Lope and the Creation of Contemporary Heroes: «La nueva victoria de don Gonzalo de Córdoba» y «La nueva victoria del marqués de Santa Cruz»

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Teresa Ferrer Valls

Lope defended the usefulness of history presented on stage, that is, theatre’s function of preserving and creating a collective memory. In the case of La nueva victoria de don Gonzalo and La nueva victoria del marqués de Santa Cruz, this playwright dramatized military events that took place immediately before the composition of these plays. In this article i will analyze the fundamental traits of those texts in relation to Lope’s desire to please his patrons and, at the same time, to participate in the making of a Spanish national identity, which intensified during the first years of king Philip IV’s reign through different media, among them painting and theatre. This paper ends reflecting on the risk assumed by the playwright when dealing with recent political events. This is exemplified by the existing news about the prohibition of a play by Lope, nowadays lost, related to the death of the king of Sweden, in which the protagonists of the two aforementioned plays are also referenced.

Keywords
Lope de Vega, Gonzalo de Córdoba, Álvaro de Bazán, dramatized history, contemporary historical events, patronage

Article Details

How to Cite
Valls, Teresa Ferrer. “Lope and the Creation of Contemporary Heroes: «La nueva victoria de don Gonzalo de Córdoba» y «La nueva victoria del marqués de Santa Cruz»”. Anuario Lope de Vega, 2012, vol.VOL 18, pp. 40-62, https://raco.cat/index.php/anuariolopedevega/article/view/286741.
Author Biography

Teresa Ferrer Valls, Universitat de València

Catedrática de Literatura española

Departamento de Filología Española