Note: A placement exam will be required when you arrive on site.

High Advanced

This course is designed for students who have completed or tested out of a minimum of five semesters (or seven quarters) of college-level Spanish. However, students must take a placement exam to determine the course level into which they will be able to enroll.

OBJECTIVES
The main objective of this Course is to help students become aware of the phenomenon of Drama within the Baroque Age, in terms of its double identity as both literary text and public performance. An endeavor will be made to raise students’ awareness of the key concepts related to ‘the new way of making plays’ (la comedia nueva) so that, from a practical standpoint, they may apply it to their readings and to their partcipation in the putting on of one of the key dramatic works belonging to Spain’s Golden Age.

METHODOLOGY
Lecturers will offer explicative sessions on the different sections of the syllabus. Fragments from a range of plays, together with audiovisual material, will be used as back-up. Students will undertake a reading of Lope de Vega’s El caballero de Olmedo, which will be the subject of exploration and comment during class sessions. Likewise students will apply their acquired knowledge to the live performance of fragments from the play selected by lecturers.

SYLLABUS
1. INTRODUCTION TO THE PHENOMENON OF THEATER IN THE BAROQUE ERA.

2. THE THEATRICAL EVENT:
• Performance Venues: Playgoing Yards. Court Settings.
• Staging: The Staging of Plays. Scenery, Machinery, Stage Effects.
• Theatrical Professionals: Dramatists. Companies. Playwrights and Actors.
• Audiences: Theater Attendance on the part of Different Social Groups. Their Distribution within the Yard. The Interaction of Stage Performance and Audience.
• Performance Sessions: Performance Times. Performance Duration. The Structuring of the Performance.

3. RECEPTION: THE ISSUES OF THEATER’S ACCEPTABILITY AND CENSORSHIP.

4. DRAMA THEORY:
• The Concept of Tragi-Comedy. The Unities. Divisions within the Play. Language. Multiple Metrical Patterns. Themes and Subjects. Characters. Purposes. The New Way of Creating Plays.
• Minor Dramatic Genres: Playlets, Interludes, Dance, Revels, Masquerades.

5. DRAMATISTS AND THEIR WORKS:
• The Two Great Cycles within Spanish Drama of the Baroque Era.
6. EL CABALLERO DE OLMEDO BY LOPE DE VEGA:
• A Reading and an Analysis of the Play, applying the concepts already assimilated.
• Students’ Performance in Class of Fragments Selected by Lecturers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
VEGA, Lope de. El caballero de Olmedo. Madrid: Cátedra, 1999 (set reading text).
HUERTA CALVO, J. Historia del teatro español. Madrid: Gredos, 2003, 2 v.

COMPLEMENTARY ACTIVITIES
Keeping in mind the distribution of programing, group attendance at theatrical performances in several of Sevilla’s theater houses will be organized.

ASSESSMENT
Two written exams will be set, one mid-way through the semester and the other at its close. The exams will be based on the content of syllabus units as developed during class sessions. The class performances carried out will also be assessed and will count toward final grades. Likewise, active participation in class sessions will also be taken into account.