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A THEATRICAL AND TEXTUAL LABORATORY: THE CLAUDE E. ANIBAL COLLECTION OF SPANISH DRAMA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2012

Eric J. Johnson
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Extract

For generations, scholars of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Spanish drama have been attempting to define the parameters that characterize the comedia suelta, but to date no firm consensus about the form's textual or generic qualities has been reached. Broadly defined, the term comedia suelta embraces theatrical works written in a variety of styles, including farsas (short, humorous, carnivalesque texts); sainetes (short productions or distinct portions of larger works that are normally danced and sung); eglogas (brief pastoral works, often with sad or somber overtones); entremeses (concise comedic pieces emphasizing the burlesque and the grotesque); and autos (succinct allegorical religious productions frequently tied to the celebration of the Eucharist). Other theatrical forms and subgenres current in Spanish drama of the period might also easily be classified as sueltas, depending on one's particular point of view.

Type
Re: Sources: Beth Kattelman
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , September 2012 , pp. 279 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 2012

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References

Endnotes

1. For more extended discussions of theatrical genres popular in seventeenth- through nineteenth-century Spain, see Calvo, Javier Huerta and Egea, María Angulo, Historia del teatro breve en España (Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2008)Google Scholar.

2. Other discussions of the defining physical characteristics of the form can be found in numerous catalogs and handlists of individual collections of sueltas. Two of the most comprehensive accounts can be found in Bergman, Hannah E. and Szmuk, Szilvia E., A Catalogue of Comedias Sueltas in the New York Public Library, 2 vols. (London: Grant & Cutler Ltd., 1980), 1: 10–12Google Scholar; and Estévez, Margarita Vázquez, Comedias sueltas: Sin pie de imprenta en la biblioteca del “Institut del Teatre” (Barcelona) (Kassel: Reichenberger, 1987), 5–9Google Scholar.

3. Cruickshank's, Don W. article, “Some Problems Posed by Suelta Editions of Plays,” in Editing the Comedia II, ed. McGaha, Michael and Casa, Frank P., special issue of Michigan Romance Studies 11 (1991): 97–123Google Scholar, includes a substantial list of relevant author bibliographies and catalogs of particular collections. In addition, Cruickshank discusses many fine points of textual and bibliographical investigation that can help us learn more about sueltas and their authors, publishers, and audiences.

4. In January 2011 the Harry Ransom Center announced that it had received a $137,015 Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) for its project “Revealing Texas Collections of Comedias Sueltas.” In addition to covering the Ransom Center's own substantial holdings, the grant is funding the cataloging of more than six hundred sueltas at Texas A&M University. The project is scheduled for completion in February 2014. For the full press release, see “Ransom Center Receives Grant to Catalog Spanish Comedias Sueltas,” 10 January 2011, http://www.utexas.edu/news/2011/01/10/ransom_comedias_sueltas/.

5. Reichenberger, Arnold G., “Necrology: Claude E. Anibal (1888–1955),” Hispanic Review 23.4 (1955): 298–302Google Scholar.

6. For a full description of this bequest, see Arizpe, Víctor, The Spanish Drama Collection at the Ohio State University Library: A Descriptive Catalogue (Kassel: Reichenberger, 1990), 2–5Google Scholar.

7. Víctor Arizpe pays particular attention to these marked-up plays in his descriptive catalog of the Anibal, Claude E. Collection and in his article “Evidenciary Marks in Comedias Sueltas: Recording and Interpreting Manuscript Markings on Plays,” Bulletin of the Comediantes 41.2 (Winter 1989): 173–95Google Scholar.

8. For a full discussion of provenance research and its importance to the pursuit of bibliographical and literary history, see Pearson, David, Provenance Research in Book History: A Handbook (London: British Library, 1998)Google Scholar.

9. Arizpe, “Evidenciary Marks in Comedias Sueltas,” 177.

10. Arizpe, Spanish Drama Collection, 9.