Space, Drama, and Empire

A fascinating and original study of space showing how theater has the unique potential to function as the ultimate vehicle to explore and, more importantly, complicate matters of our past. Esther Fernández, author of To Embody the Marvelous: The Making of Illusions in Early Modern Spain

An eye-opening examination of Golden Age theater focusing on how Lope de Vegas’s plays use symbolic and ideological space, prefigure an imperial present (and future), and legitimize imperial expansion and territorial appropriation. Antonio Sánchez Jiménez, author of Lope: El verso y la vida

Lorenzo offers a wealth of insights to better understand a corpus of plays that Lope de Vega devised from the heights of artistic sophistication and popular acclaim. Lorenzo’s vivid, clear analysis retraces Lope’s steps as he reworks chronicles, myths, and maps depicting Iberia’s patchwork medieval realms for his own times, with a keen eye and well-tuned ear on the imperatives of Spain’s diverse, far-flung empire. Space, Drama, and Empire is a boon for scholars and students alike. Elizabeth Wright, author of The Epic of Juan Latino: Dilemmas of Race and Religion in Renaissance Spain

Lorenzo’s analysis of the representation of geographical space in Lope’s historical dramas provides compelling new insights concerning the reconfiguration of iconic episodes from Spain’s medieval past as imperial or proto-imperial episodes. Of particular interest is the way that Lorenzo identifies absolutist and imperialist undertones in plays that feature the peripheral provincial settings of Galicia, Asturias, and Las Canarias as prefigurations of early modern colonialism. Barbara Simerka, author of Knowing Subjects: Cognitive Cultural Studies and Early Modern Spanish Literature

Lope used Spanish history to project the aims and the armaments of imperial Spain, tying history to geography... Lorenzo demonstrates how Lope reappropriated medieval texts, testimonies, myths, and maps in order to connect them to the ideology and the aspirations of empire. Lorenzo profits from the current interest in the study of space, and he offers key analyses of Lope’s singular vision. The comprehensive field of cultural studies has opened doors to the investigation of literary and dramatic works, and Lorenzo builds upon the research and the commentaries of his predecessors as he observes and attempts to decipher Lope’s particular sensibility. The presentation and the evaluations are clear and well written, and the arguments are sound and original.'  CHOICE