Lope's use of self-reverential devices in Lo fingido verdadero and La buena guarda serves to highlight the illusory nature of life and the relationship between lo verdadero and lo divino which lie at the heart of the theocentric world view of seventeenth-century Spain. The conflicting imperatives of human and divine love and the issue of identity are features of all of the plays. Furthermore, it is illustrated that the interplay between illusion and reality and the relationship between playwright and audience are crucial to Lope's dramatic output."--Jacket.

An assessment of the life, work and reputation of Spain's leading Golden Age dramatist

Fuente Ovejuna (C.1613) is the most famous and frequently performed play by the creator of Spanish theatre, Lope de Vega (1562-1635). Astonishingly for its period, it celebrates the murder in 1476 of a nobleman, the Grand Commander of the Military Order of Calatrava, by the peasants he had oppressed, and their subsequent solidarity under torture. Fuente Ovejuna, however, is less a history lesson or political tract than an optimistic moral fable.

Traces the processes and paradoxes at work in the late parodic poetry of Luis de Góngora and Lope de Vega, illuminating correlations and connections.

This book provides an in-depth examination and analysis of the film and television adaptations of Lope de Vega’s theatrical dramas that have appeared on Spanish screens since the mid-twentieth century. Using a multidisciplinary approach, Allen draws on critical media literacy studies, film and adaptation studies, literary theory, cultural studies, and cultural historiography in his analysis. Allen argues that, given the problematic reception of Lope’s works in Francoist Spain, the canonical author never held a privileged position in the dictatorial propaganda machine. In fact, adaptations of Lope’s theater productions were subject to the same rigorous scrutiny, if not more, than any other screenplays that landed under censorship’s microscope. Allen analyzes adaptations produced during and after the nearly forty-year dictatorship and questions whether the adaptors of the democratic era created films and television shows that can sufficiently demonstrate how the spirit of Lope’s life and works can resonate with modern audiences. Scholars of film and television studies, adaptation studies, and history will find this book particularly useful.

Published by Boydell & Brewer Inc.

Each volume of the Dictionary of World Biography contains 250 entries on the lives of the individuals who shaped their times and left their mark on world history. This is not a who's who. Instead, each entry provides an in-depth essay on the life and career of the individual concerned. Essays commence with a quick reference section that provides basic facts on the individual's life and achievements. The extended biography places the life and works of the individual within an historical context, and the summary at the end of each essay provides a synopsis of the individual's place in history. All entries conclude with a fully annotated bibliography.

Spanish Drama of the Golden Age describes this little-known field of European drama. This book describes and analyzes Spanish plays and drama. It reviews the Spanish plays from the 1580s to the death of Pedro Calderon de la Barca in 1681. This text also discusses the controversy to which direction the Spanish theater would take: whether it is for entertainment or a representation of the intellect and emotions. This book describes Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and the rise of the Spanish comedia. The text describes how Lope wrote his plays and how he sold them outright to the manager of an acting company, which became its property. The text also describes the life of Tirso de Molina who was often criticized for his cavalier treatment of a historical fact. This book also discusses the works of Ruiz de Alarcon, Guillen de Castro, Velez de Guevara, and Mira de Amescua. This book also assess this period of Spanish drama in terms of the influence of other countries in Europe such as Britain and France. This book can prove valuable for university students of Spanish, Spanish literature teachers to students of sixth forms, and Spanish historians.