Our Dramatic Heritage: The Golden Age

Our Dramatic Heritage: The Golden Age

Author: Philip George Hill

Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press

Published: 1983

Total Pages: 604

ISBN-13: 9780838631072

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A multi-volume series that surveys European drama from ancient Greece to the mid-twentieth century.


Golden Age Drama in Contemporary Spain

Golden Age Drama in Contemporary Spain

Author: Duncan Wheeler

Publisher: University of Wales Press

Published: 2012-04-15

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 0708324754

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This is the first monograph on the performance and reception of sixteenth- and seventeenth- century national drama in contemporary Spain, which attempts to remedy the traditional absence of performance-based approaches in Golden Age studies. The book contextualises the socio-historical background to the modern-day performance of the country’s three major Spanish baroque playwrights (Calderón de la Barca, Lope de Vega and Tirso de Molina), whilst also providing detailed aesthetic analyses of individual stage and screen adaptations.


Life's a Dream

Life's a Dream

Author: Pedro Calderón de la Barca

Publisher: Hispanic Classics

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0856688967

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"What is life? A frenzy. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a fiction; and the greatest good is fleeting, for all life is a dream, and even dreams are but dreams." That is the haunting lesson learned by Prince Sigismund in Life's a Dream (La vida es sueno), the best known and most widely admired play of Catholic Europe's greatest dramatist, Pedro Calderon de la Barca. Calderon's long life (1600-1681) witnessed the pinnacle and collapse of Spanish political power as well as the great flowering of classical Spanish literature. He inherited his dramatic principles from his brilliant predecessor, Lope de Vega, perfecting his formula with more economical plots, greater subtlety of thought, and, in some cases, deeper character development and psychological insight. The English Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, one of the first translators of Calderon into English, was of the opinion that he "exceeds all modern dramatists, with the exception of Shakespeare, whom he resembles, however, in the depth of thought and subtlety of imagination of his writings, and in the rare power of interweaving delicate and powerful comic traits with the most tragical situations." Nowhere is Calderon's talent more evident than in Life's a Dream, the poignant tale of a prince imprisoned at birth by his astrologer-king father and liberated on the same day a beautiful woman stumbles into his life. The interwoven themes of love, loss, power, and destiny make it the peer of such plays as Oedipus and Hamlet. With the collaboration of Jonathan Thacker of Merton College, Oxford, Michael Kidd (Augsburg College, Minnesota) offers a British adaptation of his award-winning American prose translation, recipient of the Colorado Endowment for the Humanities Publication Prize in 2004. The volume comes with a generous set of supplementary materials including critical introduction, translator's notes, suggestions for directors, bibliography, and glossary.


Golden Age of Chinese Drama

Golden Age of Chinese Drama

Author: Chung-wen Shih

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2015-03-08

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 1400871093

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The 171 extant plays of the Yuan period (1279-1368) are the oldest and most brilliant examples of Chinese dramatic literature. In this first comprehensive study, Chung-wen Shih systematically explores the riches of Yuan drama, from its unexcelled lyric poetry to its colorful characterization. After tracing the popular genres that contributed to the flowering of Yuan drama, the author describes conventional features of dramatic construction, methods of characterization, and recurring themes. The central focus is on the use of language: prose passages and lyrics are cited to show how innovative use of spoken language invests the prose with a remarkable strength and suppleness, and how imaginative use of figurative language endows the poetry with an incomparable richness of texture. Attention is also given to the use of music and physical aspects of staging. Originally published in 1976. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


The Story of Joseph in Spanish Golden Age Drama

The Story of Joseph in Spanish Golden Age Drama

Author: Michael D. McGaha

Publisher: Bucknell University Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 9780838753804

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This book includes critical studies and English translations of six different dramatic versions of the biblical story of Joseph and his brothers written during the century and a half from about 1535 to 1685 - that is, from the earliest attempts at full-length drama to the end of the classical period, which is usually dated around the year of Calderon de la Barca's death in 1681. Three of the plays are full-length dramas, while the rest belong to the peculiarly Spanish genre of one-act religious plays known as autos sacramentales. Comparison of these six variations on a theme enhances our understanding of the gradual evolution of both the auto and the comedia (full-length) genres during the Golden Age. In addition to the biblical story, Spanish playwrights drew upon a rich tradition of retellings of the Joseph story written during the Middle Ages by Muslim, Jewish, and Christian Spaniards. Each of these ethnic and religious groups developed new interpretations of the story dictated by the historical circumstances of a particular time and place, yet each was influenced by the versions created by the others. Ultimately, this grudging collaboration produced a uniquely "multicultural" version of the story.


Rural Revisions of Golden Age Drama

Rural Revisions of Golden Age Drama

Author: Elena García-Martín

Publisher: Bucknell University Press

Published: 2017-05-30

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 1611488346

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This work focuses on rural community versions of Spanish Early Modern Theatre and deals with cultural heritage and the contemporary impact of Golden Age theatre on local rural communities. To this end, I examine the burgeoning of annual rural Golden Age theatre festivals that generate site-centered, non-professional productions of the plays, and revisit the conflict between tradition and innovation, between popular and high culture between authority of literary heritage and the people's right to the canon. The selection of Early Modern plays set in actual Spanish communities—Fuenteovejuna, El Alcalde de Zalamea, Numancia and Los tres blasones de España—renders an overview of the effect of these important works on their respective communities and focuses on the theatrical festivals as peripheral, subaltern, hybrid cultural phenomena. I take into consideration not only traditional and significant studies on these four renowned plays, but recent theories on staging, performance and popular reception and agency. The research involved crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries between literature, history, geography, and politics by centering on the appropriation and re-examination of a past that is continuously revised through contemporary performance, and which is adjusted to fit the needs and desires of the context in which it is interpreted. This diachronic approach allows for a new perspective on contemporary performances which question cultural politics, redefine tradition and transcend geo-political boundaries.


Performance Reconstruction and Spanish Golden Age Drama

Performance Reconstruction and Spanish Golden Age Drama

Author: L. Vidler

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-11-09

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 1137437073

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Spanish Golden Age drama has resurfaced in recent years, however scholarly analysis has not kept pace with its popularity. This book problematizes and analyzes the approaches to staging reconstruction taken over the past few decades, including historical, semiotic, anthropological, cultural, structural, cognitive and phenomenological methods.