred printed and manuscript poetic satires to argue that the production and circulation of satirical poetry is evidence of a high level of political awareness on the part of residents of Madrid's 'public sphere.' <i>Beware the Poetry</i> is a tour de force written by a daring and nimble thinker whose erudite analysis of the role of literary texts in politics is unparalleled in the field.”</p><p>—Katrina Beth Olds, author of <i>Forging the Past: Invented Histories in Counter-Reformation Spain</i></p>
In the early seventeenth century, Spanish rulers were confronted by an avalanche of political satires. Beware the Poetry shows how these poetic libels helped articulate an early form of the public sphere, profoundly transforming political culture.
Exploring a rich trove of mostly anonymous satirical works, together with newsletters, sermons, and plays, Javier Castro-Ibaseta reconstructs the experiences of Madrilenians during the reigns of Philip III and Philip IV. Castro-Ibaseta proposes an original theory of political publics that corrects approaches that assume early modern Spain’s public sphere mirrored the politics of England or France. Instead, he shows that in Spain publicness was distinct because the satires—about the king’s favorite, and even about the king himself—were consumed for pleasure and entertainment. They did not create political communities or stir rebellious movements. Read diachronically, the long, continuous, evolving collection of satires reveals not just the opinions of the poets but something far more difficult to reconstruct: the shifting demands, interests, uncertainties, and worldviews of the audience—that is, the structure and dynamics of Madrid’s emerging public sphere.
Applying an interdisciplinary approach of literary criticism and historical method, Beware the Poetry presents an exciting new take on politics and poetry during the period often referred to as the Spanish Decadence. It will be of special interest to scholars of early modern politics and Spanish literature and culture.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: “Ponder My Story in Awe”
Act I: Theater
1 “Admirable Theater”: Madrid and the Making of a Public, 1561–1618
2 “Courtly War”: Satires from the Royal Court to the Mentideros, 1598–1618
3 “The News Are Comedy”: Theater, Satire, and News, 1618–1621
Act II: Carnival
4 “Tarabillas”: The Politics of Satire, 1621–1630
5 “Zealous and Piquant”: Sermon, Satire, and the Public, 1629–1633
6 “Extravagant Clock”: The Carnival of Politics, 1633–1642
7 “We Turn Misfortunes Upside Down”: Olivares’s Long Carnival, 1642–1643
Conclusion: “More Than Pasquinades”
Notes
Bibliography
Index
This book complements our established backlist of modern Iberian history, politics, and culture.
The first English-language project to unpack the early modern public sphere in Spain, and why satire, poetry, and theatre dominated public life.
Read diachronically, the long, continuous, evolving collection of satires reveals not just the opinions of the poets but something far more difficult to reconstruct: the shifting demands, interests, uncertainties, and worldviews of the audience—that is, the structure and dynamics of Madrid’s emerging public sphere.
Corrects assumptions that early modern Spain’s public sphere mirrored the politics of England or France. Instead, he shows that Spanish publicness was distinct because satires about the king’s favorite, or valido, and even about the king himself, were consumed for pleasure and entertainment without creating political communities or stirring rebellious movements, but disrupting established norms of political communication.
Javier Castro-Ibaseta is Assistant Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies as Rutgers University.
We invite works that broaden our understanding of the ways in which people in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries encountered a world in transition. New religious expressions, technological advances, emerging cross-continental empires, environmental and social upheavals, and interactions among previously unconnected peoples and states both demanded and created a new world view; promoting change among some, retrenchment among others. Books in this series explore these changes, and their reception, from multiple perspectives. Topics covered include women and gender, race and ethnicity, religious expression and dissent, popular culture, technology, economics, politics and power, war and military practice.
**A previous version of this series was published as Early Modern Studies by Truman State University Press through 2018 and by the Penn State University Press through 2020.**
Produktdetaljer
Om bidragsyterne
Javier Castro-Ibaseta is Assistant Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies at Rutgers University–Newark.