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Love Theme in Fuenteovejuna Essay

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Discuss Lope's handling of the theme of love in Fuenteovejuna

Although from first view, Fuenteovejuna does not appear to be a love story, love

is a key theme running through. It is important to take into account how this love

is portrayed and how it relates to the moral of the story – if, in fact, there is one.

Lope de Vega has a clear Golden Age view on this theme and it will be crucial to

analyse how the era in which it was written influences how the audience

perceived it at the time in comparison with a modern day audience.

Two key features of Spanish Golden Age life were the ideas of honour and …show more content…

If a tragedy occurred, it would be said that it was because of

disharmonious acts, it is comparable with the modern idea of Karma.(2) People

who were in love were seen to live in harmony and this gave golden age writers,

poets and artists an intrinsic theme for their works. For Lope, the resolution of

disorder was a key theme in Fuenteovejuna which included demonstrating how

the love of Laurencia and Frondoso was harmonious and any acts displayed by

the Comendador in terms of his view on love were disharmonious. (3)

In the conclusion to the play, the villagers have created disharmony, and order

is only restored when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella pardon the villagers.

Although the Monarchs did not punish the villagers, they did not pardon them

before torturing them. Upon hearing of their stance together, the King and Queen

must have felt something akin to love towards the villagers as they were put

under direct supervision of the crown rather than another Comendador.(4)This is

important to note as the play was set at a time of monarchical struggle and the

villagers must have reciprocated the love towards their monarchs because Lope

wanted the audience to relate to the characters of the villagers. This suggests

that the villagers would have been good, Catholic people who supported the King

and Queen who had brought harmony to Spain.(5)

The protagonists of the play

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