Conscience on Stage
The Comedia As Casuistry in Early Modern Spain
Will be published approx. on 13. October 2007
Book
Hardback
320 pages
978-0-8020-9229-8 (ISBN)
Description
It is no accident that some variation of the question 'What should I do?' appears in over three-quarters of the comedic plays of the Spanish Golden Age. Casuistical dialogue was a concern, even an obsession, of Spanish playwrights during the seventeenth century, many of whom were educated by Jesuit casuists. Conscience on Stage is a study of casuistry or case morality as the foundation for a poetics of seventeenth-century Spanish comedias.
Hilaire Kallendorf examines the Jesuit upbringing and casuistical education of major playwrights of the Spanish Golden Age, many of whom were also priests, and introduces the vocabulary of casuistry, as expressed in both confessors' manuals and in stage plays. Engaging issues of class, gender, and age to explore scenes of advice-giving and receiving, she demonstrates how the culture-specific construct of 'conscience' in early modern Spain can be recovered by means of a Foucauldian genealogy, which enlists the skills of philology at the service of a larger vision of the history of ideas. This study outlines and reiterates the relationship of theatre to casuistry, the Jesuit contributions to Spanish literary theory and practice, and the importance of casuistry for the study of early modern subjectivity.
Hilaire Kallendorf examines the Jesuit upbringing and casuistical education of major playwrights of the Spanish Golden Age, many of whom were also priests, and introduces the vocabulary of casuistry, as expressed in both confessors' manuals and in stage plays. Engaging issues of class, gender, and age to explore scenes of advice-giving and receiving, she demonstrates how the culture-specific construct of 'conscience' in early modern Spain can be recovered by means of a Foucauldian genealogy, which enlists the skills of philology at the service of a larger vision of the history of ideas. This study outlines and reiterates the relationship of theatre to casuistry, the Jesuit contributions to Spanish literary theory and practice, and the importance of casuistry for the study of early modern subjectivity.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Toronto
Canada
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
With dust jacket
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 163 mm
Thickness: 26 mm
Weight
608 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8020-9229-8 (9780802092298)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Hilaire Kallendorf is a professor of Hispanic and religious studies in the Department of Global Languages and Cultures at Texas A&M University.
Content
Acknowledgments *Introduction: The Rise of Casuistry in Spain, the Flowering of Jesuit School Drama, and the Jesuit Education of Spanish Playwrights Renaissance European Casuistry and Its Manifestations in Spain Jesuit School Drama Mainstream Dramatists Educated by Jesuits Casuistry in Action on the Jesuit School Stage The Vocabulary of Casuistry Casos and Case Morality Hypothetical Scenarios 'To Flee the Occasion of Sin' Competing Obligations 'Que he de hacer?' / 'What should I o?' Questions of Strategy Moral Dilemmas and Conflicting Duties Hierarchies of Virtue and Vice Comedias and Confessional Manuals The Double Bind The Casuistical Dramatic Monologue and Tragedy Asking for Advice: Class, Gender, and the Supernatural Rulers and Subjects, Masters and Servants Wave Imagery, Blindness, and Labyrinths Soliloquies and Supernatural Entities The Gendering of Casuistry Are Men or Women More Casuistical? Constructions of Conscience The Conscience, in Action and Acted Upon Descriptions of Clear and Troubled Consciences Conscience's Auxiliaries Synonyms and Antonyms for Conscience 'Symptoms' or Physical Manifestations of Conscience Casuistry and Theory Genealogies of Conscience The Relationship of Theatre to Casuistry The Jesuit Contribution to Spanish Literary Theory and Practice Poetics of the Comedia in Early Modern Spain Comedia or Quaestio? Dilatio, Deferral, and Differance 'The Soul of Spain' Appendix Notes Bibliography Index