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Full-Text Articles in Modern Languages
Imperial Incentives And Individual Allegiances In Juan Antonio Correa’S La Pérdida Y Restauración De Bahía De Todos Los Santos, Matthew D. Stroud
Imperial Incentives And Individual Allegiances In Juan Antonio Correa’S La Pérdida Y Restauración De Bahía De Todos Los Santos, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
Juan Antonio Correa's La pérdida y restauración de Bahía de Todos los Santos, written primarily to celebrate the successful recapture in 1625 of an important American colony from the Dutch and their allies, invites an investigation into why and how human beings can be motivated to support people and institutions that not only do not directly benefit them but may in fact operate in ways that are unfavourable to their own lives and causes. Informed by the political writings of Antonio Gramsci and Paulo Freire and the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan, this study explores the various reasons why …
Genesis 31-34 As Spanish Comedia: Lope De Vega’S El Robo De Dina, Matthew D. Stroud
Genesis 31-34 As Spanish Comedia: Lope De Vega’S El Robo De Dina, Matthew D. Stroud
Matthew D Stroud
Lope de Vega’s El robo de Dina, based upon Genesis 31-34, focuses on the disturbing series of events involving Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, and culminating in the mass slaughter of an entire enemy people who were doing their best to accommodate the demands of the Hebrews. The primary focus of this article is not the Biblical story itself, but rather the techniques that Lope used to adapt his source text for a comedia audience. From the amplification of the scope of the source text by the inclusion of the story of Laban and Jacob to the depiction of women as …
The Closest Reading: Creating Annotated Editions, Matthew D. Stroud
The Closest Reading: Creating Annotated Editions, Matthew D. Stroud
Matthew D Stroud
Teaching old literature of any kind to undergraduates is a challenge. The language is difficult, the themes often lack resonance for today's students, and the cultural references are abstruse. When one adds to the mix that the works are in an archaic version of Spanish, not the native language of most students in the United States, and that the plays are written in florid, baroque poetry, the task of helping students to appreciate the Spanish comedia for its literary value is made considerably more demanding. A great many students simply do not understand what is going on with the plots …
Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands: Heroic Women Of The Early Reconquest In The Spanish Comedia, Matthew D. Stroud
Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands: Heroic Women Of The Early Reconquest In The Spanish Comedia, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
Against the backdrop of the uncertain and troubling history of Christian Spain at the turn of the ninth century, three comedias highlight the heroic deeds of the women of Asturias and León. In Lope de Vega’s Las doncellas de Simancas, women who are to be sent as tribute to the Emir of Córdoba sever their own hands, threaten suicide, and ultimately lead the resistance against the barbaric exchange. In Las famosas asturianas, also by Lope, Sancha, selected, as well, for delivery to the Moors, shames her countrymen by appearing undressed before them but not in the presence of …
Genesis 31-34 As Spanish Comedia: Lope De Vega’S El Robo De Dina, Matthew D. Stroud
Genesis 31-34 As Spanish Comedia: Lope De Vega’S El Robo De Dina, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
Lope de Vega’s El robo de Dina, based upon Genesis 31-34, focuses on the disturbing series of events involving Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, and culminating in the mass slaughter of an entire enemy people who were doing their best to accommodate the demands of the Hebrews. The primary focus of this article is not the Biblical story itself, but rather the techniques that Lope used to adapt his source text for a comedia audience. From the amplification of the scope of the source text by the inclusion of the story of Laban and Jacob to the depiction of women as …
The Biblical Ruth As Dama Principal: Tirso’S La Mejor Espigadera, Matthew D. Stroud
The Biblical Ruth As Dama Principal: Tirso’S La Mejor Espigadera, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
The comedia mined a variety of source texts for its plots—Italian novelle, Spanish history, Greek and Roman mythology, and, of course, the Bible—but always managed to adapt plot, setting, and characters to the conventions of the Spanish national theater. This process offered great benefits, such as audience familiarity, as well as challenges, including inherent and unavoidable limitations on artistic freedom. One of the more interesting adaptations is Tirso de Molina’s reworking of the Biblical story of Ruth in La mejor espigadera, primarily because of the lack of dramatic potential offered by the original: there are no villains, no obstacles …
Artistic Distance And The Comedia: Lessons From Don Quijote, Matthew D. Stroud
Artistic Distance And The Comedia: Lessons From Don Quijote, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
Don Quijote is a novel, perhaps even the first modern novel (Fuentes 15, Bloom 145). Practically from the date of its writing, however, it has been almost irresistibly viewed through the lens of theater—"Como casi es comedia la historia de don Quixote de la Mancha [ ... ]"in the words of Avellaneda (fol.lllr)—and a growing body of scholarship acknowledges the importance of theatricality to both the structure of the work and the way one interprets it. "Theatricality," as it turns out, is a very flexible term in many of these studies and the widely varying definitions of it have given …
Supersession, The Comedia Nueva, And Tirso's La Mejor Espigadera, Matthew D. Stroud
Supersession, The Comedia Nueva, And Tirso's La Mejor Espigadera, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
