The Plays of Juan Ruiz de Alarcón

Jules Whicker

• Publisher: Tamesis Books
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN:
  9781855660939
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781846153624
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

The plays of Ruiz de Alarcón, a significant dramatist in the Spanish Golden Age, show in many of their plots a preoccupation with deception, which Whicker believes reflects Alarcón's fundamental concern about truth-telling in literature. His study of Alarcón's comedias stresses the seriousness and moral orthodoxy of the playwright and his concern with how simulation and dissimulation can be viewed both positively and negatively in theatre as well as in life. In support of his argument for the seriousness of Alarcón's theatre - his challenge to his audience to think hard and clear about his play, particularly over the issue of illusion, deception and dissimulation - Whicker focuses on the moral arguments perceived in Alarcón's theatre, and their reference to serious literary-moral issues current in the Golden Age; he tests the relevance of his argument against contemporary circumstances, the ethics of privanza in particular. JULES WHICKER lectures in the department of Hispanic studies, University of Birmingham.

Table of contents

• FRONTCOVER
• CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• ABBREVIATIONS
• Introduction
• 1 Fiction, Theatre and Morality
• 2 Lies and Dissimulation: La verdad sospechosa
• 3 Alarcón’s Criticism of Satire in Las paredes oyen
• 4 Illusion in Magic and Drama: La cueva de Salamanca, Quien mal anda en mal acaba, and La prueba de las promesas
• 5 Prudent Dissimulation and Military Virtue in La manganilla de Melilla
• 6 Deceit in Politics and Alarcón’s Privado Plays: La amistad castigada and Ganar amigos
• CONCLUSION
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX