2 - THE CONTROVERSY

Abstract

This chapter highlights the hesitation shown by Cervantes, which typifies the general uncertainty around the turn of the century as to which direction the Spanish theatre would take. The struggle was between not merely two types but two distinct concepts of drama. This had usually been understood in sixteenth-century Spain simply as the enactment of a story for the purpose of entertainment, but some attention was claimed by those classicists who saw it as the imitation or representation of a known action submitted to the artistic discipline of a strict form for the sake of a proper direction of the intellect and emotions. A long battle had still to be fought between the upholders of these two views. The strength of feeling with which this battle was conducted arose partly from the fact that moral and also aesthetic considerations were involved. The theatre has often been regarded as the home of vice.