Nicolás Guillén's "El gran zoo" (1967), illustrated by Fayad Jamís, was the first Hispanic bestiary to prominently feature humans in a space traditionally inhabited by beasts. Guillén's verses transform the bestiary from a didactic tool used for centuries to instruct and uniform society into a subversive text that openly denounces the…

Cristina Fernández Cubas's short story "La nueva vida" ("La habitación de Nona" 2015) foregrounds the play between truth and fiction, past and present, and death and identity, where the widowed protagonist finds meaning not in philosophy, but in physics. Widowed in 2007 at age 62, Fernández Cubas focalized this story through…

In 1623, Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, a parish priest in Atenango, Mexico, was commissioned by his archbishop to record Nahua beliefs and healing practices for the purpose of denouncing their superstitions and demonic magic. His "Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions That Today Live Among the Indians Native to This New Spain," 1629…

On the eighth of October, 1622, Lope de Vega finished "La nueva victoria de don Gonzalo de Córdoba." This "comedia" recounts a Spanish victory in the Battle of Fleurus, one of several military triumphs that encouraged hope and excitement during the early years of Philip IV's reign. The battle had occurred in late August of…

Hispanic Catholic liturgical ceremonies since the thirteenth century have drawn upon material-symbolic imagery of "Cristos articulados" [jointed Christ-figures] for staging episodes from the Passion of Christ during Holy Week, such as the "Veneration of the Cross," the "Holy Burial," the "Visit to the…

This article aims to help instructors tackle a perennial challenge in teaching one of the classic works of Spanish literature: Miguel de Cervantes's "Don Quixote." Many instructors teaching the novel for the first time may feel overwhelmed at the prospect of helping students appreciate the numerous ways in which Cervantes references the…

This article underscores the importance of Canto 7 in the design of Part One as well as its significance in the overall architecture of Alonso de Ercilla's "La Araucana" (1569, 1578, 1589). During his depiction of Concepción's destruction, Ercilla collapses the dichotomies established in the poem's opening cantos between the masculine…

"Celestina" scholarship has overlooked the important role Lucrecia plays in the unfolding of Calisto and Melibea's sexual relationship and in the configuration of Rojas's "Tragicomedia." Critics have branded Lucrecia as the archetype of the disloyal servant who looks out for her own interests over those of Melibea. Contrary to…

A grief-stricken daughter calls out to her deceased mother asking if she can see her--"Si me puedes mirar"--and thus recognize her pain. This title appears in Olga Orozco's "Los juegos peligrosos" (1962), an elegy in which a poetic voice (in this case a daughter) laments the loss of her mother, the woman who recognized and…

Carmen Martín Gaite's "Caperucita en Manhattan" is a Young Adult novel ahead of its time. If this category had existed in Spain when it was published, it is likely that it would have earned the critical recognition it deserves. The novel's exciting plot, captivating prose, wise cultural commentary, factual content, sense of humor, and…

Emergent bi/multilingual children have historically been afforded few opportunities to engage dialogically with peers and teachers in posing authentic questions and co-constructing interpretations of texts as their reading instruction has traditionally been skills driven. Additionally, more recent scholarship has identified increased opportunities…

If we study the shared themes of these two poets, it will be observed that although they are distant culturally and geographically but a similarity and a mental resemblance between their works can be identified. Forough Farrokhzad, the Persian poet, in whose last works experiences an evolutionary trend and actually achieves a thematic revolution,…

This article examines the life and work of Mary J. Serrano (1840-1923), a successful translator and popularizer of Spanish literature in late nineteenth-century United States. It provides a short biography of Serrano and focuses on her work for the Spanish Legation in in Washington D.C. during the Cuban War of Independence (1895-98), a period of…

This paper reports upon the interdisciplinary exchange between a group of students at the University of Groningen (UG), The Netherlands, enrolled in a course on Hispanic literature and a group of students at the University of La Frontera (UFRO), Chile, enrolled in a course on journalism. The study focusses on three challenges: f?irst, the way…

This essay examines the state of Digital Humanities work in the subfield of literature from the Spanish speaking world. It provides a case study of a multiyear digital mapping project conducted with undergraduate students at a highly selective liberal arts college. This project serves as a means of examining the digital state of the field and…