Carlos de Sigüenza y Gongora, one of seventeenth-century Mexico's best-known intellectuals, was a writer of fascinating and complex narratives that exemplify the heterogeneous nature of colonial Spanish American prose. This book, first published in 1993, was the first critical study to place both the writer and his narrative within the phenomenon of the barroco de Indias, or the Spanish American baroque. Approaching Sigüenza as criollo historian preoccupied with the placement of the New World within a universal context, Professor Ross develops a theoretical framework within which his texts can be read and understood in the modern era. Professor Ross incorporates into her examination of the author methods of critical analysis in the study of colonial Spanish American literature, such as the use of narrative theory, the historiography, and feminist criticism.