Siglo De Oro Research Articles

Juan de Moncayo: Obra poética

Book Review| April 01 2018 Juan de Moncayo: Obra poética McVay, Jr.Ted E., Ed. Juan de Moncayo: Obra poética. Zaragoza: Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza, 2017, 2 vols. PB. 840 pp. ISBN: 978-84-16935-15-4. Álvarez Javier Álvarez Javier Universidad de Córdoba Javier Álvarez teaches Spanish Language and Literature at the I. E. S. La Fuensanta, in Córdoba, Spain. He belongs to the research group P.A.S.O. (Poesía Andaluza del Siglo de Oro), and has published extensively on sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth-century poetry. He has also contributed to several collective volumes including Diccionario filológico de literatura española. Siglo XVI (2009), Gran enciclopedia cervantina (vol. 6, 2009) and Dizionario Storico dell'Inquisizione (2010). Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Calíope (2018) 23 (1): 141–144. https://doi.org/10.5325/caliope.23.1.0141 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Álvarez Javier; Juan de Moncayo: Obra poética. Calíope 1 April 2018; 23 (1): 141–144. doi: https://doi.org/10.5325/caliope.23.1.0141 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressCalíope Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2018 by The Pennsylvania State University. All rights reserved.2018The Pennsylvania State University Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Il decadentismo spagnolo fra letteratura e crisi modernista

Siglo de Oro y Edad de Plata indican los dos periodos culminantes de la cultura española. El primero simboliza la plenitud del Imperio y el apogeo del catolicismo en la península Ibérica; el segundo, más breve, abarca el periodo 1900-1936. Sin embargo las diferencias no residen solamente en límites temporales sino en los aspectos más esenciales de la ideología: durante los primeros años de nuestro siglo las letras nacionales pierden su impronta católica para secularizarse en modo irreversible. El presente trabajo estudia las causas religiosas, flosóficas y literarias de cambio tan determinante.

Autos sacramentales completos de Lope de Vega by Lope de Vega

Reviewed by: Autos sacramentales completos de Lope de Vega by Lope de Vega Hilaire Kallendorf Lope de Vega. Autos sacramentales completos de Lope de Vega. Edición crítica de J. Enrique Duarte (vol. 1) y Juan Manuel Escudero Baztán (vol. 2). edition reichenberger, 2017, 2 vols. 282 pp. (vol. 1) y 231 pp. (vol. 2). these are the initial two volumes of a planned six-volume series of critical editions of Lope de Vega's autos sacramentales, or sacramental plays; the other four volumes have already been assigned to specific editors. Perhaps reflective of the amount of work involved in preparing a critical edition, the other four volumes will each contain two plays apiece, as do these volumes; but most of the future plays will be edited by two different scholars. In the case of these first two installments, a single scholar prepared both critical editions within each separate book. Volume 1, edited by J. Enrique Duarte, contains Las bodas entre el Alma y el Amor divino along with El hijo pródigo; volume 2, edited by Juan Manuel Escudero Baztán, contains La Maya and El viaje del alma. Escudero Baztán is also the coordinator for the series, whose chief editor is Ignacio Arellano. These projects have been developed under the auspices of GRISO (Grupo de Investigación Siglo de Oro), based at the University of navarra in Pamplona and funded by a grant from Spain's Ministerio de Economía, Industria y competividad. A presentation note at the outset of the first volume indicates that this is only the first phase of a project that may later double in size to include editions of all twenty-four of Lope de Vega's autos sacramentales that do not pose problems of dubious authorship. This number in itself is astoundingly small, given that at various points through the centuries since [End Page 201] the death of this author, scholars have estimated that Lope de Vega might possibly have written as many as one hundred, two hundred, or even six hundred autos sacramentales (the true number of comedias attributable to him is likewise debated). In modern times, this number has been reduced to a corpus of some forty-four sacramental plays, with only about half of those attributable to Lope with any stable degree of certainty. Presumably, the same research team will solicit another, similar grant from the spanish government to finance the preparation of the next dozen editions. It should be noted that this is the same scholarly network responsible for producing scholarly editions of the complete autos sacramentales of Pedro calderón de la Barca, one of Lope's seventeenth-century literary successors and by far the most famous cultivator of this dramatic genre. The reasons to review these two books together are multiple. Not only were they published in the same year, together forming the first fruits of a multiyear collaborative endeavor, but these four autos sacramentales also appeared together when they were first published in the seventeenth century, namely, as intercalated dramatic pieces appearing at the end of each of the first four books within Lope de Vega's Byzantine novel El peregrino en su patria (Seville, 1604). Given that they were originally incorporated into a larger work, the decision to publish them separately might seem debatable, especially in light of what historians of the book as artifact have taught us about the inseparability of a book's form from its content. However—especially since at least one of the plays, namely, Las bodas entre el Alma y el Amor divino, boasts a documented performance history apart from the novel—the option of lifting them out of their original context to place them alongside Lope de Vega's other, similar autos is at least justifiable. At least two complete editions of this novel have been released by reputable academic university or commercial presses within the past two years: in April of 2016 Cátedra published a version with notes in Spanish edited by Julián González Barrera, while in 2017 there appeared in the north carolina studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures series a new six hundred-page critical annotated edition and...