Given Spain's self-identification with the Roman Catholic Church under the Hapsburgs, what is one to make of the great number of comedias that take as their protagonists figures from the Hebrew Bible, individuals revered by Jews as righteous ancestors, models of behavior, and illustrious examples of the triumphs of the Hebrew people faced with endless persecution and oppression? Most of these plays focus on the actions of men (e.g., King David in Tirso’s La venganza de Tamar, and Joseph and Jacob in Mira’s El más feliz cautiverio), but a number of them focus on righteous Hebrew women such …
The Closest Reading: Creating Annotated Editions, Matthew D. Stroud
The Closest Reading: Creating Annotated Editions, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
Teaching old literature of any kind to undergraduates is a challenge. The language is difficult, the themes often lack resonance for today's students, and the cultural references are abstruse. When one adds to the mix that the works are in an archaic version of Spanish, not the native language of most students in the United States, and that the plays are written in florid, baroque poetry, the task of helping students to appreciate the Spanish comedia for its literary value is made considerably more demanding. A great many students simply do not understand what is going on with the plots …
Defining The Comedia: On Generalizations Once Widely Accepted That Are No Longer Accepted So Widely, Matthew D. Stroud
Defining The Comedia: On Generalizations Once Widely Accepted That Are No Longer Accepted So Widely, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
Defining the comedia is a challenge that is rarely addressed directly in the pages of the Bulletin of the Comediantes. Those of us who spend our professional lives working with the plays that are brought together under this cover term have a visceral or intuitive understanding of what falls into the category of comedia and what lies outside of it. We are hardly exempt from having to articulate our definitions in concrete terms, however, because students, colleagues, and organizations to whom we write grants all want us to establish the limits, scope, and parameters of our field of study. …
The Director’S Cut: Baroque Aesthetics And Modern Stagings Of The Comedia, Matthew D. Stroud
The Director’S Cut: Baroque Aesthetics And Modern Stagings Of The Comedia, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
The last twenty-five years have witnessed a relative explosion in the number of staged productions of Spanish comedias. Whether the performances take place in Madrid, Almagro, New York, or El Paso, the experience has changed forever the way those who have attended performances view plays previously known only by reaing [sic] the text. One cannot fail to have been affected by the interaction between literature and theater, between professors and directors, between text and performance. A debate that has arisen as a result of this spectator's experience, especially after the production of a particularly well-known comedia, …
Uxoricidas, Matthew D. Stroud
Uxoricidas, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
La figura del uxoricida aparece en muchas literaturas nacionales, pero la comedia española presenta tantos argumentos en que el marido mata a su esposa que llega a ser un verdadero subgénero. El uxoricidio es tan importante dentro de la historia literaria de la época que algunos han llegado a declarar, equivocadamente, que la matanza de una mujer representaba fielmente cierta peculiaridad del carácter nacional español, sobre todo cuando se trataba también del honor. Es verdad que la autoridad legal de matar a una esposa adúltera aparece en el Fuero juzgo, pero ya no estaba en vigor en el siglo …
Artistry And Irony In María De Zayas's La Inocencia Castigada, Matthew D. Stroud
Artistry And Irony In María De Zayas's La Inocencia Castigada, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
By the time Maria de Zayas published her Desengaños amorosos, the honor scenario, due in large part to the dominance of the comedia and especially of Calderón, had taken on a number of characteristics that today seem inseparable from the familiar plotlines. A noblewoman, usually innocent of adultery but loved by another man, is believed for one reason or another to have dishonored her husband. He proceeds to verify that the affront has indeed been committed, and, upon (wrongly) coming to believe that his wife is guilty, undertakes to have her killed in secret so that his honor will …
Comedy, Foppery, Camp: Moreto’S El Lindo Don Diego, Matthew D. Stroud
Comedy, Foppery, Camp: Moreto’S El Lindo Don Diego, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
In 1990, Francisco Portes brought his Teatro Pequeño to the Chamizal in El Paso and gave the audience his usual high quality performance of Moreto' s El Iindo don Diego. Those who attended the performance or have seen it on videotape know that Portes' s portrayal of Diego was nothing less than magisterial. He minces, he scolds, he blusters, he fusses, completely obsessed with his appearance and his affect on others. Don Diego's entry scene established his character and the comic tone for the entire play. In it, Diego converses with a very straight-laced foil, Don Mendo, a much …
Pedro Calderón De La Barca, Matthew D. Stroud
Pedro Calderón De La Barca, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
Don Pedro Calderón de Ia Barca was born on January 17, 1600, to parents of noble lineage. Although little is known of the early years of his life, it has been determined that Calderón attended the Jesuit Colegio Imperial in Madrid from about 1608 to about 1613. His mother died in 1610, after which his brother Diego left abruptly for Mexico, his sister Dorotea entered a convent, and his youngest sister Antonia went to live with her grandmother. In 1614, Pedro entered the University of Alcalá, and in 1615, after the death of his father, he went to study at …
The Comedia In Amsterdam, 1609-1621: Rodenburgh's Translation Of Aguilar's La Venganza Honrosa, Matthew D. Stroud
