Tres damas suicidas en la escena del Romamicismo español

Abstract

The social, economic, political and religious disappointment brought about by the change from the Ancien Regime to the new bourgeois society was crystallized in a new mythology: romantic love. The appearance of heroes vanquished by the irrationality of their passion, which found no place in the usual profiles of masculinity, became known as the feminization of suicide. Thus, theoretically, love and death retreated to the realm of femini­nity. The images of women profiled by literary romanticism became stereotyped as they began to deserve one of the most beautiful dreams of Western culture. However, within the narrow margins of individuality that romantic heroines appropriate from the stereotype that conforms them, the collapse of the illusion may already be discerned. To address this question, a comparative study of three feminine suicides on the Spanish romantic theater stage are proposed here: Elvira’s (Macias), Leonor’s (El trovador) and Clara’s (Amor venga sus agravios).