Los "dramas bíblicos" de Tirso y algunas de sus implicaciones ideológicas

Abstract

Out of Tirso de Molina’s production as a playwright stands the so-called "biblical series", made up of five plays based on the Bible: "La vida y muerte de Herodes", "La mujer que manda en casa", "Tanto es lo de más como lo de menos", "La mejor espigadera" y "La venganza de Tamar". These plays exhibit a number of characteristic features, some of which concern the relationship between Church and State and are built into the mechanisms of ideology and power. The aim of this paper is to analyse the ideological schemata which Tirso derives from the Bible with a view to call attention to the subservience of drama and its biblical sources to the dominant ideology. The use of the Bible as a political source and as an instrument of power, favours the creation of a cultural code based upon the association between Church and State; it also converts this Tirsian genre of "biblical drama" into representations of religious and monarchic exaltation.