Author: Jonathan Thacker
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 9780853235583
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 230
Book Description
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 dramatize 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 criticize 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.
Role-play and the World as Stage in the Comedia
Author: Jonathan Thacker
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 9780853235583
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 230
Book Description
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 dramatize 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 criticize 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.
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 9780853235583
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 230
Book Description
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 dramatize 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 criticize 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.
The Signifying Self
Author: Melanie Henry
Publisher: MHRA
ISBN: 1781880026
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 182
Book Description
The Signifying Self: Cervantine Drama as Counter-Perspective Aesthetic offers a comprehensive analysis of all eight of Cervantes's Ocho comedias (published 1615), moving beyond conventional anti-Lope approaches to Cervantine dramatic practise in order to identify what, indeed, his theatre promotes. Considered on its own aesthetic terms, but also taking into account ontological and socio-cultural concerns, this study compels a re-assessment of Cervantes's drama and conflates any monolithic interpretations which do not allow for the textual interplay of contradictory and conflicting discourses which inform it. Cervantes's complex and polyvalent representation of freedom underpins such an approach; a concept which is considered to be a leitmotif of Cervantes's work but which has received scant attention with regards to his theatre. Investigation of this topic reveals not only Cervantes's rejection of established theatrical convention, but his preoccupation with the difficult relationship between the individual and the early modern Spanish world. Cervantes's comedias emerge as a counter-perspective to dominant contemporary Spanish ideologies and more orthodox artistic imaginings. Ultimately, The Signifying Self seeks to recuperate the Ocho comedias as a significant part of the Cervantine, and Golden-Age, canon and will be of interest and benefit to those scholars who work on Cervantes and indeed on early modern Spanish theatre in general.
Publisher: MHRA
ISBN: 1781880026
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 182
Book Description
The Signifying Self: Cervantine Drama as Counter-Perspective Aesthetic offers a comprehensive analysis of all eight of Cervantes's Ocho comedias (published 1615), moving beyond conventional anti-Lope approaches to Cervantine dramatic practise in order to identify what, indeed, his theatre promotes. Considered on its own aesthetic terms, but also taking into account ontological and socio-cultural concerns, this study compels a re-assessment of Cervantes's drama and conflates any monolithic interpretations which do not allow for the textual interplay of contradictory and conflicting discourses which inform it. Cervantes's complex and polyvalent representation of freedom underpins such an approach; a concept which is considered to be a leitmotif of Cervantes's work but which has received scant attention with regards to his theatre. Investigation of this topic reveals not only Cervantes's rejection of established theatrical convention, but his preoccupation with the difficult relationship between the individual and the early modern Spanish world. Cervantes's comedias emerge as a counter-perspective to dominant contemporary Spanish ideologies and more orthodox artistic imaginings. Ultimately, The Signifying Self seeks to recuperate the Ocho comedias as a significant part of the Cervantine, and Golden-Age, canon and will be of interest and benefit to those scholars who work on Cervantes and indeed on early modern Spanish theatre in general.
The Art of Humour in the Teatro Breve and Comedias of Calderón de la Barca
Author: Ted Lars Lennard Bergman
Publisher: Tamesis Books
ISBN: 9781855660960
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 262
Book Description
Frantic and popular characters and situations from the entremes tradition, thought by many as opposing the comedias' main features, are instead shown to join and often dominate these features through the introduction of absurd figuras, slapstick, and burlas."--BOOK JACKET.
Publisher: Tamesis Books
ISBN: 9781855660960
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 262
Book Description
Frantic and popular characters and situations from the entremes tradition, thought by many as opposing the comedias' main features, are instead shown to join and often dominate these features through the introduction of absurd figuras, slapstick, and burlas."--BOOK JACKET.
A Companion to Golden Age Theatre
Author: Jonathan Thacker
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 9781855661400
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
Spain's artistic Golden Age produced Cervantes's great novel, Don Quijote, the sublime poetry of Quevedo and G ngora, and nurtured the prodigious talent of Vel zquez, and yet it was the theatre that captured the imagination of its people. Men and women of all social classes flocked to the new playhouses to see and hear the latest offerings of their favourite dramatists, and to be seen and heard. As well as dealing with the lives and major works of the most significant playwrights of the period - Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Miguel de Cervantes, Calder n de la Barca - the Companion focusses on other aspects of the growth and maturing of Golden Age theatre, reflecting the interests and priorities of modern scholarship. These include: the sixteenth-century origins of the comedia nueva; the lesser-known dramatists, including women playwrights; life in the theatre; the Corpus Christi street theatre and minor genres; performance studies; and the critical reception of the drama. The Companion also contains a guide to comedia versification, a full bibliography and advice on further reading. JONATHAN THACKER is a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford.
