Fuente Ovejuna.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the theatre flourished in the Spanish empire, one of the largest empires in the world. The Golden Age is referred to the period of great excitement in Europe. The theater was related to religious festivals, such as the Corpus Christie Festival, where plays known as autos sacremetales were performed. During the Golden Age, such playwrights as Lope de Vega and William Shakespeare emerged to become famous all over the world. Lope de Vega made a considerable contribution to the Spanish comedia by introducing certain characteristics of plays, which are quite often used in the modern theatre. This paper studies the pertinent aspects of the Spanish comedia with reference to Lope de Vegas Fuente Ovejuna.
Vega was born in 1562 in Madrid. Although there is no evidence of the noble ancestry, he claimed that he was of noble origin. He went to school and studied literature and history in Madrid, which was not common among the boys of his time. He later joined the university at Alcala after working as a secretary, but there are no records that he completed his college course. Vega is considered to be the father of comedia in the Spanish empire during the Golden Ages. The contribution of Vega to the Spanish comedia can only be compared to the one of William Shakespeare to the English literature. His achievements and influence in the Spanish drama was legendary. Apart from Fuente Ovejuna, he wrote other famous comedias. Although his drama writing made him famous, he also wrote novels, epic poems and other forms of poetry. During his time, he rose to be the most popular writer in the Spanish empire. His high productivity is however attributed to his need for money and the high demand for his plays all over the empire. His works were so popular with the people of the Spanish empire, that his name was always associated with excellence.
The Spanish comedies were not born with the appearance of Vegas Fuente Ovejuna, but he standardized them by introducing new features to the play, which proved to be relevant for all times. He excelled in comedia, because his strategies were not based merely on the academic speculation, but on conclusions drawn from experience of writing plays for many years. By focusing on the audience, who rewarded his work by paying to watch his comedias, he was able capture their attention throughout the play. Over the time, convectional theories seemed useless to Vega.
The classical unity of time, place and action in drama were the norm during the time. The classical theories required that the action happens at a specific place, on one day and with no subplots. Vega was the first playwright to introduce interrelated subplots in his plays. His plays were shown over a long period of time, more than a day and required much more space. In the classical literature, there was no mix of genre such as comedy and tragedy, which was quite successfully applied by Vega. He observed that comedy and tragedy existed together in the real life situations and thought that it would be wise to try this in his plays. The play Fuente Ovejuna is an example of drama works, which have several plots and subplots. The action also extends for a long period of time, possibly, several days or even weeks. The play was also staged in several locations which proved that Vega did not follow the classical literature rules.
The introduction of subplots and the flexibility of Vegas plays was a turning point for the Spanish comedia. This included dividing the play into acts, with playwrights coming after Vega applying this approach quite successfully. Most of his plays including Fuente Ovejuna consisted of up to three acts, but later plays had up to five acts. Each act in the play corresponded to the main theme where a problem was exposed, developed and resolved. The problem was mainly exposed in the first act while the plot development occupied most of the space. The resolution always came last in the third act while a part of the first, the entire second act and a part of the third act developed the plot. This approach was based on the observation and experience in writing for the theater, where Vega noticed that when the resolution was brought too early, the audience started leaving the theater much sooner than the play itself ended. One of the most important concerns of Vega which was achieved in his plays, especially, Fuente Ovejuna was attracting a large number of audiences and maintaining them to the end of the play.
Vega introduced verse plays in Fuente Ovejuna which later became a dominant feature of the Spanish comedia that made them flourish in the Golden Age period. The classical theories of writing involved the use of verse as well as prose in drama. Vega went against these classical rules and used verse only, the approach which proved to be very successful. By choosing the right verse, he was able to express his sentiments better than using the convectional prose from. The correct choice of the main theme of the play was also an important aspect of the Spanish comedia in the Golden Age. Vega introduced the aspect of studying the audiences favorite themes and basing his work on the theme. His choice of love and honor as the main themes of his plays proved to be effective. Plays with these particular themes never failed to attract audience. The introduction of these themes to the Spanish comedia is believed to be the greatest move towards the development of comedia in the Spanish empire and even in the modern comedy. Love and honor as the main themes either in separate plays or interwoven in one play moved the audience and Vega was quick to note this trend and used these themes in most of his pastoral or hagiographic works.
Regardless of the kind, the Spanish comedia were all aimed at splitting the natural order and then reconstructing it back to maintain the status quo. Therefore, from the beginning of the comedia to the end, the audience is sure that the status quo will be restored and the natural order reestablished. For example, when the natural order is broken by a false lover in the comedia or honor is broken liberal, the audience is sure that the values will be reestablished. Since the audience knows that the transgressors will pay for their acts, the writer lies to the audience to establish the broken order. Vega was very successful in using this strategy with an aim of attracting and maintaining his audience. The other common aspect of the Spanish comedia introduced by Vega in Fuente Ovejuna was the idea of using character types. Most of the comedy characters were not necessarily drawn based on the character studies, but their main functions were to develop the character and reestablish the broken order.
In his play, Fuente Ovejuna, Vega included two plots. The main plot is about a Comendador who abuses the people in the town of Fuente Ovejuna ending with the kidnapping of Laurencia. However, she escapes from the kidnapper and goes back to her home town. Her emotional speech creates a rebellion in the town which later leads to the death of the Comendador. In the second plot, Vega introduces Rodrigo, is young and easily manipulated by the Comendador to rebel against Fernando, and Isabel, they both being the Catholic Royals. However, the plot of the play seems to be in line with what was happening in the town of Fuente Ovejuna in the 15th century. Despite this, Vegas work goes beyond the historical fact, which he probably used as the source. He used those events as the basis for his play and then added invented details and characters. In the historical records, there is no mention of the main characters found in Vegas play, but he invented them and put them in the play to develop the theme of love. Vega noticed how passionate the audience was about sentiments and the power of love as the main theme in his plays. He introduced his two main characters positively and gave the audiences time to familiarize themselves with them, and then he brought in the hero of Comendador abusing his power. The civil war depicted in the play is however found in the historical record which Vega used as his source. The civil war in the 15th century was caused by different factions who were fighting for political influence in the town.
In conclusion, many features of the modern plays and operas were introduced in the Spanish comedia in the Golden Age. Vega is considered to be the most radical and popular playwright in the 16th and 17th centuries and to have transformed many aspects of the Spanish comedia. By not following the convectional rules of playwriting which were used by playwrights of his time, Vega was able to introduce some aspects of comedia which were later adopted by the Spanish comedia writers. His style of writing especially in Fuente Ovejuna was based on his experience in writing for theater where he sought to satisfy his audience. His style of writing was adopted by other playwrights and comedia flourished all over the Spanish empire. His play, Fuente Ovejuna, attracted a lot of audience and it was based on a real historic event.
Categories:
0 comments:
Post a Comment