A Grammar of the Corpse. Necroepistemology in the Early Modern Mediterranean by Elizabeth Spragins (review).

This article examines Elizabeth Spragins's book *A Grammar of the Corpse: Necroepistemology in the Early Modern Mediterranean*, which offers a novel literary and theoretical analysis of narratives surrounding the Battle of Three Kings (1578) in Northern Morocco. Spragins focuses on how the corpses of the three slain monarchs—Sultan 'Abd al-Mâlik al-Sa'dî, Muhammad al-Mutawakkîl, and King Sebastian of Portugal—are represented in various contemporaneous and later texts, interpreting these bodies as sources of narrative authority within a transcultural Mediterranean context. Employing concepts from necroepistemology, affect theory, and new materialisms, the book analyzes diverse genres including diplomatic correspondence, chronicles, and personal letters to explore themes such as presence, absence, vitality, assemblage, and necroviolence in relation to royal dead bodies. This approach reveals how textual constructions of corpses shaped political legitimacy, memory, and social power after the battle.