Lorenz masterfully interweaves philosophical, political, sociological, and historical perspectives into his readings of these diverse plays . . .Recommended (—Choice Magazine) ". . . a highly theorized account of a set of mesmerizing problem plays from Spanish and English theater,which generate a range of insightful new accounts of the operation of the tropes of metaphor, analogy, and allegory in relation to the theatrical image, the Eucharist, and the insignia of power."---—Julia Reinhard Lupton, author of Thinking with Shakespeare: Essays on Politics and Life In his first book, 'Tears of Sovereignty: Perspectives of Power in Renaissance Drama, Philip Lorenz addresses Spain through inventive political-theological readings of the Jesuit theologian Francisco Suarez and Lope de Vega's 'Life Is a Dream'. The emphasis on Suarez is fresh and urgent, inviting us to think the Catholic question in a counter-reformation and Baroque rather than medieval/archaic frame, and to do so through a substantial, fascination, and under-examined body of texts. (—Studies in English Literature 1500-1900) "Tears of Sovereignty is a smart, philosophically textured analysis of sovereignty on the seventeenth-century stage."---—Graham Hammill, University at Buffalo, SUNY