Drama strategies facing the French invasion (1808-1814) (Patriotic drama during the Peninsular War)

Abstract

In the present work, the author exposes a comprehensive vision of the diverse strategies that drama used to defend the Spanish cause facing the French invasion, between 1808 and 1814. Among these strategies, the recovery of plays from old Spanish drama (adapted to the new circumstances) and the creation of a new drama of patriotic propaganda (be it allegorical or about daily events) are included in a period that runs from the beginning to the end of the years that covered the war. It is a dramatic creation that sacrifices the literary quality in favor of the efficiency of the message, led by the corresponding contemporary figures, and that increasingly acquires a political tinge in the last stage of the conflict (after the Cádiz Cortes), although this fact does not make the patriotic message that unifies this whole dramatic creation disappear.