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 9781855661400
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
Spain's artistic Golden Age produced Cervantes's great novel, Don Quijote, the sublime poetry of Quevedo and G ngora, and nurtured the prodigious talent of Vel zquez, and yet it was the theatre that captured the imagination of its people. Men and women of all social classes flocked to the new playhouses to see and hear the latest offerings of their favourite dramatists, and to be seen and heard. As well as dealing with the lives and major works of the most significant playwrights of the period - Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Miguel de Cervantes, Calder n de la Barca - the Companion focusses on other aspects of the growth and maturing of Golden Age theatre, reflecting the interests and priorities of modern scholarship. These include: the sixteenth-century origins of the comedia nueva; the lesser-known dramatists, including women playwrights; life in the theatre; the Corpus Christi street theatre and minor genres; performance studies; and the critical reception of the drama. The Companion also contains a guide to comedia versification, a full bibliography and advice on further reading. JONATHAN THACKER is a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford.
Staging the Spanish Golden Age
Author: Kathleen Jeffs
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019881934X
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
This book takes the reader through the translation and performance processes of the Royal Shakespeare Company's 2004-05 Spanish Golden Age season to establish a model for translating, rehearsing, and performing Spanish Golden Age drama.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019881934X
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
This book takes the reader through the translation and performance processes of the Royal Shakespeare Company's 2004-05 Spanish Golden Age season to establish a model for translating, rehearsing, and performing Spanish Golden Age drama.
The Positive Image of the Jew in the 'comedia'
Author: Andrew Herskovits
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783039105229
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
Argues, contrary to most scholarly opinion, that while on the explicit level they are anti-Jewish, in a covert manner the dramatic works of the Spanish Golden Age present a positive image of the Jews. Works by Rojas, Cervantes, and, especially, Lope de Vega are shown to have used coded writing and techniques of dissimulation to subvert the dominant anti-Jewish ideology of the day, embodied in the actions of the Inquisition and in the "limpieza de sangre" statutes. A reason for the indirect approach was that the writers, who were influenced by Christian Humanism rather than by any putative Converso origin, themselves sought to escape interrogation by the Inquisition. One technique used was to replace the Converso by the figure of a persecuted woman or by a biblical, legendary, or foreign Jew. Defending the Jews was an aspect of espousal of justice for all.
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783039105229
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
Argues, contrary to most scholarly opinion, that while on the explicit level they are anti-Jewish, in a covert manner the dramatic works of the Spanish Golden Age present a positive image of the Jews. Works by Rojas, Cervantes, and, especially, Lope de Vega are shown to have used coded writing and techniques of dissimulation to subvert the dominant anti-Jewish ideology of the day, embodied in the actions of the Inquisition and in the "limpieza de sangre" statutes. A reason for the indirect approach was that the writers, who were influenced by Christian Humanism rather than by any putative Converso origin, themselves sought to escape interrogation by the Inquisition. One technique used was to replace the Converso by the figure of a persecuted woman or by a biblical, legendary, or foreign Jew. Defending the Jews was an aspect of espousal of justice for all.
Pedro Calderón de la Barca and the World Theatre in Early Modern Europe
Author: Rasmus Vangshardt
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501517023
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
Rasmus Vangshardt offers an original interpretation of one of the most famous images of literary history, the theatrum mundi. By applying methods of comparative literature, hispanic studies, and theology, he reconsiders the world theatre’s historical peak in early modern Europe in general and the Spanish Golden Age in particular. The author presents a new close reading of Pedro Calderón’s El gran teatro del mundo (c. 1633–36) and outlines the historical and systematic framework for a theatrum mundi of celebration. This concept entails using art to justify human existence in the face of changing conceptions of the cosmos: an early modern aesthetic theodicy and a justification of the world in that liminal space between drama and ritual. By discussing historiographical theories of early modern Europe, especially those of Hans Blumenberg and Bruno Latour, and through conversations with Shakespearean drama and Spanish Golden Age classics, Vangshardt also argues that the theatrum mundi of celebration questions traditional assumptions of great divides between the Middle Ages and Early Modernity and challenges theories of a European-wide early modern sense of crisis.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501517023
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
Rasmus Vangshardt offers an original interpretation of one of the most famous images of literary history, the theatrum mundi. By applying methods of comparative literature, hispanic studies, and theology, he reconsiders the world theatre’s historical peak in early modern Europe in general and the Spanish Golden Age in particular. The author presents a new close reading of Pedro Calderón’s El gran teatro del mundo (c. 1633–36) and outlines the historical and systematic framework for a theatrum mundi of celebration. This concept entails using art to justify human existence in the face of changing conceptions of the cosmos: an early modern aesthetic theodicy and a justification of the world in that liminal space between drama and ritual. By discussing historiographical theories of early modern Europe, especially those of Hans Blumenberg and Bruno Latour, and through conversations with Shakespearean drama and Spanish Golden Age classics, Vangshardt also argues that the theatrum mundi of celebration questions traditional assumptions of great divides between the Middle Ages and Early Modernity and challenges theories of a European-wide early modern sense of crisis.
