Description
Book SynopsisScience on Stage in Early Modern Spain features essays by leading scholars in the fields of literary studies and the history of science, exploring the relationship between technical innovations and theatrical events that incorporated scientific content into dramatic productions. Focusing on Spanish dramas between 1500 and 1700, through the birth and development of its playhouses and coliseums and the phenomenal success of its major writers, this collection addresses a unique phenomenon through the most popular, versatile, and generous medium of the time.
The contributors tackle subjects and disciplines as diverse as alchemy, optics, astronomy, acoustics, geometry, mechanics, and mathematics to reveal how theatre could be used to deploy scientific knowledge. While Science on Stage contributes to cultural and performance studies it also engages with issues of censorship, the effect of the Spanish Inquisition on the circulation of ideas, and the influence
Trade Review
"There is a great deal of illuminating and insightful analysis in this volume, and the approaches espoused by the various authors provide a blueprint, so to speak, for other scholars to approach the Spanish comedia from a necessary vantage point – to consider the interplay of the scientific discourses of the day within the larger study of the comedia. Solidly written, well documented, and meticulously researched, Science on Stage in Early Modern Spain is no doubt an important addition to comedia scholarship." -- Chad M. Gasta, Iowa State University * Modern Philology *
"This groundbreaking book should be of keen interest to any student or scholar of the history of the stage, the history of science, and their dynamic interplay in early modern European society." -- Michael Armstrong-Roche, Wesleyan University * Renaissance Quarterly *
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations Introduction: Great Theatres of the World ENRIQUE GARCÍA SANTO-TOMÁS Part One: Technologies of Knowledge 1 From Mesopotamia to Madrid: The Legacy of Ancient and Medieval Science in Early Modern Spain RYAN SZPIECH 2 The Technological Environment of the Early Modern Spanish Stage ALEJANDRO GARCÍA-REIDY 3 Gridded Fascinations: Early Modern Drama’s Geometric Synthesis JOHN SLATER Part Two: Stages of Science 4 Curing the Malady of Lovesickness: Medicine and Physicians in Early Spanish Theatre JULIO VÉLEZ-SAINZ 5 Poison(ing) and Spanish Comedia LOURDES ALBUIXECH 6 The Soul under Siege: Strategy and Neostoicism in Calderón de la Barca’s El sitio de Bredá STEPHEN RUPP Part Three: Performing Numbers 7 Figures of Arithmetic: Numeracy, Calculation, and Accounting in the Comedia ELVIRA VILCHES 8 Automatons and the Early Modern Drama of Skepticism SETH KIMMEL 9 Daedalean Epistemology: Staging the Labyrinth of Knowledge in Velázquez’s Las Hilanderas and Calderón de la Barca’s Los tres mayores prodigios MATTHEW G. ANCELL Conclusion: Looking Behind the Curtain: Clues of Early Modern Spanish Science MARÍA M. PORTUONDO Contributors
