Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The challenges of historiography
- 2 Lope de Vega, Calderón de la Barca and Tirso de Molina
- 3 The world as a stage
- 4 Playing the palace
- 5 The art of the actor, 1565–1833
- 6 Theatrical infrastructures, dramatic production and performance, 1700–1759
- 7 Popular theatre and the Spanish stage, 1737–1798
- 8 Theatre of the elites, neoclassicism and the Enlightenment, 1750–1808
- 9 Actors and agency in the modern era, 1801–2010
- 10 Zarzuela
- 11 Nineteenth-century Spanish theatre
- 12 Copyright, buildings, spaces and the nineteenth-century stage
- 13 Modernism and the avant-garde in fin-de-siècle Barcelona and Madrid
- 14 Continuity and innovation in Spanish theatre, 1900–1936
- 15 Theatrical activities during the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939
- 16 Theatre, colonialism, exile and the Americas
- 17 Theatre under Franco (1939–1975)
- 18 Flamenco
- 19 Nationalism, identity and the theatre across the Spanish state in the democratic era, 1975–2010
- 20 Directors and the Spanish stage, 1823–2010
- 21 This evolution is still ongoing
- 22 Theatre as a process of discovery
- 23 Theatre is the art of the future
- Select bibliography
- Index
- References
2 - Lope de Vega, Calderón de la Barca and Tirso de Molina
Spain's Golden Age drama and its legacy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The challenges of historiography
- 2 Lope de Vega, Calderón de la Barca and Tirso de Molina
- 3 The world as a stage
- 4 Playing the palace
- 5 The art of the actor, 1565–1833
- 6 Theatrical infrastructures, dramatic production and performance, 1700–1759
- 7 Popular theatre and the Spanish stage, 1737–1798
- 8 Theatre of the elites, neoclassicism and the Enlightenment, 1750–1808
- 9 Actors and agency in the modern era, 1801–2010
- 10 Zarzuela
- 11 Nineteenth-century Spanish theatre
- 12 Copyright, buildings, spaces and the nineteenth-century stage
- 13 Modernism and the avant-garde in fin-de-siècle Barcelona and Madrid
- 14 Continuity and innovation in Spanish theatre, 1900–1936
- 15 Theatrical activities during the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939
- 16 Theatre, colonialism, exile and the Americas
- 17 Theatre under Franco (1939–1975)
- 18 Flamenco
- 19 Nationalism, identity and the theatre across the Spanish state in the democratic era, 1975–2010
- 20 Directors and the Spanish stage, 1823–2010
- 21 This evolution is still ongoing
- 22 Theatre as a process of discovery
- 23 Theatre is the art of the future
- Select bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
Lope Félix de Vega Carpio: establishing the norms
The most important dramatist of the Spanish Golden Age, Lope Félix de VegaCarpio (1562–1635), was a more impulsive and less reflective figure thanhis contemporary, Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616), frustrated playwrightand inventor of the novel. We know from the papers of his trial for libel in thelate 1580s that Lope spent time in the theatre as an audience member, but hedoes not dwell in his writing on his own experience as a spectator. Cervantes,on the other hand, provides, in the prologue to the collection of plays andentremeses (interludes) he had published in 1615, quite adetailed account, tinged perhaps with a distorting nostalgia, of watching, as ayouth, a play performed in a town square by the troupe of the famous Lope deRueda (c. 1510–65). The rough and ready theatre was setup with:
cuatro bancos en cuadro y cuatro o seis tablas encima, con lo que selevantaba del suelo cuatro palmos . . . El adorno del teatroera una manta vieja, tirada con dos cordeles de una parte a otra, quehacía lo que llaman vestuario, detrás del cual estaban losmúsicos, cantando sin guitarra algún romance antiguo.
(four benches put in a square and four or six boards placed across them, allthis raised just a couple of feet from the ground . . . Thestage's decoration was an old blanket, pulled with two ropes from one sideto the other, and which formed what they call a tiring room, behind whichwere the musicians, singing some ancient ballad without the accompaniment ofa guitar.)
Information
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- A History of Theatre in Spain , pp. 36 - 56Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012
References
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‘The Study of Versification as an Aid to Interpreting the : Another Look at Some Well-known Plays by Lope de Vega’The Golden Age Comedia: Text, Theory and PerformanceWest Lafayette, INPurdue University Press 1994 384Google Scholar
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‘Teoría dramática y práctica teatral en el postrer Siglo de Oro. El teatro áulico y político de Bances Candamo’Convención y recepción: Estudios sobre el teatro del Siglo de OroMadridGredos 1999 162Google Scholar
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