Exemplary Tales of Love and Tales of Disillusion by María de Zayas Sotomayor

The volume includes a selection of tales from Zayas's two works, Novelas amorosas y ejemplares and Desengaños amorosos. The editors tie her poetic and narrative innovations to the tensions she faced as a female writer in a literary world dominated by men, which leads to an informative review of recent critical evaluations of Zayas's feminism. The strongest part of this introduction is the discussion of Zayas's place in literary tradition and her manipulation of literary conventions. Their discussion of historical context is scholarly yet accessible for non-specialists. The biographical information included is by necessity speculative, since very little documentation exists about Zayas's life, and, as the editors point out, María de Zayas was a fairly common name in Spain. The historical survey given in the series introduction effectively contextualizes Greer and Rhodes's own introduction to Zayas's life and work as one of these early modern women writers. It culminates in a discussion of Renaissance humanism, which gave rise to the emergence of women writers capable of rebutting the anti-feminist attitudes rooted in Greek philosophy, Roman law, and Christian theology. King and Albert Rabil Jr., is a concise and panoramic history of the development of misogynist attitudes in ancient and medieval Europe. The introduction to the series, published at the beginning of each volume and written by the series editors, Margaret L. This volume is part of a series entitled The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe, the purpose of which is to introduce early women writers from throughout Europe to English-speaking audiences. Instead of attempting to simplify the stories and make them accessible, Greer and Rhodes have done their best to replicate the experience of reading Zayas's works in Spanish, thereby conveying the difficulties and complexities of language and culture that make Zayas so intriguing to scholars. Greer and Elizabeth Rhodes's new edition fills an important niche. Although there have been a small handful of previous translations of María de Zayas's works, Margaret R.

Exemplary Tales of Love and Tales of Disillusion by María de Zayas Sotomayor