Alonso Jerónimo de Salas Barbadillo
La sabia Flora malsabidilla
Dana Flaskerud

This first-ever critical edition of Salas Barbadillo’s exciting novel-in-dialogue, La sabia Flora malsabidilla (1621), finally makes accessible an important but neglected work of Golden Age literature. La sabia Flora malsabidilla relates the adventures of Flora, a witty pícara and former prostitute who disguises herself as a dama and enters Madrid’s court to seek out, seduce, and marry the newly wealthy indiano Teodoro. Through several rousing escapades and humorous mix-ups, Salas Barbadillo experiments with genre, which catalogues, parodies and transforms Golden Age convention to create a truly original form. With this innovative and dynamic adaptation of form, the text opens several paths for readers interested in Golden Age Spanish literature to explore. While the work facilitates a connection between Fernando de Rojas’ fifteenth century La Celestina and the feminine picaresque novel, it also parodies and satirizes conventions from the Spanish comedia and intercalates both love and satirical poetry typical of the seventeenth century. Faithfully transcribed and modernized from the early modern printed book of 1621, this edition clarifies hundreds of difficult words and passages unfamiliar to the modern reader and annotates many unknown historical and literary allusions. The rigorous introduction carefully traces the sources of the work and provides a critical interpretation that explores the portrayal of women in the text, which is intricately linked to the text’s generic hybridity and the influences of La Celestina, the female picaresque, and the Golden Age comedia.

Ediciones críticas #38 isbn: 978-1-58871-118-2 (PB) 273 pp. $22.95