Academic literature on the topic 'French Pastoral drama'

Abstract While isolated examples of pastoral plays appeared in France during the Middle Ages, native pastoral drama, like ballet de cour, had its true beginning in the latter part of the sixteenth century and reached fruition during the reign of Louis XIII. The Renaissance pastorale came to France from Italy and Spain, primarily through the French translations of Jacopo Sannazaro’s Arcadia (1505; trans. 1544), Jorge de Montemayor’s Diana (c.1560; trans. 1578), Torquato Tasso’s Aminta (1581; trans. 1584), Giambattista Guarini’s Il Pastor fido (1585; trans. 1595), and Luigi Grata’s fl Pentimento amoroso (trans. 1590).

El 14 de julio de 1936 Ramón Fernández Rico (Vilasantar, A Coruña 1891 – Pontevedra, 1937), Primer Teniente de Alcalde del municipio de A Estrada (provincia de Pontevedra) a consecuencia del triunfo del Frente Popular en las elecciones de febrero de ese mismo año, quedó al frente del gobierno municipal por delegación de su titular, que se había trasladado a Madrid con los diputados gallegos que presentaron a las Cortes los resultados del Plebiscito de Autonomía de Galicia votado el pasado 28 de junio. Tras el comienzo del golpe de Estado en Galicia y la rápida caída de la práctica totalidad de la región en manos de los sublevados (20-27 de julio) (Velazco Souto, 2006), fue detenido por los facciosos, condenado a muerte y ejecutado en junio de 1937. Estos trágicos sucesos que se inscriben en el drama de la Guerra Civil Española (1936-1939), fueron registrados en un acervo documental privado excepcional, consistente en un despacho oficial, dos certificados de defunción y ciento seis cartas, la mayor parte de ellas cruzadas entre Fernández Rico, su esposa, Purificación Prado Rey (¿?, 1892 – A Estrada, 1940), y la más grande de las hijas del matrimonio, también llamada Purificación, durante los meses en los que el primero estuvo preso1. La información contenida en estos documentos se vio enriquecida por la posibilidad de construir otras fuentes de naturaleza oral, a partir de las entrevistas realizadas por el autor en 2006 a dos de sus cuatro hijos supervivientes, José Manuel (A Estrada, 1925 - Montevideo, 2014) y Divina Pastora (A Estrada, 1927 - Buenos Aires, 2019), cuando tenían 82 y 79 años, respectivamente.

Abstract The armistice was less than a year old when the next season began. The nation as a whole was looking forward to a period of peace and prosperity. But not everything was rosy. President Wilson, strenuously fighting for a League of Nations to maintain world stability, suffered a stroke-details of which were withheld from the public. But his partisan opponents in Congress, more aware of the seriousness of his illness, seized on it to scuttle America’s interest in and cooperation with the new body. High-minded or simply snobbish conservative groups and uglier reactionary ones on the order of the Ku Klux Klan were recruiting and becoming vocal. American clergymen, smug in the reflected glory of victory, urged a new sort of “preparedness”-this time preaching a crusade to destroy the forces of immorality. And no small number of those forces, they insisted, were controlling influences in the theatre. John Roach Straton, pastor of New York’s Calvary Baptist Church, typifying the sanctimonious meddlers, took pen in hand to write in Theatre that the stage must be placed under “proper control” because “the three greatest foundation stones of our Anglo-Saxon civilization ... the home, the purity of women, and the sanctity of the Sabbath” were gravely imperiled by modern plays. He instructed readers: “You will let the editors of your newspapers know what you think of their ‘dramatic critics,’ when they give a clean bill of health . . . to performances that dig up unspeakable moral filth,’’ and he exhorted those who continued to read to “never cease” their efforts until they have “rescued” the drama from “the unholy hands that today are strangling it to death.” Theatre lovers and theatre folk naturally demurred, although some oldtimers, such as Daniel Frohman, did lament that “romance and sentiment” had been supplanted by “sex and sensation.” The political left was also increasingly active, as Broadway would learn all too soon, with labor unions flexing their muscles and more extreme idealists extolling the promises of a new Russia in place of the genuine achievements of an older America. Of course, the economy was not all that it should be. The withdrawal of wartime farm subsidies began a precipitous slide in farm incomes, and by 1920 a post-war recession, which hit bottom in 1921, was apparent even at some box offices (although most straight plays were able to ask for and get a $3.30 top). Soon after, the economy seemed to rebound, albeit its underlying problems were ignored. So in the short run self-righteous troublemakers were more of a nuisance to the theatre . than were cash flow problems. Indeed, though the 1920s technically would not begin until January of 1921, the “Roaring 1\venties”-that “Era of Wonderful Nonsense,’’ those “Annees folles” as the French would eventually call them-were under way.