Furious Specters: (re)defining Tragedy Through An Analysis Of Post 1950 Spanish Theater

Resumen del Libro

This dissertation, translated as Furious Specters: (Re)defining Tragedy Through an Analysis of Post-1950s Spanish Theater, utilizes a variety of theoretical models dealing with the nature of the concept of tragedy in literature and life in order to explicate six representative works by Spanish authors of the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. It is important to mention that the word for specters in Spanish (espectros), in addition to meaning specters, also can be translated as spectrums. The term is used specifically to both call attention to the effect of certain violent occurrences in Spanish history on the production of the authors in question as well as to highlight the philosophical implications of tragedy, which may be elucidated by means of the metaphor of a spectrum. As indicated here by the mention of philosophy, the dissertation crosses boundaries such as anthropology, cultural studies, and history. The recognition that tragedy often deals with essential paradoxes induced a search for approaches towards the tragic which might explain a protagonists struggle either with his own overweening desire or with certain implacable ideologies related, in this case, to Spains particular socio-historical situation. In order to drive many of my points home, the dissertation ranges, in its analyses, from examinations of key samples of historical/allegorical theater, postmodernist theater, and contemporary realist theater, all of which represent widely varying currents of Spanish drama. Investigating the works engagement with the demand for meaningful artistic responses to physical and spiritual suffering, as well as to death itself, the dissertation intends to demonstrate how these divergent pieces nevertheless share a heavy reliance on elements of tragedy. The dissertation concludes with some musings on the connections that make these dramas relevant to current societies, showing how they function as works which speak to specific…