FÉLIX LOPE DE VEGA Y CARPIO

1. FÉLIX LOPE DE VEGA Y CARPIO

2. Presenters: Marina Palomo Elena Zapico November 2003

3. Table of Contents • Historical context: Spain in the 16th & 17th century • Philip II (1556-1598) • Philip III (1598-1621) • Philip IV (1621-1665)

4. Table of Contents (cont.) • Theatre in the Spanish Golden Age • Popular Theatre • Characters • Topics

5. Table of Contents (cont.) • Lope de Vega • Biography • Fuente Ovejuna • The facts • Structure • Characters • Social meaning

6. Table of Contents (cont.) • Quiz!!!!!

7. Historical Context There can be no doubt about the economic and political decline of Spain in the 16 & 17th centuries, especially from 1650.

8. Historical Context (cont.) Philip II • Philip II (1527-1598) became King of Spain in 1556. He governed Spain in the so-called “Golden Age”. At that time the Spanish Empire was huge. • However, his reign saw the economic decline of Spain, its bankruptcy and a disastrous decade from 1588 to 1598.

9. Historical context (cont.) Philip III • Philip III (d. 1621) was a devout, phlegmatic nonentity, totally incapable of carrying on his father's methods of personal government. He therefore had to have a minister who would do all his work for him, called privado, Duque de Lerma.

10. Historical context (cont.) • What did Philip III inherit in 1598? A country ... • in deep financial chaos. • far from being united. • that was no longer seen by other European countries as being a major player in European diplomacy. • was falling to hold on to its Empire. • with government that continued to act as if it was a major power when in fact was not.

11. Historical context (cont.) These are basically the problems that affected the Spanish political and economical scene during the 17th century.

12. Historical context (cont.) • Neither Philip III nor Lerma were capable of the fundamental reappraisal of internal and foreing policy that Philip II's failures called for. • The years from 1610 to 1630 were the last period in which Spain clearly dominated Europe. For the first of these two decades, Europe enjoyed a kind of Pax Hispanica.

13. Historical context (cont.) Philip IV • In 1621 Philip III died. Phillip IV (1621-1665), a boy of 16, left the effective powers of kingship in the hands of his former gentleman of the chamber, Conde Duque de Olivares.

14. Historical context (cont.) Philip IV

15. Historical context (cont.) • Philip IV came to terms with the United Provinces, recognizing their full independence. • In 1668, Spain formally recognized the independence of Portugal. • Philip IV died in 1665.

16. Historical context (cont.) There can be no doubt about the economic and political decline of Spain in the 17th. But there was not also a comparable cultural decline or even decadence.

17. Theatre in the Spanish Golden Age The period between the Renaissance and the Baroque, Spain's 'Golden Age' really spanned two centuries (the 16th and the 17th) and it is the most fecund and glorious age of Spanish Arts and Letters.

18. Theatre in the Spanish Golden Age (cont.) • The theatre reached its highest level. • Stage plays were no longer performed in ecclesiastical surroundings after the creation of the 'Corrales de Comedias‘. • Lope de Rueda, Juan de la Cueva and Gil Vicente are the precursors of Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina and Calderon de la Barca.

19. Theatre in the Spanish Golden Age (cont.) Spanish Barroque Authors 16th Century 17th Century 1550 60 70 80 90 1600 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 1700 CERVANTES GÓNGORA LOPE DE VEGA QUEVEDO TIRSO DE MOLINA CALDERÓN DE LA BARCA GRACIÁN

20. Popular Theatre • During the 16th century the European theatre was divided in: • Religious. • Royal. • Popular.

21. Popular Theatre (cont.) • The popular plays were mainly comedies. • They were shown in outdoor theatres called “Corrales”. • The “Corrales” were patios within the houses. They did not have any decoration, just few seats. Most people stood during the play. Only the nobles watched the play from the windows of the houses surronding the patios.

22. Popular Theatre (cont.) • During the 17th century the corrales became more and more popular. The shows were a social event for the whole village. They started at 2 pm during the winter time and one hour later during the summer. • If the public did not like the play, some men between them called “mosqueteros” reacted violently, throwing things to the actors, making a big mess.

23. Popular Theatre (cont.) • Most plays were shown only once. Eight or ten days in a row was considered a big success. People demanded new plays so frequently that Spain burst with a new generation of theatre authors. Lope de Vega was the most prolific of them.

24. Popular Theatre (cont.) • The comedies had not always a funny plot like the word “comedy” suggests. Sometimes they were tragicomedies or dramas, but never tragedies. • The literary formula for these popular comedies was definitely established by Lope de Vega at the end of the 16th century, receiving the name of National Comedy or Spanish Comedy.

25. Popular Theatre (cont.) • Lope integrated, in a very personal synthesis, different elements of the previous theatre tradition. One of his most important predecesors was Lope de Rueda, who created the first theatre company in 1554. • Lope de Vega learnt from Rueda two main things: elements from the italian comedy to give complexity to the plots and the integration of serious and comic episodes in the play.

