Abstract

This article analyzes the use of the phrase «cuidadoso descuido» in seduction scenes of some picaresque narratives. The origin of this phrase is dual: «descuido» is the Spanish translation of sprezzatura, a key concept in Renaissance courtly manuals; and «cuidadoso descuido» is a concept that expresses the naturalness of a performance in theater. The picaresque narratives subvert that courtly and theatrical origin and employ «cuidadoso descuido» as a problematic euphemism to talk about a crime that includes lying and dissimulation.

Abstract

This work takes as its starting point Eugenio Asensio’s affirmation that the greatest admirer of Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcelos and his comedies would have been Lope de Vega. He attempts to prove this thesis by pointing out the similarities between the Eufrosina (1555) and Lope’s La Dorotea (1632) and, to a certain extent, even the Aulegrafia (1619). Other points of contact between the lives and works of these two great figures of the Iberian theater are also considered, in order to understand how Lope de Vega processed his reception of the works of the Portuguese comedy writer of the sixteenth century

Abstract

The author as a theatre director, compares Pedro de Urdemalas, the principal hero of Cervante’s comedy, with Berganza, from the Converstaion of the Dogs. In the parallel of these two meta-theatrical works, he establishes some differences between the dramatic and the phililogical analysis.

Abstract

The Coloquio de Gila by Lope de Rueda, which came to light less than a decade ago, presents the figure of the black woman Sofía with a number of identifying characteristics. Some of these characteristics are already found in poetic texts that contain a noticeable element of dramatisation and were written towards the end of the fifteenth century, such as those by Anrique de Mota and Rodrigo de Reinosa. But it is in the sixteenth century that the ‘black woman’ character type appears in literary works by Jaime de Huete, Feliciano de Silva, Gaspar Gómez de Toledo, Gil Vicente and Diego Sánchez de Badajoz. These works constitute a sufficiently wide repertoire to examine the black woman character type and to establish the characteristics of this type on the basis of the literary texts in which she appears.

Abstract

This paper analyzes the inquisitorial prohibition of Lope de Vega’s The fianza satisfecha at the end of the eighteenth century. Criticism has judged very negatively this comedia, whose authorship is uncertain. The fianza satisfecha was denounced to the Inquisition (Logroño, 1781; Barcelona, 1798) and included in the Index librorum prohibitorum (1801) after a long and rough discussion among the censors. The details of this discussion are set out in an almost unknown document (Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid) whose transcription is also carried out in this paper.

Abstract

The article reviews the rivalries among the major poets of the Golden Age, particularly in the sphere of the theater. The papel examines the relations of friendship or enmity between Lope, Góngora, Tirso, Cervantes, Calderón… within the framework of the battle for popular applause and the social and economic thrive.

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze how the scenic word built the devil’s image and the diabolic, in four Spanish Baroque plays: El esclavo del demonio («The Devil’s Slave», 1612), by Antonio Mira de Amescua (1577- 1636); El condenado por desconfiado («Damned for Despair», 1635), by Tirso de Molina (1579-1648); El mágico prodigioso («The Wonder-Working Magician», 1637) y El veneno y la triaca («The Poison and the Antidote», 1677) by Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600-1681). In these plays, the devil is a dynamic character who moves between the sacred and the profane dimension in the theatric scene as well as in the human soul.

Abstract

Our article aims at determining a scheme in order to group the main information about the merchant in the Spanish Golden Age theater, having a look at both the positive and negative images, in perfect agreement with the doctrines of that time. In order to achieve our purpose, we will be using a wide corpus of plays belonging to Alarcón, Calderón, Guillén de Castro, Juan de Matos, Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, focusing on the commercial vocabulary (to have, to give, to buy, to sell), the relation between the merchant and power, the allegorical image of the merchant´s ship or the relation between the merchant and women.

Abstract

This paper offers an approach to the main features and conventions of the burlesque comedy of the Spanish Golden Age, a corpus formed by about fifty parodic plays that were performed during Carnival and on St. John’s Day as part of the court festivals celebrated in the Royal Palace or in the Buen Retiro palace complex. These two features (theatre of Carnival and courtier theatre) are the main key when analyzing these plays. The primary function of these pieces is to provoke laughter within the aulic audience —the king and his noblemen. To achieve this goal, authors of burlesque comedies use all of the resources at hand, including both scenic and verbal humor. The plays are marked by an absurd wit, and they bring on stage a carnivalesque world turned upside-down in which everything (including characters, plots, literary motifs, and dramatic conventions) is grotesquely parodied, brutally degraded, and made comical.