El retorno de Astrea is the Spanish translation of the reference work The Return of Astrea: An Astral-Imperial Myth in Calderón, which Frederick de Armas published in 1986. This edition does much more than provide readers with a Spanish version of this key work in the interpretation of the mythical and astrological elements used in Calderón de la Barca’s comedias. It offers an updated version in which the author quotes from the most recent critical editions of the plays, makes use of the bibliography published in the thirty years since the University of Kentucky printed the original English study, and engages in a discussion with critics, showing the different opinions on the interpretation of the plays. The first and second chapters are, as they were, a complete exposition of the sources of the myth of Astrea, expounding the elements of this myth present in texts from antiquity, the Middle Ages, and Golden Age Spanish literature. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 constitute the core of the work, with the interpretation of Calderón’s masterpiece, La vida es sueño. Chapter 3 and chapters 7 to 10 are, as originally, interpretations of other plays by Calderón, completing the analysis of the thirteen comedias in which the playwright made use of the myth of Astrea and of astrological elements.

New pieces of research and reflection have been added to several chapters. The additions in chapter 3 insist on the complexity of the Calderonian texts and the political subtext that the study of mythological and astrological elements can help reveal. De Armas also introduces a new consideration of the meaning of the scenes of the fall of Rosaura. The additions in chapter 4 enrich the discussion on the role of astrology in the play, insisting on the relationship of astronomical events of the seventeenth century, those present in La vida es sueño, and historical, political events with their astrological interpretation. Chapter 7, with the analysis of two later comedias, is where Frederick de Armas has inserted an analysis of the scholarship of the past thirty years and the positions expressed on the interpretation of political keys underlying the plays. This is an appealing addition where the author establishes a chronology for the stages through which the critics’ opinions have gone in the last decades. Preceded by this exposition of the different opinions of the experts, the strength of the arguments for the political reading of the mythical and astrological aspects of the plays, particularly in El mayor encanto, amor, is increased.

The quality of the edition corresponds to the high standards of all the volumes published in the Biblioteca Áurea Hispánica. The translation, however, is not flawless. Of lesser importance are issues such as a line of the English original skipped and resulting in the merging of two unrelated sentences (85), some grammatical mistakes (94, 142), and some misleading translations (136, 165, 190, 287). Of more relevance, but also scarce, are mistranslations that change the intended meaning or provide incorrect statements, as in the sentence “que Aries se encuentre en la ‘casa’ de Marte” (257), which should say, as in the English original, “Aries is the house of Mars.” A thorough Spanish editing and careful attention in the correction process at the publisher could have avoided these issues.

None of this affects the more than established value of El retorno de Astrea, which continues to be a brilliant analysis, now enriched by new reflections and by the recent bibliography, which the author not only quotes, but explains, discusses, and uses in support of his thesis, showing other interpretations alongside the work. Besides the obvious interest of this updated version for literary critics and specialists in Golden Age theater, historians of Spanish early modern science and medicine and cultural historians should be an audience for Frederick de Armas’s appealing study, as it shows magisterially the pervasiveness of mythical and astrological ideas in the Spanish society of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.