El teatro breve de Quevedo y su arte nuevo de hacer ridículos en las tablas: lego-pro-menos a una representación riescénica

Abstract

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In his carnavalesque interludes and other dramatic skits, Quevedo attains the ideal stage format to poke fun at a growing conventional hypocrisy idealized in Lope’s comedia. Quevedo’s special accomplishment lies not so much in the invention of comic types popularized even more through other playwrights’ interludes but rather in a uniquely baroque construction eliciting laughter as it underscores dramatic artificiality itself. In this sense, Quevedo’s brief dramatic skits fall between Cervantes’ interludes and those of Quiñones de Benavente. Quevedo, however, ridiculously exploits the artifice of theater as a reflection of the monetary interests prevalent in court life which pervert all men-women relationships. His interludes present female sensuality, ridiculously deceitful, and masculine naiveté, absurdly patient, as a game of laughable costumes highlighting the hypocrisy of all values idealized in the comedia.