The treatment of mythological material in the poetry, prose, drama, art and music of the Hispanic Baroque.Thirteen essays engage with one of the most obsessive aspects of the Baroque aesthetic, a dedicated commitment in distinct artistic contexts to the treatment of mythological material. Within the various 'Baroques' uncovered, thereis a single unity of purpose. Meaning is always negotiable, but the process of interpretation is dependent upon intertextual forms of understanding, and presupposes the active participation of the receiver. The volume explores how the paradigmatic mythical symbols of a Renaissance epistemological world view can be considered a barometer of rupture and a gauge of the contradictory impulses of the time. Essays explore the differing functions of mythology in poetry [Quevedo, Espinosa, Góngora], prose [Cervantes], drama [Lope de Vega, Sor Juana, Calderón], art [Velázquez], and music [Latin American opera]. Collectively they trace the dialectic of continuity and rupture that underpins the appropriation of classical mythology in the period; demonstrating that the mythological legacy was not as uniform, as allegorically dominated, nor as depleted of potential as we are sometimes led to believe. ISABEL TORRES is Head of Spanish and Portuguese Studies at Queen's University, Belfast. Contributors: JEAN ANDREWS , STEPHEN BOYD, D. W. CRUICKSHANK, TREVOR. J. DADSON, B.W. IFE, ANTHONY LAPPIN, OLIVER NOBLE WOOD, JEREMY ROBBINS, BRUCE SWANSEY, BARRY TAYLOR, ISABEL TORRES, D. GARETH WALTERS

Introduction: Con pretensión de Fénix - `Al Cielo trasladado': Quevedo's Apotheosis Of Leander - D. Gareth WaltersRiver Gods of Andalusia: Pedro Espinosa's Fábula de Genil - Barry TaylorRewriting the Pastoral: Góngora's Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea - Trevor J. DadsonGalatea Descending...Rereading Góngora's Polifemo Stanzas - A Tale of Twe Serpents: Biblical And Mythological Allusions In Cervantes's El celoso extremeño - Stephen BoydThe Wound And The Bow: Cervantes, Philoctetes And The Pathology Of Genius - B. W. IfeMyth or History? Lope de Vega's Caballero de Olmedo - Anthony John LappinPedro Calderón de la Barca's Eco Y Narciso: Court Drama And The Poetics Of Reflection - Jeremy RobbinsFrom Allegory to Mockery: Baroque Theatrical Representations Of The Labyrinth - Bruce SwanseyMars Recontextualized In The Golden Age Of Spain: Psychological And Aesthetic Readings of Velázquez's Marte - Oliver Noble WoodUt pictura poesis: Calderón's Picturing of Myth - D W CruickshankOpera On The Margins In Colonial Latin America: Conceived Under The Sign Of Love - J. M. Andrews