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A reappraisal of Lope's literary career, bringing out the complexities of his dramatic texts. This book offers a radical re-evaluation of Lope's theatre, which will affect the way in which the comedia in general is read. It spans Lope's literary career, discussing (pseudo-)historical, tragic and peasant plays in order to show Lope's texts as complex negotiations between author and public, between conservatism and subversion, between representations of the ideal of kingship and its political reality, in a period of social and political change. Drawing on contemporary Spanish political philosophy, McKendrick shows that far from glorifying monarchy and advocating absolutism (the orthodox view i...
This collection of essays grew out of a National Endowment for the Humanities Institute directed by Frederick A. de Armas and contains essays by the director, some of the visiting faculty, and the participants. The book seeks to develop the link between mythology and the comedia through a number of approaches, including astrology, cartomancy, pre-Socratic elemental cosmology, iconography, hagiography, metamorphoses, Lacanian psychoanalysis, Jungian principles, the philosophy of Schopenhauer, Santayana's poetics, syncretism, gender studies, and Vedic theories.
In classical mythology Astraea, the goddess of justice, chastity, and truth, was the last of the immortals to leave Earth with the decline of the ages. Her return was to signal the dawn of a new Golden Age. This myth not only survived the Christian Middle Ages but also became a commonplace in the Renaissance when courtly poets praised their patrons and princes by claiming that Astraea guided them. The literary cult of Astraea persisted in the sixteenth century as writers saw in Elizabeth I of England the imperial Astraea who would lead mankind to peace through universal rule. This and other late flowerings of the Astraea myth should not be taken as the final phases of her history. Frederick ...
"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 hero...
Spain alone produced a Renaissance drama comparable to that of England, yet the two nations were enemies, separated by the worldwide conflict of Catholics and Protestants. Major dramatists on both sides addressed the divisive issues: Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, and Calderon de la Barca in Spain; Shakespeare, Marlowe, Chapman, Massinger, and Middleton in England. In this comprehensive work, a distinguished authority on drama examines history plays, masques, and spectacles, with close attention to the changing development of the two national dramas, he directs us to the study of their suprrising similarities. The author's lucid exposition makes possible an assessment of the commentary on hi...
Arising from neo-stoic interpretations of prudence, Alarcon's identification of the successful manipulation of illusion as a moral art serves as a defence of the comedia and offers an alternative to the supposed moral irresponsibility of Lope de Vega."--Jacket.
The theatrum mundi metaphor was well-known in the Golden Age, and was often employed, notably by Calderón in his religious theatre. However, little account has been given of the everyday exploitation of the idea of the world as stage in the mainstream drama of the Golden Age. This study examines how and why playwrights of the period time and again created characters who dramatise themselves, who re-invent themselves by performing new roles and inventing new plots within the larger frame of the play. The prevalence of metatheatrical techniques among Golden Age dramatists, including Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Calderón de la Barca and Guillén de Castro, reveals a fascination with role-playing and its implications. Thacker argues that in comedy, these playwrights saw role-playing as a means by which they could comment on and criticise the society in which they lived, and he reveals a drama far less supportive of the social status quo in Golden Age Spain than has been traditionally thought to be the case.
This study examines the structure and being of a religious order in the context of Spanish Golden Age society. In doing so it attempts not only to place the orders into the wider pattern of Spanish politics and culture, but to capture the essence of monastic reform in Early Modern Catholic Europe.