Heroínas dramáticasmujeres en el teatro desde Grecia al siglo XVIII español. Dramaturga, actriz y personaje

Abstract

This doctoral thesis offers a study of the female figure in the theatre, from her role as dramatist, actress and character. This research has been divided into two chapters devoted to the study of women in the theatre from its beginnings until the Spanish 18th century. Therefore, a first part is aimed at the study from Greece to the Middle Ages and a second one to the Golden Age until the Spanish 18th century, with which it concludes. The main objectives of this thesis are: to see women in the theatre through its historical and social evolution; to give relevance to the female character and her evolution; as well as to recover the female figure with a global vision, marking the birth of the actress and playwright. As theatre is a sub-genre that imitates reality, we have made use of gender and historical studies to contextualise the social evolution of women, and with this, to expose the relevance of the female character in each of the selected stages and, therefore, in the dramatic work. Thus, each of the chapters is composed of two main sections, the first one allows us to know the social vision of women in the period under study, while the second one makes it possible to recognise the relevance or not of the female character according to the social context. By considering the character as an individual, due to the imitative characteristic of theatre and the evolution of the character over the centuries, we consider that the character is affected by society, as are the playwright and actress. This means that the female figure depends on her construction and her behaviour in the play to show herself as a principal or secondary entity, whether she complies with the social models established for her time or not. So that, in order to maintain this premise, we have used an inductive methodology that leads to a deductive one, as well as a qualitative-quantitative one, which has allowed us to corroborate our hypothesis throughout the stages of the study. Therefore, we consider that our initial conjecture is fulfilled and allows us to affirm that women in the first centuries of study -Greece to the Middle Ages- do not appear representing the profession of dramatist and actress, but they are identified as main and/or secondary female characters, fulfilling the social models of the time and/or opposing them.