Heavenly bodies is the first book in English dedicated to an analysis of La estrella de Sevilla (The Star of Seville) since the 1930s when Sturgis A. Leavitt set out to prove that this Spanish Golden Age play was written by Andres de Claramonte. In this reevaluation of La estrella de Sevilla, the question of authorship is once again discussed, but it is not the main focus of this collection of essays.

The eighteen essayists in this book set out to reexamine the play in order to understand the fascination that this puzzling and problematic work has exerted over critics, theatergoers, and readers over the last three and a half centuries.

Throughout La estrella de Sevilla, its eponymous heroine serves as an object of other characters' perceptions, constructions, and manipulations. King Sancho, his advisor Don Arias, Sancho Ortiz, and even Estrella's brother Busto Tabera repeatedly define her from their own perspectives and on their own terms. In her material aspect, Estrella is Sancho's subject, a human inhabitant of Castile.

Celestially speaking, the King first identifies Estrella with Saturn, then later in the play refers to her instead as a fixed star. Thus, in the eyes of those who attempt to define her, Estrella Tabera occupies multiple realms: she partakes of generation and corruption in the sublunary spheres, but at the same time she is assigned to both the seventh and eight ptolemaic spheres.

1. The contributors to this volume both perceive and fashion multiple contexts for La estrella de Sevilla, echoing the multiplicity of realms in which she abides within the text. The essays range from studies of how the play was performed to analyses of specific figures and themes. The many approaches utilized, including theories by Derrida, Foucault, Iser, Kermode, Lacan, Ong, and Said, serve to point to the richness and complexity of this comedia from the Spanish Golden Age.