A la búsqueda de los textos olvidados. Los orígenes de la modernidad discursiva en la historia del español

AbstractThe transition between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has been a period of very little, if any, knowledge for the historians of Spanish. Between the classical period of the Siglo de Oro and the beginning of modernity in the eighteenth century there was no event of interest at that time. Modern research on the history of Spanish vocabulary or texts shows that from1675 onwards we can find forms and discursive traditions that are central in modern Spanish, while processes fromearlier periods continued. In this paperwe will analyze some of themost significant (non-literary) texts of those years, and try to establish their defining linguistic and discursive traits.

2016 International Siglo de Oro Drama Festival

2016 International Siglo de Oro Drama Festival THE 2016 INTERNATIONAL SIGLO DE ORO Drama Festival ran from March 30 to April 2, and, while similar in scope to that of years past, this year's festival was distinctive in that it featured the American debut of recently discovered play by Lope de Vega (Mujeresy criados) and marked the 400th anniversary of the death of Miguel de Cervantes with bilingual presentation of selected entremeses (Entremeses cervantinos). A new theatrical adaptation of La Celestina and unique staging of Lope's lesser-known El principe ynocente, featuring the naque style of theater, rounded out the festival's program. The performing troupes hailed from Spain (Madrid), Mexico (Ciudad Juarez, Mexico City), and the United States (El Paso), performed in both Spanish and English, and contributed meaningfully to Chamizal's efforts to promote and understand a culture which has had significant impact on our own (About the Festival). The following reviews reflect the diversity of staging, acting, and texts that make Chamizal's annual Siglo de Oro festival perennial favorite among community members, academics, and theater practitioners alike.Mujeres y criados: Lope's Recovered Comedy at ChamizalIn January 2014, Spain's National Library and the Grupo de Investigacion PROLOPE of the University of Barcelona announced the discovery of Mujeres y criados, long-lost comedia by Lope de Vega. (Lope most likely wrote the play in 1613 or 1614, almost exactly 400 years before its rediscovery.) The following month, Alejandro Garcia-Reidy's article, which described the process of finding and authenticating the work, appeared, and in May of the same year, Garcia-Reidy published the first edition of the play with Editorial Gredos. Sometime during those exciting months, Rodrigo Arribas received phone call asking if his theater company, Fundacion Siglo de Oro, would consider bringing the newly discovered work to the stage. Arribas and Laurence Boswell (Royal Shakespeare Company) directed the production, which premiered at the Teatro Espanol in Madrid on April 29, 2015. The troupe gave their 45th performance of the play in El Paso, Texas at the Chamizal Siglo de Oro Drama Festival on March 30, 2016.The play opened on dark stage. A church bell rang three times and then an acoustic guitar played few bars of baroque music, which suddenly sped up and merged into rock music on an electric guitar. Throughout the show, the music, composed for this production by Xavier Diaz Latorre, surprised the audience and made it difficult to locate the work solely in the seventeenth century. Most frequently, music served to keep scene changes from dragging, and in his conversations about the play, Arribas revealed that the group intended to use the music to make the sets dance. Sometimes the music reflected the mood of scene. Slow, deep, descending notes built suspense during night scene and then became animated during sword fight. When all turned out well, guitar strummed happy notes, accompanied by castanets. At other times, ceremonial music marked significant moment in the play and added comic effect. Before the scene in which Florencio tried to force his daughters to drink acero (medicine to help with anemia), an almost sacramental music played as the servant Lope pushed onto the stage small cart with the vials of medicine covered by domed lid. As the sisters stepped slowly toward the dreaded potion, drum beat the rhythm of an execution. Similarly, whenever Count Prospero entered the home of Florencio, fanfare music to announce the arrival of dignitary heralded his visit.Karmen Abarca designed the sets that danced to the music and all of the play's action developed in front of them. Her design, reminiscent of Golden Age trastos and bastidores, consisted of flexible set of interconnected frames with double curtains hanging from each section of the framework. Three frames unfolded across the stage with the center frame decorated by large, slightly nebulous family crest represented the count's palace. …

