Lecture - Domestic violence in early Spain? - Instituto Cervantes

Anyone who has seen a Monthy Python sketch is likely to be familiar with the ´black legend´ that surrounds the Spain of the sixteenth and seventeenth century. But does this ostensibly repressive and inquistorial society bear relation to historical reality? Duncan Wheeler, who has recently published the first book on the performance of Spanish classical drama on the contemporary stage, will use a discussion of an infamous theatrical sub-genre - the wife-murder plays - and their relation to domestic violence in real-life, to argue that Early Modern Spain was a far more complex and plural society than we are often led to believe. The talk will end with a discussion of how these plays can be related to Shakespeare´s Othello´s, and what relevance they may hold for the twenty-first century spectator.