ix, 348 pages ; 23 cm

"La espada, el rayo y la pluma explores the literary, cultural, and political relationships of Francisco de Quevedo (1580-1645), one of the major writers of the Spanish Golden Age. Inspired by Pierre Bourdieu's social and cultural studies of the nineteenth-century French literary field, the book starts by establishing the birth and development of the first Spanish literary field circa 1600. By literary field, Gutierrez means the emergence of writers as a distinctive social group with internal hierarchies and alliances that breed competition for the leadership of either popular or elite literary production. Next, the book focuses on the relationship between the literary field and the field of power (King, court at large, and Catholic Church hierarchy). Within that relationship, literature became a cultural, symbolic capital and served sometimes as an exchange currency between intellectual suppliers (writers such as Quevedo) and political and social demanders (Royal Favorite, Aristocracy, Catholic Church). Once the book establishes these social, literary, and political relationships, it examines the specific literary and political interaction that can be perceived in Quevedo's trajectory. As a result, La espada, el rayo y la pluma draws a seventeenth-century picture of the complex relations between Early Modern intellectuals such as Quevedo and the field of power."--BOOK JACKET

Includes bibliographical references (p. 307-334) and index

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