Inaudible Resistance: How La Cava Found Her Voice

Inaudible Resistance:How La Cava Found Her Voice Jared S. White A las voces de la Cava se tapa el rey los oídos —1679 Romance "Culpa de La Cava y de Rodrigo" Are those who act and struggle mute, as opposed to those who act and speak? —Spivak, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" (28) I. Subaltern Silence Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's 1988 essay, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" stands as a groundbreaking work that acknowledges the plight of the historically repressed and silenced subaltern, a figure consistently identified as female. Indeed, the first line of her essay recognizes the subjects of her study as "[w]omen outside of the mode of production narrative" (21). Rosalind C. Morris adds that "the crucial marker, and the orienting question, of Spivak's particular intervention within the theorization of subalternity revolves around the question of gender" (10). Essentially, Spivak's theory of the subaltern draws attention to the inexpressible situation of individuals, specifically women, who have [End Page 255] been traditionally ignored by history. For innumerable reasons—ranging from societal stereotypes to mere misogyny—, their vital stories have no way of coming to light; their voices, as rhetorically implied by the title of Spivak's essay, reverberate with unequivocal silence. A type of inaudible resistance rises from the pages of the medieval depictions of La Cava, a repressed character reduced to a subaltern-like silence. Although these accounts solely describe a stifled version of La Cava, her identity is not integrally "subaltern." In her essay, Spivak couples gender inequality with class subjugation; therefore a truly subaltern figure must have a gender orientation delimited by society at large and belong to the lowest, most suppressed class of that society. Even Spivak recognizes that Bhubaneswari Bhaduri, her example of a woman who, so restricted by the confines of her community, commits suicide and "turn[s] her body into a text of woman/writing, […] was not a 'true' subaltern [since] she was a woman of the middle class" (64). Given her noble inheritance as the daughter of a count, La Cava can only account for the first, gender-based categorization of the subaltern. Notwithstanding, her voiceless appearances found in medieval chronicles obstinately acknowledge her inability to speak. Patricia E. Grieve recognizes La Cava's early muteness in her book, The Eve of Spain, and directly parallels the gradual emergence of her voice with her literary development as a historical seducer. She writes: Although it has always been part of the legend of La Cava that she informed her father of Rodrigo's deed, an example of direct speech has been rare. It is ironic, but not coincidental, that the increased examples of La Cava speaking—pleading, lamenting, informing, reasoning—all coincide with her emergence as central to the legend, and culpably so. The voice of agency she acquires in Corral's Crónica del Rey don Rodrigo becomes the very complex, morally suspect, and then completely unchaste voice of the sixteenth-century ballads. (135) Indeed, it is not until 1430, when Pedro de Corral recites the legend of Rodrigo, the fallen Visigoth king, that La Cava's cries become perceptible. As James D. Fogelquist recognizes, La Cava "is a subaltern who is subjected by coercion to Rodrigo's authority" (35). Between the medieval age and the Siglo de Oro, an intriguing transformation occurs in La Cava's depiction: she evolves into a character that resists, speaks out, and aggressively retaliates against Rodrigo's actions. From the silent shadows of subalterneity, she begins to speak. It is possible to attribute the literary evolution of La Cava to the generic expectations of her exposition, i.e., the dynamic between characters varies greatly between a chronicle and a comedia or entremés. [End Page 256] The historical chronicle, a well-recognized genre of the medieval era, traditionally develops its narrative via a single, third-person expository narrator. Rarely does such a narrator include dialogue or interaction between its characters. Rather, the chronicler systematically presents its content in such a way as to push the story forward historically, explaining events instead of focusing on their intrigue—a plot device more suited towards the novel and theater. "It was at the end of...

La Comedia nueva e le scene italiane nel Seicento: trame, drammaturgie, contesti a confronto ed. by Fausta Antonucci and Anna Tedesco

Reviewed by: La Comedia nueva e le scene italiane nel Seicento: trame, drammaturgie, contesti a confronto ed. by Fausta Antonucci and Anna Tedesco Guillaume Bernardi Fausta Antonucci and Anna Tedesco, editors. La Comedia nueva e le scene italiane nel Seicento: trame, drammaturgie, contesti a confronto. Leo S. Olschki, 2016. 339 Pp. THE RICH AND COMPLEX RELATIONSHIP that developed during the seventeenth century between the comedia nueva and the various forms of Italian theater (theater, commedia dell’arte, opera) has been a steady object of study by several talented Italian Hispanists since the 1980s. Yet, this field has remained something of a specialist niche. This might be explained in part by the fact that, for several historical reasons, the literary Seicento was traditionally the poor relation of studies in Italian literature, and its richness has generated little attention. Also, until recently, as we shall see, Italian stage works of the seventeenth century were not performed regularly, so there was little practical incentive to examine them as literature. In the last couple of decades, though, interest in Venetian opera of that period has grown rapidly, not only in academia—as attested by the now classic study by Ellen Rosand, Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice: The Creation of a Genre (U of California P, 1991)—but also in the opera houses of Europe and North America, in which the operas of a composer like Francesco Cavalli have now become quite popular. In parallel, the discovery that many Venetian operas had Spanish comedias as their sources has energized the research on the theater connections between Spain and Italy, yielding much new scholarship, predictably often produced by musicologists (e.g., Anna Tedesco, “Teatro del Siglo de Oro y ópera italiana del Seiscientos: un balance,” Criticón, vol. 116, 2012, pp. 113–35). The volume La Comedia nueva e le scene italiane nel Seicento: trame, drammaturgie, contesti a confronto, edited by Fausta Antonucci, a Hispanist, and Anna Tedesco, a musicologist, is a magnificent result of this new synergy between scholars of different disciplines. The book gathers the proceedings of a conference held in Rome in January 2015 and jointly organized by the volume’s editors. Proposing a very strong interdisciplinary vision for [End Page 111] the field, the editors invited scholars from various disciplines (Hispanists, musicologists, Italianists, and theater historians) to participate in the conference. This handsome volume published by Olschki, the prestigious Italian academic press, presents twenty-three contributions from scholars based in Italy, Spain, France, and the United States, with most texts written in Italian, though two articles are in English and two in Spanish. There are two substantial introductions—one by each editor—with the rest of the essays divided among five sections. The introductions and the first section present comprehensive overviews of the field, whereas the remaining four sections feature thematically related articles—although some of the subject matter addressed could fit in more than one section, and the volume does encourage a transversal reading of the articles. The introductions by Antonucci and Tedesco present the vision, goals, and achievements of the conference and of the book, each writer addressing the issues from their own specific disciplinary point of view. These two texts set the tone of the volume and establish with great clarity the motivations and ambitions of the book. They situate the state of the scholarship today but also trace the many avenues of research for the years to come. A section in three voices follows this dialogical opening, as the editors asked three seniors scholars to survey the field through the lens of their own disciplines. Understandably, the opening statement is by Hispanist Maria Grazia Profeti, widely recognized as a pioneer and a major contributor to the study of the relationships between the comedia and the Italian stage. Profeti first offers a survey of the critical reception of Spanish Golden Age theater in Italy from the nineteenth century to today. A substantial part of her study, as her audience would expect, is dedicated to an examination of her own production and role in the development of the studies of the Spain–Italy relationship since the 1980s. It is fascinating to see such an eminent scholar revisit and interpret her...

