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Consideration of Public-oriented Plays of Lope de Vega

Yoon Yong-wook 1

1한국외국어대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Consideration of Public-oriented Plays of Lope de VegaYOON, Yong-wookThe purpose of this study is to look into the support activities of the 17thcentury spanish plays which had been taken in various paths in terms of responsesof the then-public who had been enthusiastic about great plays and artworks. Such a phenomenon clearly appeared in the open-air theater 'corral' where ‘Teatronacional’ was performed at that time. Therefore, this study tries to investigatethe functional relation between the public's responses and the prosperity of then-playsfrom the concrete standpoint of Lope's public-oriented plays. Although Lope'splays basically include system-protection ideology, they are thoroughly based onthe public's support and popularity. In short, at that time, Lope's dramatic reformand entailing remarkable hit and success were made possible through thoroughcompliance with the public's preference and thereby the public's absolute supportand affection. The tendency of his public-oriented plays appears in two aspects. One is the common people persecuted and punishment of a wicked man of power. The typical plays in point are Lope's Peribáñez y el comendador de Ocaña andEl mejor alcalde, el rey. Through the plays, the playwright Lope not onlyimplemented praise of absolute monarch very effectively, but soothed the woundedheart of the common people who had suffered pains due to their unfair and lowlysocial status. In this way, his plays might give senses of reliefs and satisfactionto most viewers who identified with the common people in the plays. The otherone is the decisive raise of status of an exemplary commoner, the subject matterwhich had been used by Lope as one of useful means to show the public-orientedtendency of his plays. The cases in point are Los Tellos de Meneses and its succeedingwork Valor, fortuna y lealtad. The two-part work of Lope is about the hard journey,ups and downs, and ascent to the nobility of Tello, an exemplary and rich farmer,and hits young son Tello. Through the two-part play, Lope demonstrated howan exemplary and good-mannered commoner rose to the nobility and therebygave vicarious satisfaction to the then-public and received a lot of praise fromthem. As mentioned earlier, through his public-oriented plays, Lope not only satisfiedthe public's desires and achieved his realistic goal of big success. Not all Lope'splays are public-oriented. Nevertheless, the popular success of 'Teatro nacional'made by Lope and his followers is based on the public's preference and the plays'dramatic responses to their desires, and the strategic elaboration to comfort thepublic suffering lot of pains in daily life.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.