Doña Rosita the Spinster (play)
Encyclopedia
Doña Rosita the Spinster is a period play
by the 20th-century Spanish
dramatist Federico García Lorca
. It is subtitled "or The Language of the Flowers" and described as "a poem of 1900 Granada, divided into various gardens, with scenes of song and dance". It was written in 1935 and first performed in the same year.
"The theme of the play", suggests Francisco García Lorca, "is the passage of time" (which Lorca had developed in a different form in his experimental
surrealist play When Five Years Pass in 1931). Doña Rosita is a young woman who falls in love with a man who is called to South America to join his parents. He swears to return and Rosita waits, but learns that he has married someone else. Lorca portrays what he called "the grotesque treatment of women" in Spain. The action is set in Granada, Spain in three different years, portraying the bourgeois life of the 1880s and the social modernization
and beginning of World War I of the early 1900s. Lorca draws parallels between Doña Rosita’s life and these historic periods, beginning with the vitality of her youth, the attainment of maturity, and finally the loss of all hope.
Period piece
-Setting:In the performing arts, a period piece is a work set in a particular era. This informal term covers all countries, all periods and all genres...
by the 20th-century Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
dramatist Federico García Lorca
Federico García Lorca
Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...
. It is subtitled "or The Language of the Flowers" and described as "a poem of 1900 Granada, divided into various gardens, with scenes of song and dance". It was written in 1935 and first performed in the same year.
"The theme of the play", suggests Francisco García Lorca, "is the passage of time" (which Lorca had developed in a different form in his experimental
Experimental theatre
Experimental theatre is a general term for various movements in Western theatre that began in the late 19th century as a retraction against the dominant vent governing the writing and production of dramatical menstrophy, and age in particular. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream...
surrealist play When Five Years Pass in 1931). Doña Rosita is a young woman who falls in love with a man who is called to South America to join his parents. He swears to return and Rosita waits, but learns that he has married someone else. Lorca portrays what he called "the grotesque treatment of women" in Spain. The action is set in Granada, Spain in three different years, portraying the bourgeois life of the 1880s and the social modernization
Modernization
In the social sciences, modernization or modernisation refers to a model of an evolutionary transition from a 'pre-modern' or 'traditional' to a 'modern' society. The teleology of modernization is described in social evolutionism theories, existing as a template that has been generally followed by...
and beginning of World War I of the early 1900s. Lorca draws parallels between Doña Rosita’s life and these historic periods, beginning with the vitality of her youth, the attainment of maturity, and finally the loss of all hope.
Works cited
- García Lorca, Federico. 1970. Doña Rosita, the Spinster. In Five Plays: Comedies and Tragi-Comedies. Trans. James Graham-Lujan and Richard L. O'Connell. London: Penguin. ISBN 0140181253.
- García Lorca, Francisco. 1963. Introduction. In Five Plays: Comedies and Tragi-Comedies. Trans. James Graham-Lujan and Richard L. O'Connell. London: Penguin, 1970. ISBN 0140181253. p.9-20.
- Stainton, Leslie. Lorca: a Dream of Life. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999. 393-397.