Hercules and the King of Portugal: Icons of Masculinity and Nation in Calderón's Spain. Dian Fox. New Hispanisms. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019. xxx + 304 pp. $55

• Published in: Renaissance quarterly Vol. 74; no. 1; pp. 345 - 346
• Main Author: Martí, Oriol Miró
• Format: Journal Article Book Review
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge Cambridge University Press 01.04.2021
• Subjects: 17th century; Cultural identity; Gender studies; Masculinity; National identity; Portuguese language; Renaissance period; Spanish language; Portugal; Spain
• ISSN: 0034-4338; 1935-0236
• DOI: 10.1017/rqx.2020.393

Above all else, this work is an ideological analysis exposing the way two of the most mainstream icons of Spanish identity were subject to political manipulations in seventeenth-century Spanish drama, which lied about gendered processes considered “inconceivable, or at least not printable out of respect for decorum,” as nonnormative behaviors of masculinity. In the second part, dedicated to King Sebastian, Fox approaches the consequences for both Portugal and Spain of Sebastian's rejection of women and how seventeenth-century Spanish drama used it as a weapon to justify King Philip II's invasion of Portugal and the claim to every Portuguese colony on earth. [...]foreign readers will appreciate the effort made by the author to translate the multiple fragments of Calderón and other Golden Age authors. [...]the reader will find mainly excerpts of Calderón's Los tres mayores prodigios (The three great prodigies), El pintor de su honra (The painter of his dishonor), Las manos blancas no ofenden (White hands are no offense), and Fieras afemina Amor (Love feminizes beasts).