Playing the King
Subtitle:  Lope de Vega and the Limits of Conformity (Monografías A)
Publisher: Tamesis Books
Published: November 8, 2002
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 240
ISBN-13: 9781855660694
Subjects: Plays & playwrights: 16th to 18th centuries; c 1600 to c 1700; Spanish Drama; Literary Criticism; Literature - Classics / Criticism; Spanish; European - Spanish & Portuguese; Literary Criticism & Collections / Spanish & Portuguese; Literature: History & Criticism; Theater - General; 1562-1635; Criticism and interpretation; Monarchy in literature; Politics and literature; Politics in literature; Spain; Vega, Lope de,
Description: "Drawing on contemporary Spanish political philosophy, this study shows that, far from glorifying monarchy and advocating absolutism (the orthodox view in the Hispanic world), Lope's political plays constitute an informed critique of kingship; it challenges the received wisdom that the comedia was an instrument of state and that its playwrights were the conscious propagandists of an aristocratic elite." "With the help of insights and models provided by speech act theory, the stratagems and techniques utilised by Lope to negotiate the path of prudence between the acceptable and the unacceptable in political commentary in the commercial theatre are scrutinised, illustrating how richly-nuanced texts produce not an ideologically monolithic and complacent drama but one which is at once politically anxious and probing."--Jacket.