Ibérica

"First complete English translation of Sor Juana's brilliant comedia, Los empeños de una casa (1989), in which she subverts the conventions of gender and Golden Age drama to suit her own feminine perspectives. Castaño, the male character disguised as a woman, performs the construction of gendered identity. Notes help with the 17th-century references and baroque Spanish. Bibliography of primary and secondary sources. This script served for premier productions in March 1996 at Oklahoma City Univ. and at the International Siglo de Oro Theater Festival in El Paso. The annotated translation is clear but its modern registers lose the baroque flavor and wit of the original, in contrast to Peden's translation"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

In the early 1620's, the famous Spanish playwright, Don Pedro Calderon de la Barca, wrote a delightful and suspenseful comedia, The Fake Astrologer, which gained great favor and popularity all over Europe. In fact, there are at least eighteen adaptations of this play in French, English, Italian, Dutch, German, and Spanish some by no lesser authors than John Dryden and Voltaire. The present work represents the complete "literary biography" of this much-traveled play, including the critical Spanish text, a faithful, modern, rhymed English translation, and a study of the adaptations. A critical appreciation of the comedia will allow the reader to understand how a typical baroque cloak and sword play of the Spanish Golden Age was transmuted to please audiences and readers with different national tastes and preferences. It is hoped that in its present modern English version and with its complete commentary it will prove of equal appeal to the aficionado of good theatre, the student of comparative literature, the Spanish Golden Age specialist, and the larger reading public.