26. Popular Theatre (cont.) • From Gil Vicente, Lope took the introduction of lyric elements into the comedy. • Juan de la Cueva was an example for Lope of how to use national subjects in the comedies, taking the inspiration from El Romancero and from national legends.

27. Popular Theatre (cont.) Lope melted all this elements in an original formula described in his play Arte Nuevo de Hacer Comedias (New Art for Writing Comedies).

28. Popular Theatre (cont.) Lope´s Comedy formula was followed by the theater authors during the 17th century and beyond. Let´s analyze its characteristics.

29. Popular Theatre (cont.) Village´s people applause was his main objective. This kind of public dislikes classical theatre so Lope forgets its precepts, avoiding strictness and creating a natural feeling on the stage.

30. Popular Theatre (cont.) The rejection of classical precepts and the pretention of natural behavior are the features that determined the structure of comedies.

31. Popular Theatre (cont.) A) Comedy is divided into three acts. This division seems more natural than the five parts that composed a classical play. The three acts correspond to the three main parts of the action in the plot: introduction, body and conclussion. Body is the largest part containing the athors ability to mantain the public interest till the end. The play is resolved in the very last scene.

32. Popular Theatre (cont.) B) The plot has to be very active and varying. Lope does not apply the classic “Unity of Action Rule”. The New Comedy has at least two parallel actions: one is protagonized by characters of the high society level and the other one happens between servants. These two levels are not separated but interelated with each other. The public enjoyed these system extremely.

33. Popular Theatre (cont.) C) The New Comedy does not respect either the “Time and Place Unity Rule” according to the classical precepts; thus the plot can describe action that happens in very different places and last many years. Also radical changes of scenery are allowed.

34. Popular Theatre (cont.) D) One of the most important characteristsof the New Comedy is the mixture of tragic and comic elements. This also goes against the precepts of the classical plays. Once again, Lope decides to act on behalf on naturality: comic and tragic elements are mixed in real life and the same has to occur on the stage.

35. Popular Theatre (cont.) E) The Comedy, always written in verses, presents a variety of styles depending on which character is speaking. The intention of naturality demands different languages levels: for a king, a farmer, a noble, a soldier, etc.

36. Popular Theatre (cont.) F) The verses and strophes used are also varied. The author changes the metrics adapting it to different siuations: love dialogues, serious dialogues, monologues, moanings, etc.

37. Popular Theatre (cont.) G) Lope included a lot of short traditional songs and dances inside the plays or between the acts. This musics and coreography are taken from the popular tradition or sometimes created by the own author in imitation of this.

38. Classic Comedy vs. New Comedy Popular Theatre (cont.)

39. Characters • The New Comedy presents a great variety of characters, but it can be found a common pattern in all the plays. • Since Lope, the authors seem to follow his model of creating characters, thus, almost always the following stereotypes appear in the comedies: • High social level. • Low social level.

40. Characters (cont.) • High social level: • An old man: usually the king or the father of the femenine protagonist. • A gentleman: male protagonist. • A lady: female protagonist.

41. Characters (cont.) • Low social level: • The joker • The female servant: this character can be substitute by a girlfriend of the female protagonist. • The male servant: this character can be substitute by a friend of the male protagonist. Different versions of the same schema can be found. There can be two gentlemen trying to marry the same lady, two gentlemen and two ladies, etc.

42. Characters (cont.) • The psicological development of the characters is not deep. The author is more interested in the action than in the soul of his characters. • The comedy always presents a parallel relationship between the characters. The gentleman has his contrast in the joker or in his male servant, and the lady in her friend or female servant.

43. Characters (cont.) • This characters are opposites and complementaries at the same time. • The gentleman and the lady reflect ideal moral qualities like honor, education, bravery, etc. • On the other hand, the servants have a very practical and realistic vision of life. Simplicity and rustic behavior are two of their main qualities.

44. Characters (cont.) • The low social level characters are in charge of creating humoristic situations. They make jokes, act cowardly in dangerous situations, etc. • This contracts the serious actions develop by the main characters and make the audience laugh.

45. Topics • Religion. • History. • Love (honor and revenge).

46. Topics (cont.) Religion: Autos Sacramentales.

47. Topics (cont.) History: National comedies: describe national subjects as wars or territorial conflicts.

48. Topics (cont.) Love: Honor and revenge

49. Topics (cont.) • What makes these comedies popular is not that they express the common people interests and situations, but that they are made for the common people to enjoy. The values trasmited in these plays are still those that belong to the higher clases. • The comedies are a way of making propaganda of the traditional social class division.

50. Biography • Lope Felix de Vega Carpio (Madrid, Spain, 1562-1635). • Was the most prolific dramatist of Spain’s “Golden Age”: he is credited with having written between 1500 and 1800 secular plays in addition to several hundred Autos. It is said that he could write a complete play in a single day.