Passing for Spain
Subtitle: CERVANTES AND THE FICTIONS OF IDENTITY (Hispanisms)
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: March 2003
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 160
ISBN-13: 9780252027819
Subjects: Literature: Texts; Passing (Identity) in literature; Identity (Psychology) in literature; Criticism and interpretation; Literary Collections; Literature - Classics / Criticism; Passing (Identity) in literatu; Literature: Classics; European - Spanish & Portuguese; Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de; Literary Criticism & Collections / Spanish & Portuguese; Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de,; Caribbean & Latin American; 1547-1616; Gender identity in literature
First sentence: Given the various pressures of centralization, imperial ambition, and religious dissidence, the construction of national identity in early modern Spain was an enterprise fraught with difficulties.
Description: "Passing for Spain charts the intersections of identity, nation, and literary representation in early modern Spain. Barbara Fuchs analyzes the trope of passing in Don Quijote and other works by Cervantes, linking the use of disguise to the broader historical and social context of Counter-Reformation Spain and the religious and political dynamics of the Mediterranean Basin.".

"In five engaging chapters, Fuchs examines what passes in Cervantes's fiction: gender and race in Don Quijote and "Las dos doncellas"; religion in "El amante liberal" and La gran sultana; national identity in the Persiles and "La espanola inglesa." She argues that Cervantes represents cross-cultural impersonation - or characters who pass for another gender, nationality, or religion - as a challenge to the state's attempts to assign identities and categories to proper Spanish subjects."--BOOK JACKET.