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Spain  Comedy  Juan Luis Suárez Comedia is synonymous with theater or drama in baroque Spain. A comedy is a play in the language of the time; the “author” is thedirectorand ownerofa theatercompany, and thewriter of the play is known as the poeta. Therefore, comedia does not relate to the “comic,” although most comedies contain comic elements, but to a specific vision of theater as a public spectacle with a particular aesthetic. The genre acquires thedesignation of “newcomedy,” that is to say, new theater, with the publication of the Arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo by Lope de Vega in 1609, a brief-­ verse poem commissioned by the Academy of Madrid.1 Lope outlines what will amount to the anticlassicist perspective essential to baroque theater from that moment forward. Many elements in the Arte emphasize the distance between new comedy and Renaissance theater, to the extent that some critics have even named Lope’s pre-­ 1609 production “the first Lope” in contrast to the comedia-­like plays that he composed afterward. Here our interest lies mainly in the following aspects. The first is the idea of baroque theater as a mixed bag, an admixture of comedy and tragedy, a “monster” that will be “hermaphroditic,” according to Francisco Cascales, and a comedic one according to Lope himself: “la vil quimera de este monstruo cómico” (the vile chimera of this dramatic monster; v. 150). Second, the traditional precept of imitation would now be determined not by its prescriptive force but by its object; it is no longer about imitating nature and history per se but rather about imitating that which is verosímil (credible for the audience; v. 285). In this way, imitation and verisimilitude become basic rules that direct the fable; theydo not constitute absolute principles of literary creation but of what will shortly become a pure spectacle in the modern sense of the term.The sensitivityof the public towhat it might consider verosímil at any given moment will be a determining factor; hence the content, that which can be imitated, is now open to the incorporation of the fantastic, of the otherworldly, in this new form of theater. Third, in the Arte Lope describes a rupture with the three Aristotelian units (action, time, place) that is both the result of a different take on art and the product of radical socioeconomic changes in Spain—the enthronement of a new monarch and the massive commercialization of literary and dramatic production : the consumer of culture, the masses, the crowds that will fill up the Spanish theaters for almost a century. According to Lope, “como las [las comedias] paga el vulgo, es justo / hablarle en necio para darle gusto” (as the commoners pay to see them [the plays], it is only right / that they speak foolishly to please; vv. 47–48), so that the new literary discourse begins to relate to that which is aesthetically appropriate—the judgment, the pleasure of the public (el vulgar). It is believed that Lope de Vega wrote more than 1,500 comedies, of which some 500 survive, including Fuenteovejuna ,The Horseman of Olmedo, Punishment without Revenge, Peribáñez and the Commanderof Ocaña,The NewWorld Discovered by Cristóbal [Christopher] Columbus, and The Dog in the Manger. These works speak to us not only of the extraordinary productive capacity of the “genius of wits” but alsoof the impressive demand of the Spanish public for the most fashionable cultural product of the time, new comedy .The corrales de comedias in Madrid (Corral del Príncipe and Corral de la Cruz) changed their billboards several times each week to satisfy the public’s hunger for new theatrical features.This made the comedia the first continuous spectacle for the masses in modern Europe, which José A. Maravall considered fundamental to baroque culture.2 Lope de Vega, however, is not the only author of comedies who enjoyed fame and prestige in baroque Spain. Playwrights such as Luis Vélez de Guevara, Guillén de Castro, Antonio Mira de Amescua, and Juan Ruiz de Alarc ón constitute what Ignacio Arellano has called “the cycle of Lope.”3 Tirso de Molina, in contrast, occupies a special chapter in the history of baroque theater thanks to the success of works such as El condenado por desconfiado, El burlador de Sevilla, and the Pizarro trilogy. A second generation of authors became active in the 1630s with the arrival of Calderón de la Barca as the main poeta on the scene...

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