The Spanish Arcadia: Sheep Herding, Pastoral Discourse, and Ethnicity in Early Modern Spain

by Javier Irigoyen-Garcia

Overview

The Spanish Arcadia analyzes the figure of the shepherd in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish imaginary, exploring its centrality to the discourses on racial, cultural, and religious identity. Drawing on a wide range of documents, including theological polemics on blood purity, political treatises, manuals on animal husbandry, historiography, paintings, epic poems, and Spanish ballads, Javier Irigoyen-García argues that the figure of the shepherd takes on extraordinary importance in the reshaping of early modern Spanish identity.

The Spanish Arcadia contextualizes pastoral romances within a broader framework and assesses how they inform other cultural manifestations. In doing so, Irigoyen-García provides incisive new ideas about the social and ethnocentric uses of the genre, as well as its interrelation with ideas of race, animal husbandry, and nation building in early modern Spain.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442647275
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	12/20/2013
Series:	Toronto Iberic
Pages:	360
Product dimensions:	6.28(w) x 9.34(h) x 1.12(d)

About the Author

Javier Irigoyen-García is an associate professor of Spanish Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His previous work, The Spanish Arcadia, is also published by the University of Toronto Press.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction: A country of Shepherds

• Race, Religion, and Culture in Early Modern Spain
• The Figure of the Shepherd in Early Modern Spain
• Pastoral Literature and Cultural Supersession

Part One. Sheep Herding and Ethnocentrism in Early Modern Spain

1. 1 Sheep Herding and Discourses on Race
   1. Writing the History of Spanish Sheep
   2. Sheep Herding and Racial Terminology
   3. The Good Shepherd and limpieza de sangre
   4. Representing Laban’s Livestock
2. 2 Rustic Culture and the Invention of the Spanish People
   1. The Adoration of the shepherds
   2. Apparitions to Shepherds
   3. Performing Rustic Culture
   4. Dressing the Shepherd
   5. Rustic Speech as Relic
3. 3 In the Land of Pan: Pastoral Classicism and Historiography
   1. Ancient Place Names and Pastoral Cartographies
   2. Inhabiting the Past with Shepherds
   3. Etymology and Sheep Herding
   4. Paganism and Ethnic Identity
   5. The God Pan and the Name of Spain

Part Two. Contesting Ethnocentrism within the Arcadia

1. 4 The Moor in Arcadia
   1. The Story of El Abencerraje in Montemayor’s La Diana
   2. Reluctant Shepherds: Gaspar Mercader’s El prado de Valencia
   3. The Limits of Cultural Cleansing in Cervantes’ pastoral
2. 5 Imagining the Spanish Arcadia after 1609
   1. Jews and Gypsies in Lope de Vega’s Pastores de Belén
   2. Nostalgia for the Moor: Jacinto Espinel Adorno’s El premio de la constancia
   3. Pastoral Hierarchies: Juan de Barrionuevo y Moya’s Primera parte de la soledad entretenida
3. Conclusion: Pan’s Labyrinth
   1. The Pastoral Habitus: Early Modern to Present
   2. From Blood Purity to Whiteness
   3. Pastoral and Ethnocentrism: Future Directions

Notes

Works Cited

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A fascinating and erudite book. Irigoyen-García combines literary, historical, and cultural analysis with critical theory to demonstrate the ways in which writers and painters in early modern Spain used sheep herding, the shepherd, and the pastoral to reinforce or oppose efforts toward ethnic, cultural, and religious exclusion and homogenization.”

Jean Dangler

“A fascinating and erudite book. Irigoyen-García combines literary, historical, and cultural analysis with critical theory to demonstrate the ways in which writers and painters in early modern Spain used sheep herding, the shepherd, and the pastoral to reinforce or oppose efforts toward ethnic, cultural, and religious exclusion and homogenization.”

Editorial Reviews

‘What makes this a great academic achievement is that it plays a big part in finding a meaningful global interpretation of the heterogeneous pastoral manifestation in early modern Spain.’

—Oiol Miro Marti, Renaissance Quarterly vol 67:04:2014

‘The Spanish Arcadia is a beautifully written, insightful and well-researched study. Irigoyen-Garcia provides a wealth of information about Spanish historiography and the fashioning of national identity.’

—Bárbara Mujica, Bulletin of Spanish Studies vol 94:2017

“A fascinating and erudite book. Irigoyen-García combines literary, historical, and cultural analysis with critical theory to demonstrate the ways in which writers and painters in early modern Spain used sheep herding, the shepherd, and the pastoral to reinforce or oppose efforts toward ethnic, cultural, and religious exclusion and homogenization.”

—Jean Dangler, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Tulane University

From the Publisher

'The Spanish Arcadia is a beautifully written, insightful and well-researched study. Irigoyen-Garcia provides a wealth of information about Spanish historiography and the fashioning of national identity.'

Bulletin of Spanish Studies vol 94:2017 - Bárbara Mujica

‘What makes this a great academic achievement is that it plays a big part in finding a meaningful global interpretation of the heterogeneous pastoral manifestation in early modern Spain.’

Renaissance Quarterly vol 67:04:2014 - Oiol Miro Marti

'The Spanish Arcadia is a beautifully written, insightful and well-researched study. Irigoyen-Garcia provides a wealth of information about Spanish historiography and the fashioning of national identity.'

Bulletin of Spanish Studies vol 94:2017 - Bárbara Mujica