Beyond Spain's Borders : Women Players in Early Modern National Theaters
authorities. While some are written in prose and aimed at cultivated readers, Domènech concentrates mostly on those written in Catalan verse and directed at a wide audience. She shows how they polarize public opinion by mobilizing traditional tropes: Catalonia is represented as a fertile Arcadia or as a protective maternal figure, while Castile is shown as a decrepit old man. In its attempt to engage a socially varied public, this corpus is deemed comparable to the modern press. The last chapter addresses the stifling of verbal dissent by the Crown. In the years leading up to the 1652 quelling of the revolt, Domènech explains, Catalan pamphlets stop circulating, as their printers and authors are silenced. They are gradually displaced by Castilian relaciones, written in Spanish prose. These resemble modern daily newspapers more than the Catalan pliegos sueltos in that they bring together in one issue accounts of various military events that are described in chronological order with precise dates included. While adopting a seemingly objective format, Domènech notes, the texts exclude lower-class and female voices. By following the fluctuating portrayals of the Catalan revolt, Domènech offers us some rich material that sharpens our understanding of the extent to which antiguo régimen Spain was a contestatory culture. Also to be commended as an extremely fertile critical move is her examination of earlymodern theater and nascent journalism in tandem as popular genres that are shaped by and shape public opinion of current events. Whether plays and pamphlets influenced one another in concrete ways remains an unanswered question. However, by inviting us to raise it, Domènech opens a productive avenue for future research.