E-Thesis 745 views 1963 downloads
Female Role-Play in Golden Age Drama: the Approach of Calderón with Comparative Perspectives on Shakespeare and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz / Katie J. McErlain
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DOI (Published version): 10.23889/Suthesis.48162
Abstract
This thesis examines a selection of Calderón’s comedias de capa y espada and serves primarily to draw attention to the heroines of these plays both as individuals and as damas tramoyeras, artful figures in the best sense, whose various meta-dramatic capacities illustrate gender issues pertinent to C...
| Published: |
2018
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| Institution: | Swansea University |
| Degree level: | Doctoral |
| Degree name: | Ph.D |
| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa48162 |
| Abstract: |
This thesis examines a selection of Calderón’s comedias de capa y espada and serves primarily to draw attention to the heroines of these plays both as individuals and as damas tramoyeras, artful figures in the best sense, whose various meta-dramatic capacities illustrate gender issues pertinent to Calderón and his society. My objective is to indicate why these female figures are significant in their own right, and in addition, to use their example as a means to widen an appreciation and understanding of the role of women in Calderonian drama in the broader sense. I shall demonstrate how women in his dramas function not at a secondary level, but as central figures who are uncannily modern in their outlook and behaviour. The four Calderonian capa y espada plays and their leading heroines chosen for analysis are (in the order in which they appear in the thesis): Clara of Mañanas de abril y mayo (1634), Marcela of Casa con dos puertas mala es de guardar (1629), Ángela of La dama duende (1629), and Laura of El secreto a voces (1642). My analysis of these heroines is underpinned by theories on comedy, irony and meta-theatre and draws upon perspectives on veiling (seventeenth-century and modern), the position of Golden Age actresses, cross-cultural comparative approaches to the comic heroines of the English dramatist Shakespeare and the Mexican writer Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, as well as on contemporary feminist ideas and argumentation. |
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| Keywords: |
Spanish Golden Age drama, comedia, Calderón, Seventeenth-century drama, Women, Comedy, Role-Play, Shakespeare, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, colonial Mexican drama |
| College: |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |