The Adulteress on the Spanish Stage

As early as 1760 and as late as 1920, Romantic drama dominated Peninsular Spanish theater. This love affair with Romanticism influenced the formation of Spain’s modern national identity, which depended heavily on defining women’s place in 19th century society. Women who defied traditional gender roles became a source of anxiety in society and on stage. The adulteress embodied the fear of rebellious women, the growing pains of modernity and the political instability of war and invasion. This book examines the conflicted portrayal of women and the Spanish national identity. Studying the adulteress on stage, the author provides insight into the uneasy tension between progress and tradition in 19th century Spain.

Tracie Amend is a Spanish professor who has taught at several colleges and universities in the Midwest and Mountain West. As a lifelong lover of the performing arts, she regularly incorporates theater and music into her academic and nonacademic life. She lives in Pocatello, Idaho.

Tracie Amend
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 228
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2015
pISBN: 978-0-7864-9692-1
eISBN: 978-1-4766-1997-2
Imprint: McFarland

Preface  1
Introduction: Examining the Romantic Adulteress on Stage  5
One. Modern Spain and Romantic Theater  15
Two. The Delirious Adulteress: Prescient Romantic Tragedy (1800–1810)  40
Three. The Contaminating Adulteress: The Height of Spanish Romantic Tragedy (1811–1839)  77
Four. The Adulteress as Wayward Daughter: Romantic Drama at ­Mid-Century (1840–1855)  105
Five. The Adulteress as Isabel’s Handmaiden: Feminine Duality in the Alta Comedia (1856–1869)  131
Six. The Modern Bourgeois Adulteress: Neoromanticism and the Tragic Melodrama (1870–1895)  156
Epilogue: Romantic Theater in the Twentieth Century: A Brief Overview  185
Conclusion: Tradition versus Progress: The Perpetual Tension in Romantic Theater  193
Chapter Notes  197
Bibliography  209
Index  217

• “An original and significant contribution…. Well researched and nicely focused on specific aspects of the romantic adulteress, it traces the history of Spain’s theater in the entire 19th century through a new lens. A careful intertwining of political and theatrical history, Amend’s analyses are original and illuminating.”—Roberta Johnson, professor emerita of Spanish, University of Kansas