Lope de Vega on Spanish Screens, 19352020: The Shadow of the Phoenix

(Hardback)

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Description

This book provides an in-depth examination and analysis of the film and television adaptations of Lope de Vegas theatrical dramas that have appeared on Spanish screens since the mid-twentieth century. Using a multidisciplinary approach, Allen draws on critical media literacy studies, film and adaptation studies, literary theory, cultural studies, and cultural historiography in his analysis. Allen argues that, given the problematic reception of Lopes works in Francoist Spain, the canonical author never held a privileged position in the dictatorial propaganda machine. In fact, adaptations of Lopes theater productions were subject to the same rigorous scrutiny, if not more, than any other screenplays that landed under censorships microscope. Allen analyzes adaptations produced during and after the nearly forty-year dictatorship and questions whether the adaptors of the democratic era created films and television shows that can sufficiently demonstrate how the spirit of Lopes life and works can resonate with modern audiences. Scholars of film and television studies, adaptation studies, and history will find this book particularly useful.

Reviews

Dr. Philip Allen provides a much needed transhistorical examination of Lope de Vegas oeuvre and persona in other popular stages such as the filmic and televisual mediums. Allen's monograph corrects superannuated misconceptions about the reception of Lopes life and work in contemporary times, filling important gaps in the disciplines of visual and cultural studies in relation to Peninsular early modern drama.

---Esther Fernndez, Rice University

-- Esther Fernandez, Rice University

"This book offers a ground-breaking and original perspective of the cultural reception on television and film of one of Spain's most remarkable authors. Supported by extensive archival research, it focuses on the ideological aspects behind the adaptations of Lope de Vega's life and works and it challenges and dismantles stereotypes associated with the author and his plays in modern times".

---David Arbes, University of South Florida

-- David Arbes, University of South Florida

Lope de Vega on Spanish Screens, 1935-2020 presents a renewal of Lope de Vega studies within the twentieth and twenty-first century. Allen shows the importance of Lope adaptations and bipics to Spains political and historical national identity(ies). He dives deep into his archival work and paints a full picture of Lope de Vegas adaptations and depictions in modernity. His vast knowledge and astute interpretations of (post-)Franco-era highlights the thought process behind dictatorship and democratic artistic productions.

---Felipe Rojas, West Liberty University

-- Felipe Rojas, West Liberty University

Author Bio

Philip Allen is assistant professor of Spanish at Midwestern State University in Texas.