Lust’s Dominion; or, the Lascivious Queen / El dominio de la lujuria, o, la reina lasciva (ca. 1598-1600), by/de Thomas Dekker, John Marston, John Day, William Haughton

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Acknowledgments

This book – as can be easily perceived from the title – is quite ambitious, as its publication tries to fulfil a diversity of very complex goals. For one thing, it attempts to provide a critical edition of a somewhat neglected and extraordinarily interesting Elizabethan play, Lust’s Dominion; or, the Lascivious Queen. This is a play of uncertain authorship which underwent an especially obscure and difficult editorial process, since it was firstly staged ca. 1599 but was adapted from an earlier text (most likely from the 1580s) and was not eventually published until more than half a century later (1657). Since Fredson Bowers’ 1961 edition, and apart from Khalid Bekkaoui’s one in 1999 (which is difficult to find outside Morocco), ours – and acknowledging the merits of Bower’s – aims at becoming the standard edition of Lust’s Dominion.

Together with this endeavour, we also provide an annotated translation of the play into Spanish, which is the first one ever attempted. This was an anomaly of sorts, not only on account of the quality of the play but especially since this is an Elizabethan play of unquestionable interest for Spanish readers and scholars, as it deals with Moors in early modern Spain, or the ‘Loss of Spain’, a topic that fascinated English audiences of the late sixteenth century and later. With our translation we expect to make this play accessible to Spanish readers at large, and to scholars of comparative literature interested in the drama and the history of the period, and in early modern Anglo-Spanish relations. Furthermore, our critical edition and annotated translation of this work is preceded by an essay-like introduction to the play, the period and the historical context, which includes an updated bibliography.

A project like this then cannot be carried out without the assistance and encouragement of many other persons and institutions. We would like to thank the Folger Shakespeare Library, in Washington DC (US), and the Folger Shakespeare Institute, for a generous fellowship in the Summer of 2016. Apart from this material help, the FSL offers something more valuable than funding: a warm environment of study and collegiality in unparalleled access to primary and secondary sources.

Our thanks also go to the Library of Congress, in Washington DC, and to the libraries of the Universidad de Jaén (Spain) and Florida International University (USA). The Research Group HUM 271 of the Andalusian Government (Spain), the English Department at the Universidad de Jaén, and the Shepard Broad Foundation at Florida International University have also more than generously helped us in our research. ← 7 | 8 →

Along the way, a number of colleagues have contributed to the edition, to the critical introduction and/or to the translation with their insightful advice and suggestions: we are grateful to John Drakakis, Rüdiger Ahrens, Clara Calvo, Eroulla Demetriou, Cinta Zunino, Luciano García, Maida Watson, and Ali S. Zaidi. Their expertise and talent are behind most of the achievements of this work, whereas the shortcomings are totally ours. And we are also grateful to everybody at Peter Lang, but very especially to Ute Winkelkötter, whose commitment with the project, kindness and patience know no bounds.

Last, but more than ever not least, this volume is the product of the infinite support of our families. Without them, this book had not been possible.

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