Critical edition of the seventeenth-century Spanish poet's moral poetry: the Polimnia group of poems from his Poesiia moral. `The clarity and intelligence with which both the poetry and the introductory material are presented make this book a useful tool for the scholar.' BARBARA MUJICAFrancisco de Quevedo, Spanish novelist, satirist and moralist of theseventeenth century, was also renowned as a poet. His sonnets on the vanity of life are perhaps his finest work in the genre. He grouped his poetry in categories corresponding to the nine muses, and this volume presents the Polimniagroup; the second muse, Polymnia, `sings moral poetry - which reveals and seeks to reform human customs'. Alfonso Rey's critical edition encompasses the one hundred and ten sonnets, one silva, and one epistle in tercetoswhich make up this group; he rigorously elucidates problems of textual criticism and transmission, and reveals the thematic and stylist homogeneity of the collection. Second edition, completely revised and significantly expanded. ALFONSO REY is Professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Santiago de Compostela.

"An elegant, precise, and accessible modern-English rendering of the two best examples of the early modern picaresque genre: the paradigmatic Lazarillo de Tormes and Quevedo's mordant El Buscon . Frye's translations are triumphant, capturing the cadence of popular early modern speech while remaining faithful to the original texts; his notes illuminate the diverse contexts in which the texts were written. Frye gives careful attention throughout to the historical background that propelled these two parallel but different monuments of Golden Age Spanish literature." --Teofilo Ruiz, UCLA

"An elegant, precise, and accessible modern-English rendering of the two best examples of the early modern picaresque genre: the paradigmatic Lazarillo de Tormes and Quevedo's mordant El Buscon . Frye's translations are triumphant, capturing the cadence of popular early modern speech while remaining faithful to the original texts; his notes illuminate the diverse contexts in which the texts were written. Frye gives careful attention throughout to the historical background that propelled these two parallel but different monuments of Golden Age Spanish literature." --Teofilo Ruiz, UCLA