«El huésped mucho gusto da, pero cuando se va»: comportamiento interpersonal y espacial en relación con el binomio huésped-secreto en dos comedias calderonianas

The figure of the squire/gallant sheds light to his versatile character in the argument in the comedies of Siglo de Oro. The secret halo that accompanies this character intensifies when he does his initial appearance as a guest and so he turns into a kind of instrument of secrecy. The goal of this article is to recognize the clues permeated by the secret and to see how it impacts on the behavior and the presence of the guest in relation to the spaces of his representation. The comedies to be taken into account are the following: Bien vengas, mal, si vienes solo and Mejor esta que estaba.

La cita de La pícara Justina en los Sueños: una aguda variante de autor con una posible alusión burlesca a Guzmán de Alfarache

This paper presents a study of the quotation from La pícara Justina inserted in the princeps of Quevedo’s Sueños from a three-fold perspective: attending to the context where it is located in the book of López de Úbeda, to its relationship with the creative techniques of the usus scribendi in the Siglo de Oro, and from the point of view of the physical document where it was printed. The information obtained points to Quevedo as the author of this variant for a number of reasons: it probably contains a witty and burlesque allusion to Guzmán de Alfarache —already present in Úbeda’s novel—, it is a technique known to be used by the baroque writers to create concepts by inserting texts from other authors, and it does not seem to be a casual intervention of the editor.

Remaking the comedia: Spanish classical theater in adaptation

HARLEY ERDMAN AND SUSAN PAUN DE GARCIA (eds). Remaking the Comedia. Spanish Classical Theater in Adaptation. Woodbridge: Tamesis. 2015. xix + 303 pp. ISBN 978 1 85566 292 6.Harley Erdman and Susan Paun de Garcia approach the topic of adaptation in both a textual and performance form. In their edited volume, scholarly work as well as performance as research are well represented in 26 essays by Comedia scholars, translators and theatre practitioners. This book is divided holistically in four parts, 'Theorizing', 'Surveying', 'Spotlighting', and 'Shifting'. Although this division is occasionally ambiguous and calls for a conceptualization in the preface, case studies featured in each chapter survey productive ways of adapting Comedia for current audiences.Leading the first part of this book are two essays commissioned to Catherine Larson and Susan L. Fischer that provide a theoretical introduction to what entails remaking the Comedia. Larson proposes in her essay to overcome the tiresome discussion of authorial intention and directorial vision in light of adaptation theory, and eloquently asserts that the essays contained in this volume are a response to the complexity of the theatrical event. In a similar fashion, Fischer points to the role of the audience as a moving force that makes the remaking of the play necessary both on the page and on the stage. Alejandro Gonzalez Puche and Laurence Boswell close this section with some thoughts based on their directorial experiences staging Comedia in Colombia, China, the UK and Spain. Their reflections on the challenges of cultural and linguistic specificity of their productions abound on the otherness of the texts. Boswell contends that his experience directing Lope de Vega's plays taught him to approach the staging as a remodel rather than a remake or a remix, for which he proposes a provocative training method that eventually could lead to the formation of a bilingual troupe in English and Spanish.Performance tradition is a central point of Part two, in which Charles Victor Ganelin revisits nineteenth-century refundiciones, and Valerie Hegstrom and Amy Williamsen offer an informed survey of early modern 'dramaturgas' that reveal their scant presence on the stages of the US, the UK, Spain and Chile. A fact that Jason Yancey corroborates when he notices in his review of Chamizal Siglo de Oro Festival that only plays by Sor Juana and Maria de Zayas have been featured in the 40 years of its existence. Duncan Wheeler unearths the professional activities of Pepe Estruch. An exile in England and Uruguay, where he collaborated frequently with Margarita Xirgu, upon his return to Madrid to teach at RESAD, Estruch was mentor of a generation of actors and directors that transformed the performance of Comedia in Spain. …

Art collections and taste in the Spanish Siglo de Oro

We analyze art pricing in a unique dataset on Madrid inventories between 1600 and 1750. We estimate a price index for the Spanish art market that is used for a general historical analysis of art during this period, showing a large increase in the real price of paintings during the XVII century. Then we examine the price differential between domestic and foreign paintings: At the beginning of the century domestic production was priced substantially below imported paintings, but the price gap was gradually reduced during the century. We argue that such a price convergence was not the fruit of variations in real exchange rate, relative supply or home bias, but was associated with increasing prices for the new domestic painters of the XVII century. Increasing remuneration for painting may have induced artistic innovations by domestic producers and created the conditions for the development of the Siglo de Oro of Spanish art.

