Abstract

The public enactment of secrecy is part of the Spanish Golden Age culture. This article presents a research project, which pursues three objectives: 
A study of secrecy as a core characteristic of Spanish Golden Age culture, on the basis of historiographical studies, sources and cultural theories of secrecy.
 A study of Calderonian comedies of secrecy in the context of Golden Age theatre.
 A case study of the comedy El secreto a voces, including a critical edition that also explores the aesthetics of secrecy and the history of early staging in Madrid and Vienna.
 With this threefold approach we aim at a deeper understanding of both Calderón’s originality and of the secret patterns of Baroque culture.

Abstract

This article offers an interpretation of Miguel de Cervantes’ exemplary novella The Two Damsels (1613). Its theoretical and methodical basis is informed by the achievements of recent approaches from men’s studies and one of its most important representatives, R. W. Connell’s foundational work on Masculinities (2005). My reading elucidates what pre-modern readers identified as «masculine» in a literary text, particularly in cases where women dressed as men, a literary artifice and social practice which, following Judith Halberstam, I read as an example of pre-modern «female masculinity». I thus show how theories stemming from postmodernity can open up new approaches to interpreting and understanding pre-modern cultural phenomena while insisting on the distance that separates us from these pre-modern conceptions of what «being a man» signified in a long-gone culture and society. Given these twin aims, this article explains historical alterity via a current theoretical model but does so without translating that alterity immediately into concepts that may sound familiar —perhaps deceptively so.

Abstract

Little has been written on La escuela de Celestina y el hidalgo presumido (1620), one of the few comedies penned by Alonso Jerónimo de Salas Barbadillo. In this essay I read this piece as part of a tradition of parodies of the famous academic exercises known as gallos and vejámenes, so frequent in the universities of the time. Through humorous inversion, Salas leads us to formulate new questions on the role of high culture, on the nature of true knowledge and, ultimately, on the transmission of specific literary myths —a transmission that is here interrupted by the rewriting of the Celestinesque character

Abstract

The complex relationship between Mérimée and Golden Age theather poses three questions that are closely related. In first place, what was the specific knowledge of Carmen's author from one of the three most outstanding theathers invented by Modern Europe? Then, what was his opinion about it? And finally, what is the impact of this theather on his own works? We expect to answer these three questions in the present article.

Abstract

In many Calderón’s tragic plays, a room or a hall can turn into a space of violence, if locked or opened against the will of the character (mostly a woman) who lives in it. That is what we can observe in La gran Cenobia, El médico de su honra, El pintor de su deshonra, El mayor monstruo del mundo, La vida es sueño. In comic plays, on the contrary, dramatic situations like these use to turn out well, thanks to ingenious solutions or favorable chance: it is what happens in Amor, honor y poder and La dama duende; whereas the case of No hay cosa como callar confirms the generic ambiguity of this play.

Abstract

This article offers a comparison between two plays: Mudarse por mejorarse by Juan Ruiz de Alarcón y Mudarse por mejorarse by Fernando Zárate Castronovo (ca. 1663) in order to examine the authors’ Jewish origins, personalities and biographies. Both of them suffered harassment from other authors (Alarcón) and from Spanish Inquisition (Zárate). Alarcón, who was an isolated but peaceful man, died in Madrid the 4th of August 1639. On the contrary, Zárate, who was rebellious and defeated, died at Sevilla’s Inquisition Palace, the 18th of March 1663. As a conclusion, we can confirm that Zárate Castronovo just copied the title of Alarcón’s comedy to be able to relate it to the unconscious desire of «change» the physical appearence (Alarcón) or the fate (Zárate).

Abstract

There is an obvious relation between the imitation and adaptation of literary works. The focus of the essay is the adaptation of early Spanish modern works —including Don Quijote and plays by Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Juan Ruiz de Alarcón— and Miguel de Unamuno’s Niebla into dramatic texts in English. Adaptation becomes a method of reading, analysis, and interpretation, as well as a form of communication among authors.

Abstract

This article aims to describe and characterize space in Lope de Vega’s biblical play La hermosa Ester (1610). With the exception of two comic interludes found respectively in cuadros E and H and set in a hamlet near to the Persian capital, the remaining 11 cuadros are set in the city of Susa. The city is represented by a palace with a garden, a throne room and the king’s chambers) as well as an urban space (Jewish quarter, the favorite minister’s residence, and streets), both of which are linked by a square that is situated in front of the palace, a square that is of prime importance in the dramatic action. In contrast to Danielle Crivellari’s recent study on space in the work, this new proposed reconstruction, fashioned according to implicit stage directions, brings to light the dubious fragility of spacial elements when considering the play’s system of segmentation, that can find firmer bases in the metrics

Abstract

The present study examines three plays by Tirso de Molina (Amar por señas, El castigo del penséque and Quien calla otorga) in which female protagonists in positions of power (or as relatives of those in power) use their authority to confuse and deceive the male protagonists, who is a foreigner in their lands. Their position allows them to go beyond the typical deceptions of Tirso’s intrigue comedies (e. g., Don Gil de las calzas verdes). Concretely, they manage to detain the young man physically, to torment him without revealing their identity and to send ambiguous message that keep the male character in uncertainty. However, they are constrained by their sense of honor and it is implied that, after the traditional wedding that ends these plays, the women will no longer have the authority to continue their manipulation.