With the meticulous care which he has already shown in the first three volumes, Green concludes his brilliant study of the Spanish legacy (forged from much earlier materials and traditions), which appeared in the seventeenth century. According to the author, there was little decadence in that century, for during its span the vitality and the richness of expression which characterized the Renaissance not only survived, but actually reached its climax. To him the characteristic bitterness and disillusionment of that century were not fatal results of decadence, but evidences of wisdom, accepting a just and merciful God. The erudite professor explains further that Spain shared a sort of universal spirit which, abjuring stylistic beauty, allowed “the great crisis of the European conscience”—in Hazard’s expression—to burst forth in myriad contrasts.

Green calls his work “an exercise in historical method conceived not only as ancillary to but a sine qua non for adequate understanding of a literature produced by another culture in other centuries” (p. iv). He regards the baroque as a positive movement in Spain. Certainly from the Empire of Charles V to the bureaucracy of Philip II Spain experienced a diminution in some aspects of national life, but it is no less certain that “Spain was still making important contributions to the life of Europe” (p. 179). Green agrees with Marcel Bataillon that there was unity and continuity in Spain from the period before the Reformation until the Counterreformation. “There was not only expansion, there was progress” (p. 179). And although the Holy Office wrought great harm in the intellectual life of the nation, “one is amazed when he contemplates the strides made—in literature—beyond anything produced in the happiest days of the erasmists” (p. 182). He adds: “The story of baroque literature is the story of the success (not the failure) of the Renaissance. The masterpieces of the seventeenth century in Spain surpass those of the sixteenth” (p. 282).

In these four volumes Green makes clear on every page his love for Spain and proclaims his eagerness to reevaluate and correct justly controversial interpretations. Along with Mariano Picón-Salas’ De la conquista a la independencia, they contribute to a careful and thoroughgoing reappraisal of the Spanish baroque.