2015 International Siglo de Oro Drama Festival Coordinated by Anna-Lisa Halling

2015 International Siglo de Oro Drama Festival Coordinated by Anna-Lisa HallingIn 2015, Chamizal National Memorial in El Paso, Texas, celebrated forty years of Golden productions as it hosted both professional and student troupes from Spain, Colombia, Mexico, and United States. The festival ran from Wednesday, March 18, through Sunday, March 22, and featured five unique performances by four very different companies. Performances by these groups ranged from recreation of baroque celebration (iFiesta!) to theatrical adaptations of both novel and novella (El buscon and El coloquio de los perros), as well as pastoral play (El amor enamorado) and tonadilla ( Villa y Corte-The Music of Goya). Far from usual comedia fare, these productions not only include wide variety of genres, but also artistic vision, thus creating rich and diverse experience for spectators.iFiesta!It is not without reason that Morfeo Teatro has recently become perennial presence at Chamizal National Memorial's Siglo de Oro festival. In this production, company's minimalist approach to sets and scenery, attention to visual detail, incorporation of variety of genres of early modern theater, and clear respect for texts that they bring to life all demonstrate production approach that aligns well with stated objective of festival. In his opening statement in event program, Fernando Gus Sanchez, park superintendent, indicated that purpose of event was to increase public's awareness and appreciation of the rich tradition of drama from Spain's Golden Age through a significant encounter with performing arts.Each member of this small company shoulders variety of roles, and quality of production demonstrates success of their cooperation. The artistic decisions of company's director, Francisco Negro (who also played role of lead actor in majority of pieces presented), paralleled rather than duplicated those of comedia production in corral theater. Scenery and props consisted of such basic items as chair, few pieces of rope, fan, and semitransparent scrim. The use of lighting changes and fog added modern touch to production and effectively augmented audience's response to emotionally charged scenes. Each of these staging techniques drew audience focus to actors and dramatic texts themselves. The actors took advantage of and heightened this attention through very deliberate, considered physicality of their interpretations. The combination of these elements was particularly apparent in selected scene from Lope de Vega's El caballero de Olmedo. Dim lights, enough fog to initially obscure dancer portraying physical representation of death omen that Alonso sees, and musical adaptation accompanying lines all combined to make Alonso's death particularly frenetic and emotionally draining scene.The attention to detail paid to various visual representational elements speak to talent and precision of Mayte Bona (who also portrayed variety of female characters) as costume designer. The masks worn by actors at various moments throughout production were beautifully detailed nod to influence of commedia dell'arte tradition. At outset, they contributed to element of mystery created by cast as actors stepped onto stage in front of main curtain, speaking while audience wondered what lay behind curtain and ahead in play. Rather than relying on costume changes to mark scene transitions, each actor maintained single costume throughout production. To adjust for dramatic differences in character types, costumes incorporated added elements like manto, hat, an eyepatch, tucked-up skirt hem to make respectable lady's dress short and revealing, and particularly memorable tied-on apron that transformed galan into nagging wife. …

Remaking the Comedia: Spanish Classical Theater in Adaptation ed. by Harley Erdman and Susan Paun de García

Reviewed by: Remaking the Comedia: Spanish Classical Theater in Adaptation ed. by Harley Erdman and Susan Paun de García Michael J. McGrath Harley Erdman and Susan Paun de García, eds. Remaking the Comedia: Spanish Classical Theater in Adaptation. London: Tamesis, 2015. 303 pp. It is not uncommon to hear the following words in a comedia class: “The comedia was meant to be performed, not read.” Until the second half of the twentieth century, however, a discussion of the performative aspects of the comedia required knowledge of staging and performance space, as well as a vivid imagination. The innovative research of Charles Davis, J. E. Varey, N. D. Shergold, John J. Allen, José María Díez Borque, and José María Ruano de la Haza, among other scholars, including the authors who contributed to the Tamesis series Fuentes para la historia del teatro en España, has elucidated our understanding of comedia performances by addressing such issues as the physical disposition of the playhouse, the autor de comedias, acting companies, and the socio-economic aspects of professional theater. Three defining moments that forever shaped the state of comedia studies, however, transpired within a ten-year period: the inauguration of Chamizal National Memorial’s annual Siglo de Oro Drama Festival in 1976; the establishment of the Almagro festival in 1978; and the organization of the Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico in 1985. Contemporary adaptations of Golden Age drama not only provided entertainment but also engendered performative studies never before possible and revealed the comedia as an entity that transcended time, space, genre, and ideology. The book Remaking the Comedia: Spanish Classical Theater in Adaptation, edited by Harley Erdman and Susan Paun de García, provides the most comprehensive study of theatrical adaptations of Golden Age drama to date. Academics, directors, translators, and actors share insightful and thought-provoking analysis throughout the twenty-six essays in this volume, which is divided into four parts: Theorizing, Surveying, Spotlighting, and Shifting. The first part of the book, “Theorizing,” consists of four essays that address the theoretical and practical considerations of staging a comedia. Catherine Larson’s “Terms and Concepts: The Adaptation of Classical Texts for the Stage” and Susan Fischer’s “‘Los senderos que se bifurcan:’ Adaptation, Appropriation, and the Proliferation of Possibilities” focus, in large part, on theoretical considerations. Larson elucidates the role of translators and theatrical practitioners, the terminology associated with adaptation, including André Lefevere’s term “refraction,” fidelity discourse, and audience reception, in addition to other issues and concerns that she feels are most relevant to the field of adaptation studies and to the people who appreciate adaptations of Golden Age drama (creators, critics, audience). Fischer discusses the genre of adaptation, expounding on questions such as how to define an adaptation based on naming, or its intention, and the [End Page 168] difference between “adaptation” and “appropriation.” She weaves into her discussion the scholarship of several critics, including Edward Said, Jacques Derrida, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Roland Barthes. Colombian director Alejandro González-Puche, who is the author of “Interpretive Directing Games for the Golden Age Repertory,” and Laurence Boswell, whose essay is titled “Re-Make, Re-Mix, Re-Model,” address the practical considerations of staging an adaptation. González-Puche believes the director’s objective is to discover the multiple interpretative possibilities of an adaptation, or “rules of the game,” emphasizing that this quest is not an anarchic activity. He depends on a “version” that emanates from the “games” that take place between the actors and the director during rehearsals. Boswell’s approach is more introspective. He endeavors to “give the play a soul” (34), with the expectation that the spectators will re-make the production for themselves. Boswell shares his experiences as the director of Golden Age plays in Britain and the challenges of staging Spanish plays to an English-speaking audience. In addition, he relates the experience of staging El perro del hortelano at Madrid’s Teatro Español. The text of the production was a Spanish translation of David Johnston’s English translation. Boswell’s philosophy on directing centers on the actors’ discovery of it, which he describes as “profoundly human; it is human...

