商品簡介
Ramon del Valle-Inclan (1866-1936) is one of Spains greatest twentieth-century authors, and though he remains little known outside the country of his birth he is widely recognised by Hispanists as one of Spains most talented and significant authors. A highly innovative writer, Valle-Inclan is best known for his invention of the dramatic genre of the esperpento, a genre that combines puppetry and farce with bitter satire. In the four plays he classified within this new genre, including the two in this edition, Valle-Inclan attacked Spains institutions for their self-interest, hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy. He portrays a pragmatic society motivated by materialism and a rapacious instinct for self-preservation, in which love, politics and religion are reduced to cliche and insincere bluster. Frustrated by the bourgeois sentimentality and lack of innovation that characterised the commercial theatre of his day, Valle-Inclan sought to develop a new aesthetic vision, a new and dispassionate dramatic mode that would supply the audience with a much-needed critical distance. The Dead Man's Finery (La hija del capitan), Valle's final esperpento, has the satirical and bitter humour of a political cartoon. It traces a chain of events arising from a seemingly trivial incident that leads to a national crisis and the downfall of a regime. It is based on actual events; a notorious murder committed by an army captain and his daughter in 1913, and the military coup which brought Primo de Rivera to power in 1923. These are the first English translations of these plays which are not only of huge literary significance but also highly entertaining works of great dramatic intensity.
