Early Modern Spanish Theatre

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

General information This course originated as part of the Doyle initiative, which seeks to engage students in discussion of diversity and difference. The plays have been arranged thematically rather than chronologically in order to allow us to analyze how theater bolsters the official regime and its values and how it subverts them. The first two plays, by early modern Spain’s greatest Catholic writer, will help us to define the Christian framework for seventeenth-century theater. The second group of plays provides examples of social norms and will serve as a basis for conversation about seventeenth-century Spanish cultural values. The third group features protagonists who openly challenge the norm: the criminal, the independent woman, the lesbian, the gay man. The final group focuses on outsiders—Moors, Jews, Indians—and shows how playwrights both reinforce existing stereotypes and undermine them. In order to analyze these plays as plays rather than as written texts, we will see videos of actual productions. Videos are available through the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater (AHCT) and can be borrowed or else rented for a small fee. See the AHCT web site for more information. Course requirements Graduate students will be required to write one long professional-level paper of between 20 to 25 pages. Graduate students should write in the language in which they will publish. Undergraduates have the option to write three short papers (3-5 pages) and one longer paper (5-7 pages) in Spanish. All papers, graduate and undergraduate, should include a Works Cited section. Additional assignments (online quizzes, theater critiques, commentaries on lectures) will be given throughout the semester.