José Bergamín y su dramaturgia en Francia

El teatro de José Bergamín durante su exilio en Francia abarca más de una década, entre 1954 y 1970. A lo largo de los mismos encontramos cuatro obras interesantes por tratar bien temas del Siglo de Oro –la Gatomaquia lopesca–, bien de la mitología griega –La sangre de Antígona y Donde una voz se apaga–; o girar alrededor de un poema de Baudelaire, La cama, tumba del sueño o El dormitorio. La relevancia de este autor de la llamada Generación del 27 en su estancia parisina se manifiesta, además, en las traducciones y obras suyas que se representaron durante esos años en Francia. Siempre con el objetivo puesto en su labor dramática, resulta interesante comprobar esa influencia en sus últimas producciones dramáticas, algunas de las cuales fueron escritas en francés.

Da expressão do bilinguismo em «Los siete libros de la Diana» de Jorge de Montemayor: a simbólica dos Campos do Mondego

This article discusses the meanings of bilingualism in Jorge de Montemayor’s Diana . This microanalysis aims to demonstrate the centrality of this no­vel within the aesthetic framework of Iberian baroque . In a close reading analysis, the fleeting love story between the two Portuguese shepherds, Duarda and Danteo, located in the last book of the Siete Libros de la Diana , is viewed as a strategic mise en abyme for the construction of a ‘modern’ perspective on the baroque universe of the «libros de pastores», and the consequent transition from bucolic lyricism to bucolic narrative. This will be the central argument for this reflection, anchored on a plural vision of the interconnections between Portugal and Spanish literature in the «Siglo de Oro».

Balbuena's Grandeza mexicana and the American Georgic

Bernardo de Balbuena’s Grandeza mexicana (1604) stands between two worlds. One of the earliest and most spectacular poetic celebrations of the wonders of the city of Mexico, this text was addressed both at the American and the Spanish audience, producing a duplicitous message. The capital of New Spain is presented as one of the most loyal and productive colonies of the Hispanic empire, though it is also celebrated for its economic autonomy and cultural supremacy with regards to the metropolis. These dualisms are also noticeable in the poetic style of Balbuena’s work, which, following the traditional idea of the Wheel of Virgil, adopts old classical models to portray the New World whilst anticipating Baroque poetics. Following the example of Virgil, Balbuena fashioned his literary career as a process organised in three distinct evolutionary stages, beginning with a bucolic text, Siglo de Oro en las selvas de Erífile, and culminating with an epic poem, El Bernardo. Grandeza stood between these two, adapting the rural setting of the Georgics to an urban context, and offering an idealised account of the Virgilian praise of human industry, which placed Balbuena and the other members of the lettered class on the forefront of Mexican society.

