This book, the first study of its kind to adopt a post-structuralist viewpoint, offers new readings of the major texts of the Spanish Renaissance, or Golden Age. Beginning with a comparison of Renaissance and modern theories of discourse, the main substance of the book appeals to terms borrowed from Jacques Derrida for the analysis of the three most important genres of the period: lyric poetry, picaresque narrative, and drama. Authors discussed include Gongora, Quevedo, Lope de Vega, Calderon, and Cervantes, the popularity of Don Quijote being attributed to its (apparent) repression of characteristics common to other Golden Age texts. In the conclusion it is suggested that Spain itself is the place of marginality, the supplement to a Europe which cannot admit it but dare not exclude it. Writing in the Margin is addressed to all specialists in Spanish literature and in the comparative literature of the Renaissance. There are translations of the Spanish quotations.

This book offers new readings of major texts in the literature of theSpanish Renaissance or Golden Age. Beginning with a comparison of Renaissance and modern theories of discourse, the author proceeds to analyze, from a post-structuralist viewpoint, the major genres of the period--lyric poetry, picaresque narrative, and drama.

'Smith's work is just about the best thing which has happened in Spanish studies for a long time ... I think it's a splendid book which is going to make a lot of difference to the study of Golden Age literature and which already makes a lot of existing criticism seem very old-fashioned.' Arthur Terry, University of Essex