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THE PLAYWRIGHT'S PERSPECTIVE
INNOVATIVE DRAMATURGY AND ITS POETICS
IN EARLY MODERN SPAIN
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by
ANTHONY J. GRUBBS (MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY) USA |
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Cover design by Rosana Sánchez. ISBN: 978-1-931948-95-1 2010 |
xx + 244 pages. Bibliography and Index. Published thanks to a Publication Grant of MSU. |
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The relationship between Golden Age theater theory and practice, illustrated through the study of representative works by six playwrights, is the topic of this study. The impact of practice on theory is as irrefutable as the impact of theory on practice. In fact, many prominent playwrights wrote treatises (re)affirming their decisions to stray from traditional norms and to create new dramatic art forms. Without exception these defenses were written after the playwright had enjoyed success and introduced his—and, in the case of Golden Age Spain, the theatrical world was overwhelmingly populated by men—particular pioneering contribution to the theater. By examining the ways which theatrical practice was influenced by performance and audience reception, their impact on shaping theatrical theory becomes clear, not only in the well known case of Lope’s Arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo, but throughout sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain.
Of course, all
playwrights continually face the challenge of creating original
works for a dynamic and demanding public who must be kept at the
forefront when writing a play, since they are the receptors of
the message that is transmitted by means of the performance of
the dramatic text. This realization, however, does not downplay
the importance of the script, but elevates all three aspects:
the text, performance, and reception, to equal ground. These
factors have led me to concentrate on the connection between
performance and reception in this study of early modern Spanish
dramatic theory, and although performance and reception can be
dealt with in a mutually exclusive manner, it is more feasible
to look at them collectively with the dramatic text in the
attempt to reproduce the entire dramatic spectacle. |
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