2013 Siglo de Oro Drama Festival, Chamizal

De burladores y burladosThe National Park Service and Los Paisanos de Chamizal added a new twist to the 38th Siglo de Oro Drama Festival in El Paso-a matinee-as the festival's final performance. Presented at 3 p m. on Sunday, March 10, and featuring Morfeo Teatro Clasico in a Compilation of Comical Interludes billed as De burladores y burlados, this innovation was a resounding success. The audience proved large and lively, responding to the three-member troupe from Burgos (who presented their absorbing El coloquio de los perros on Saturday night) with enthusiastic applause during the performance and eager questions during the well-attended mesa redonda that followed.How did Morfeo achieve this triumphant finale to an impressive festival? How did three actors transport an audience across four centuries for ninety minutes, when such feats of captivation eluded other compilations recently seen at Chamizal (such as 2012's funny but uneven collage of one-act plays, Tiempo de Carnaval, and 201 I s stylish but emotionally empty collection of monologues, Entre clasicos anda el juego)? The keys to De burladores y burlados's success become evident in the compilation's clever incorporation of context, in the troupe's expert manipulations of performance text, and in the show's instructive strategies for creating and exceeding audience expectations.De burladores y burlados dramatizes the birth of a theater company-the historic partnership formed by Antonio de Escamilla, Maria de Quinones, and Mateo de Godoy around 1650. The performance opens with Escamilla (played by director Francisco Negro) discovering that all his actors have gone AWOL and attempting to recruit new talent from the audience (?No hay comico en la sala?). He soon encounters out-of-work thespians Quinones and Godoy (played by Mayte Bona and Felipe Santiago) and hears them audition with a burla in which Quinones persuades Godoy to impersonate a chicken and creates the illusion that he has laid an egg. Then Escamilla sets his new company to work rehearsing a repertory' of one acts. The setting is a convincing corral de comedias, evoked by pieces of period furniture that move against a beautiful backdrop, painted by Ricardo Blackman. The costumes are a gorgeous collection of period clothing, copied by' May'te Bona from paintings and museum pieces and housed in a handsome trunk, center stage, where actors don new characters in full view of the audience and in time to recorded classical music. The production's show-biz story'line, authentic look, and transparent theatricality' work together to contextualize the script's eclectic parts. Every' element in the compilation- each occasional poem and one-act play imported from the Siglo de Oro, plus the dialogue that Morfeo has created to connect them (written in Golden Age rhythms)-gains resonance from this rich context.In the hands of this talented cast, play texts take on new dimensions, too. Four one acts form the core of the new company's repertory': Lope de Rueda s El rufian cobarde, Luis Quinones de Benavente's La ronda and Don Satisfecho, and Bernardo de Quiros's El muerto. Each play within the play sparkles onstage, thanks not only to the quality of its play writing (which wins it a place in Morfeo's mas elegante seleccion del teatro burlesco del Siglo de Oro ), but also to the liveliness of Morfeo's performance choices, which respect the stageworthiness of these scripts too deeply to treat them as museum pieces. Under Negro's inspired direction, these entremeses become master classes in comic characterization, memorable blocking, and effective editing. Real-life husband-and-wife team Negro and Bona are particularly skillful at endowing characters with mannerisms that instantly identify them as comic types while clearly connecting them with enduring cultural anxieties. For example, in Don Satisfecho, the story of an unlikely engagement that unravels when the brideand groom-elect challenge the genuineness of each others' luxuriant hair, the prissy walk and precious diction that Negro uses to introduce the title character prepares the comic climax by stirring anxiety about Satisfecho's sexuality (how gay is this guy? …

Art Collections and Taste in the Spanish Siglo De Oro

We analyze art pricing in a unique dataset on Madrid inventories between 1600 and 1750. Hedonic regressions reveal a number of interesting facts about the taste of Baroque Spanish collectors and the imports of foreign paintings. The hedonic price index shows an impressive increase in the price of paintings (relative to the cost of living) during the XVII century, in line with the Lopez hypothesis for which investment in art increases in wealthy societies without new productive investment opportunities. We examine price differentials between domestic and imported paintings: at the beginning of the century local works were priced substantially below imported paintings, but the price gap is gradually reduced during the century, with an increasing contribution of the younger painters. This is in line with a Schumpeterian hypothesis for which increasing demand induced increasing domestic quality, as priced by the market, and created the conditions for what is known as the Siglo de Oro of Spanish art.

2013 Siglo de Oro Drama Festival, Chamizal

2013 Siglo de Oro Drama Festival, Chamizal Anna-Lisa Halling, Coordinated and Laura L. Vidler Each year the Chamizal National Memorial, located in El Paso, Texas, hosts the well-attended Siglo de Oro Spanish Drama Festival. 2013’s installment, which ran from March 6 to March 10, featured professional theater groups from Mexico (Puebla) and Spain (Murcia, Segovia, and San Clemente). The works produced included the more traditional comedia fare (El caballero de Olmedo and La vengadora de las mujeres), a theatrical re-creation of a liturgical ceremony (Misterio del Cristo de los Gascones), an adaptation of a narrative work (El coloquio de los perros), and a compilation of crowd-pleasing entremeses (De burladores y burlados). The following reviews, each written by a different reviewer, offer a critical look at these theatrical productions. The reviews and the reviewers are as diverse as the plays themselves and are meant to offer varying viewpoints and insights into a unique compendium of dramatic endeavors. El caballero de Olmedo by Lope de Vega On March 6, The Shake and Falstaff Company (Puebla, Mexico) opened the 2013 International Siglo de Oro Drama Festival at the Chamizal National Memorial in El Paso, TX, with a performance of Lope’s tragicomedy El caballero de Olmedo. Director Abril Mayett’s production takes several liberties with the setting and casting of the play with mixed results. Mayett frames the work within the context of Mexico’s Cristero War (1926–1929), during which Catholics and the Catholic Church rebelled against the harsh lines drawn between church and state by Mexico’s post-Revolution constitution. The setting is emphasized with varying effect through added and modified dialogue, costume, music, and two extra characters: a bishop and a town mayor. These incidental characters provide the bulk of the additional dialogue through a series of clandestine negotiations that, together, highlight the corruption, hypocrisy, and complicity of the milieu. Appearances of the obispo and the alcalde frame the work throughout, as does the accompaniment of a group of itinerant mariachis, in [End Page 167] huaraches and sombreros, of comically dubious skill. The minimalist set and strings of lights crisscrossed overhead are reminiscent of a summer evening feria. The unusual multiple castings crafted by Mayett, while extremely enterprising and cost effective, leave several issues unresolved without truly enhancing the production. The dizzying casting begins with Mayett herself, who plays both Inés and the gracioso Tello. Fernando Villa Proal plays not only the antagonist, Rodrigo, but also Inés’s father, Don Pedro, and the alcalde. Mario Eduardo D’León plays both Alonso and Leonor. Mónica Bejarano, amazingly, plays Fabia, Ana (the maid), the obispo, Rodrigo’s friend Fernando, and also the Sombra. The cast is certainly to be commended for tackling such a difficult acting (and costuming) challenge. Mayett’s performance, in particular, was a tour de force. Her characterization of each role was so distinctive that, at the curtain call, the audience was baffled by the “absence” of Inés; they had not realized that Mayett had simply taken her bow dressed as Tello (a tip of the hat and a letting-down of hair might have helped here). Obviously, these double and even quintuple castings require some practical adjustments to the dramatic text. For example, because Inés and Tello can never appear onstage together, Fabia becomes the Latin teacher in the second act, and Tello’s lines are redistributed to Don Pedro. The very tall D’León, cross-dressed as Leonor, is forced to play up the height difference between him and Bejarano as Fernando. The resulting slapstick has them unable to keep their hands (and faces) off each other. This sexual comedy spills over to D’León’s portrayal of Alonso when he gets caught by Don Pedro in the house. Inés attempts to hide her physical pleasure as Alonso “hides” under her skirts. When all is said and done, Mayett’s multiple castings and the resulting extradramatic consequences detract from the layers of meaning appended to the production by the Cristero War setting. The limited number of players minimizes opportunities to expose alliances or juxtapose oppositions. For example, since Rodrigo and Don Pedro can...

