The adulteress in Spanish tragedy (1830--1930)

Abstract

The origins of the tragic adulteress in Spain may be traced back to ancient myths in western tradition, but her most potent theatrical appearance takes form during the height of the Baroque theater—that is, the Calderonian tragedy. For centuries, the Baroque framing of the adulteress is cherished and reiterated as late as the early twentieth century, which naturally begs the question: why is there a centuries-long obsession with the tragic adulteress, and why does the portrayal of her on stage vary so little with the passing of time? I will explore this question by examining several Spanish tragedies in four different periods: the height of Spain's belated Romantic period (1833-1840), Noeromanticism and Realism in the late nineteenth century (1870-1895), Miguel de Unamuno's experimental tragedies in the early twentieth century (1898-1910), and the avant-garde break with the Baroque model in the 1920s.

The tragedian's undying obsession with the adulteress refused to die out for centuries of Spanish theater, even to the extent that the dramatists of the twentieth century could not part with the construct for the first twenty years of the modern century. It is for this reason that I deem the adulteress a haunting construct rooted in the Baroque tragic tradition. The adulteress may haunt a tragedy in several different ways—thematically, textually (including the use of spoken dialogue), or visually (through the actress's body or through the use of other visual sign-systems such as props).

My intention is to analyze these tragedies not only as part of the Spanish tragic tradition, but also as works that absorb and display the social tone of their own specific periods. Each chapter's tragedians perpetuate traditional theatrical constructs in their plays, but also maintain a uniqueness that is linked with the perception of gender roles and the nation in that particular time period. The result is that the adulteress as tragic convention becomes a synecdoche for Spain's conflicted position between tradition and modernity.

This dissertation serves three purposes: to trace and characterize the haunted nature of the adulteress in the Spanish tragedy, to analyze the way in which the Spanish tragedians used the adulteress as a visual sign on stage, and finally, to reveal the tragic adulteress's connection to the complex interplay of gender and nation during Spain's crucial century of modern development.