"The evil that men do" has been chronicled for thousands of years on the European stage, and perhaps nowhere else is human fear of our own evil more detailed than in its personifications in theater. Early writers used theater to communicate human experiences and to display reverence for the gods governing daily life. Playwrights from Euripides onward sought inspiration from this interplay between the worldly and the occult, using human belief in the divine to govern characters' actions within a dramatic arena. The constant adherence to the supernatural, despite changing religious...
"The evil that men do" has been chronicled for thousands of years on the European stage, and perhaps nowhere else is human fear of our own evil mor...
The mythological, folkloric, and religious beliefs of Western culture have resulted in a long and ongoing history of esoteric themes in theatre from the Middle Ages to the present in Spain and the America. Now Robert Lima, a noted comparatist, brings to bear on this material his wide knowledge of the world of the occult. Lima defines the terms "occult" and "occultism" broadly to embrace the many ways in which humans have sought to fathom a secret knowledge held to be accessible only through such supernatural agencies as alchemy, angelology, asceticism, astrology, demonolatry, divination,...
The mythological, folkloric, and religious beliefs of Western culture have resulted in a long and ongoing history of esoteric themes in theatre fro...
Daring, innovative, controversial, often satirical, a dramatist ahead of his time, Ramon del Valle-Inclan (1866-1936) was one of Spain's 'Generation of 1898', and an influence on such later movements as the Theatre of Cruelty and the Theatre of the Absurd. Lima's study first examines Valle-Inclan's day-to-day involvement with the theatre as actor, director-dramaturg and playwright. This is followed by an account of Valle-Inclan's full-length and one-act plays, which demonstrate the foibles and follies of human behaviour, and are discussed here under a variety of thematic headings. There...
Daring, innovative, controversial, often satirical, a dramatist ahead of his time, Ramon del Valle-Inclan (1866-1936) was one of Spain's 'Generation o...