2013 Siglo de Oro Drama Festival, Chamizal

2013 Siglo de Oro Drama Festival, Chamizal Rosie Seagraves La vengadora de las mujeres by Lope de Vega “Mi industria comienza ahora”: these words, uttered by Lisardo of Lope de Vega’s La vengadora de las mujeres, set into motion a charming reflection on love’s transformational power in the midst of heated intellectual debate, battles of will, and an unflinching redemption of woman’s place in seventeenth-century Spain. Lisardo, actually Federico of Transylvania, has his eye on Laura, a mujer esquiva more interested in bookish learning and the vindication of women than in choosing a partner for marriage. Aware of her fierce independence, Federico poses as a secretary, luring her with new books and delaying any direct amorous pursuit. As Laura begins to fall in love with her new debate partner, she finds herself negotiating her self-imposed identity as resident vengadora de las mujeres with a newfound one as lover. The play, staged by Cambalache Teatro on Thursday, March 7, 2013, at the Chamizal Siglo de Oro Drama Festival, and directed by Francisco García Vicente, offers another ferocious female lead after last year’s staging of Antona García by the Grand Valley State University’s drama department. The trend is hardly incidental, given the rich tradition of strong female characters within Golden Age drama. Cambalache’s production featured visual vignettes, simple and true to the play’s historical origin, with period costumes and a minimal set of two benches and a set of vine and floral covered arches. Subtler aspects of their staging, nevertheless, made a gesture to the performance’s contemporary context. Between scenes, several pieces from Peter Breiner’s “Beatles Go Baroque” played, referred to as “los Beatles barroquizados” during García Vicente’s discussion of the performance earlier on Thursday at the AHCT conference. The Beatles’ invasion continued as Laura sang, instead of reciting, the verses that express her realization of her love for Lisardo to the tune of a slowed-down “Lady Madonna.” The idea came from Clara Ruíz, the actress playing Laura, as a way to demarcate Laura’s discovery of the positive aspects of romantic love. The performance’s nod to the twenty-first century came later, when the actors transformed their final dance into a sudden “Gangnam-style” tribute. These extratextual moments were brief and not terribly invasive, insofar as the major portion of the staging remained faithful to the original playtext. The introduction of modern music and dance seemed to occur for the sole purpose of added entertainment value—for the fun of it. Other changes were more practical. The company chose to reduce the play to 95% of its original verses in order to cut down on repetition and long speeches and thus better sustain the attention of a modern audience. The roles of three servants were subsumed by the character Julio, Laura’s confidant, since these roles added little and did not merit the hiring of three additional actors. The play’s king became a queen, due to the gender distribution of the company. Finally, Camablache Teatro’s version of La vengadora de las mujeres created a character, representing a referenced [End Page 170] hechicero, through brief appearances by the company’s head of dance, Antonio González. González opened the play in this role, donning an ensemble of what amounted to tattered rags, a glaring exception to the company’s otherwise graceful costuming. He appeared again later to act out the enchantment of Julio, which causes Julio to fall in love with Alejandro when he passes by. The presence of the hechicero serves to veil the open depiction of homosexual desire from the stage, making it instead a joke that the other characters can chuckle over, particularly as Julio falls out of the spell and realizes his former confusion. The performance, by turning textual reference into a whole new enacted scene, seemed to intensify, rather than diminish, any such veil in favor of added visual flair and comical sexual enredo. Julio played the scene with notable camp, earning the most laughs from the audience. Though Julio pulled off excellent physical humor befitting his character’s frequent peanut-gallery comic relief commentary to...