The Comedia In Amsterdam, 1609-1621: Rodenburgh's Translation Of Aguilar's La Venganza Honrosa, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
In the seventeenth century, the Spanish comedia was not only known outside of Spain, it informed other national literatures and was even performed abroad, either in Spanish or in translation. In most cases, it was received into an established cultural environment, such as Corneille's adaptations in France; its appearance was not considered politically inflammatory in any sense as the host cultures were able to deal with the comedia as only a literary phenomenon. In the case of the Low Countries before 1648, however, the comedia was translated and performed in a colony in more or less open rebellion against Spain …
The Electronic Comedia, Matthew D. Stroud
The Electronic Comedia, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
The rapid transmission of data in machine readable formats has for many years now been a staple of the business world. Now, in a number of fields, the same technology is being applied to scholarly subjects, including French and English literatures. The availability of primary texts ready to be read by one's own computer is almost as great a revolution in textual dissemination as the invention of the printing press. Other disciplines, in which scholars can exchange texts either on diskette or by uploading and downloading to a network, are far ahead of Spanish literature, but there is both a …
Genre And Lack In The Comedia, Matthew D. Stroud
Genre And Lack In The Comedia, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
The history of genre studies is almost a textbook case of critical self-deconstruction. Beginning with Aristotle himself, we are faced with irreconcilable differences between description and prescription, literary cause and psychological effect, the written Poetics and the promised but lacking sequel on comedy. The temptation to compromise on a definition (or multiple definitions) of a genre has been met with startlingly rigid manifestos for limiting our use of a word such as "tragedy" only to those plays that fulfill the particular narrowly- conceived requirements of one critic or another. Given Jacques Lacan's penchant for jumping into the middle of thorny …
Symbols, Referents, And Theatrical Semantics: The Use Of Hands In The Comedia, Matthew D. Stroud
Symbols, Referents, And Theatrical Semantics: The Use Of Hands In The Comedia, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
One of the most important products of the application of New Criticism to the comedia was the discovery of the functions of clusters of images to the dramatic and theatrical themes within a play. Among the most pervasive and subtle images and symbols are those involving hands and, by extension, arms, rings, gloves, and daggers. A quick, impressionistic overview of the connotations of hands reveals a number of different and often contradictory meanings: trust and treachery, power and submission, salvation and damnation, to mention only a few. So ubiquitous are hands, and so necessary are they to the plot complications …
The Comedia As Playscript, Matthew D. Stroud
The Comedia As Playscript, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
The relationship between literary text and theatrical performance is the subject of intense discussion and occasional animosity between those who believe that performance is only the faithful translation of the text from one medium to another and those for whom a playscript is only a starting point or a secondary element to performance. We do know, however, that the comedias were written to be performed, that there are performance signs imbedded in the texts themselves, and that if we ignore performance altogether we end up teaching the literary texts as though they were novels or poems. The problem that this …
Martyrs, Martyrdom, And The Comedia, Matthew D. Stroud
Martyrs, Martyrdom, And The Comedia, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
Plays about martyrs form a curious subgenre within the comedia. In a direct contradiction of the values normally associated with the comedia, we are asked to accept that dishonor is glorious, that submission is courageous, and that death is a reward because it brings eternal life. The martyrs themselves, however, as presented in the comedia, are not of a single type; the way each comes to his or her final apotheosis is a function of the comedia setting in which the martyr acts. Too, because martyr plays almost always use external source material, a study of the …
The Resocialization Of The Mujer Varonil In Three Plays By Vélez, Matthew D. Stroud
The Resocialization Of The Mujer Varonil In Three Plays By Vélez, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
When Arnold Reichenberger writes of the tendency in the comedia toward a restored society, he refers to the conservative, patriarchal, ideal society represented by the dramatic works. Characters who exhibit eccentric social behavior are not allowed to remain marginally attached to the society; they are either resocialized into the fabric of the comedia's society or they are expelled. This pattern not only allows for the possibility of an implicit moral lesson, as Alexander A. Parker would assert, but it also creates dramatic tension the resolution of which results in exciting reversals in the plot. As might be expected, the …
Social-Comic Anagnorisis In La Dama Duende, Matthew D. Stroud
Social-Comic Anagnorisis In La Dama Duende, Matthew D. Stroud
Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research
La dama duende has become quite a puzzle. Barbara Mujica, in her article, "Tragic Elements in Calderón's La Dama Duende," discusses several elements of Calderonian tragedy in a work which she ultimately defines as "comedy in its highest sense," (p. 328) and she finds implicit social criticism in its vaguely happy ending. Robert ter Horst refutes the idea of comedy and tragedy as leading a double life by saying, in effect, that comedy is potential tragedy which is averted by "anticipating or delaying the conclusions to which tragedy leaps," but then he goes on to claim that Don Manuel …