The Spectacular City Mexico and Colonial Hispanic Literary Culture

<p><b>Winner Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize Modern Language Association 2010</b></p> <p><i>The Spectacular City Mexico and Colonial Hispanic Literary Culture</i> tracks the three spectacular forces of New World literary culture-cities festivals and wonder-from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century from the Old World to the New and from Mexico to Colombia Peru and Bolivia. It treats a multitude of imperialist and anti-imperialist texts in depth including poetry drama protofiction historiography and journalism. While several of the landmark authors studied including Hernán Cortés and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz are familiar others have received remarkably little critical attention. Similarly in spotlighting creole writers Merrim reveals an intertextual tradition in Mexico that spans two centuries. Because the spectacular city reaches its peak in the seventeenth century Merrim's book also theorizes and details the spirited work of the New World Baroque. The result is the rich examination of a trajectory that leads from the Renaissance ordered city to the energetic revolts of the spectacular city and the New World Baroque.</p>