Women's Somatic Training in Early Modern Spanish Theater
Author: Elizabeth Marie Cruz Petersen
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1134780737
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 177
Book Description
Drawing from early modern plays and treatises on the precepts and practices of the acting process, this study shows how the early modern Spanish actress subscribed to various somatic practices in an effort to prepare for a role. It provides today's reader not only another perspective to the performance aspect of early modern plays, but also a better understanding of how the woman of the theater succeeded in a highly scrutinized profession. Elizabeth Marie Cruz Petersen examines examples of comedias from playwrights such as Lope de Vega, Luis Vélez de Guevara, Tirso de Molina, and Ana Caro, historical documents, and treatises to demonstrate that the women of the stage transformed their bodies and their social and cultural environment in order to succeed in early modern Spanish theater. Women's Somatic Training in Early Modern Spanish Theater is the first full-length, in-depth study of women actors in seventeenth-century Spain. Unique in the field of comedia studies, it approaches the topic from a performance perspective, using somaesthetics as a tool to explain how an artist's lived experiences and emotions unite in the interpretation of art, reconfiguring her "self" via the transformation of habit.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1134780737
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 177
Book Description
Drawing from early modern plays and treatises on the precepts and practices of the acting process, this study shows how the early modern Spanish actress subscribed to various somatic practices in an effort to prepare for a role. It provides today's reader not only another perspective to the performance aspect of early modern plays, but also a better understanding of how the woman of the theater succeeded in a highly scrutinized profession. Elizabeth Marie Cruz Petersen examines examples of comedias from playwrights such as Lope de Vega, Luis Vélez de Guevara, Tirso de Molina, and Ana Caro, historical documents, and treatises to demonstrate that the women of the stage transformed their bodies and their social and cultural environment in order to succeed in early modern Spanish theater. Women's Somatic Training in Early Modern Spanish Theater is the first full-length, in-depth study of women actors in seventeenth-century Spain. Unique in the field of comedia studies, it approaches the topic from a performance perspective, using somaesthetics as a tool to explain how an artist's lived experiences and emotions unite in the interpretation of art, reconfiguring her "self" via the transformation of habit.
Plautus and the English Renaissance of Comedy
Author: Richard F. Hardin
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1683931297
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Book Description
The fifteenth-century discovery of Plautus’s lost comedies brought him, for the first time since antiquity, the status of a major author both on stage and page. It also led to a reinvention of comedy and to new thinking about its art and potential. This book aims to define the unique contribution of Plautus, detached from his fellow Roman dramatist Terence, and seen in the context of that European revival, first as it took shape on the Continent. The heart of the book, with special focus on English comedy ca. 1560 to 1640, analyzes elements of Plautine technique during the period, as differentiated from native and Terentian, considering such points of comparison as dialogue, asides, metadrama, observation scenes, characterization, and atmosphere. This is the first book to cover this ground, raising such questions as: How did comedy rather suddenly progress from the interludes and brief plays of the early sixteenth century to longer, more complex plays? What did “Plautus” mean to playwrights and readers of the time? Plays by Shakespeare, Jonson, and Middleton are foregrounded, but many other comedies provide illustration and support.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1683931297
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Book Description
The fifteenth-century discovery of Plautus’s lost comedies brought him, for the first time since antiquity, the status of a major author both on stage and page. It also led to a reinvention of comedy and to new thinking about its art and potential. This book aims to define the unique contribution of Plautus, detached from his fellow Roman dramatist Terence, and seen in the context of that European revival, first as it took shape on the Continent. The heart of the book, with special focus on English comedy ca. 1560 to 1640, analyzes elements of Plautine technique during the period, as differentiated from native and Terentian, considering such points of comparison as dialogue, asides, metadrama, observation scenes, characterization, and atmosphere. This is the first book to cover this ground, raising such questions as: How did comedy rather suddenly progress from the interludes and brief plays of the early sixteenth century to longer, more complex plays? What did “Plautus” mean to playwrights and readers of the time? Plays by Shakespeare, Jonson, and Middleton are foregrounded, but many other comedies provide illustration and support.
The Criminal Baroque
Author: Ted Lars Lennard Bergman
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1855663392
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 271
Book Description
TEMPORARY Bergman looks at the representation of criminals in early modern Spanish theatre and the connection between criminality, the portrayal of criminal heroes on stage, and public displays of law enforcement within and outside the playhouse. His main purpose is to see to how Baroque spectacle (a term of art in theatre that refers to a particular event, often in expressions of popular culture) appears either to align itself, work against, or be independent of the social means of control of the day. His main argument is that that the propaganda power of early modern Spanish spectacle has been vastly overstated. Ted L. L. Bergman is a Lecturer in Spanish, University of St Andrews.
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1855663392
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 271
Book Description
TEMPORARY Bergman looks at the representation of criminals in early modern Spanish theatre and the connection between criminality, the portrayal of criminal heroes on stage, and public displays of law enforcement within and outside the playhouse. His main purpose is to see to how Baroque spectacle (a term of art in theatre that refers to a particular event, often in expressions of popular culture) appears either to align itself, work against, or be independent of the social means of control of the day. His main argument is that that the propaganda power of early modern Spanish spectacle has been vastly overstated. Ted L. L. Bergman is a Lecturer in Spanish, University of St Andrews.