Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Hispanic Studies

Supervisor

Juan-Luis Suárez

Abstract

This study has two equally important objectives: firstly, the design of a new methodology for analyzing literary texts that make use of new technologies to facilitate the task of the researcher. Secondly, the application of the methodology to a selection of Calderón de la Barca´s comedies to analyze the central role that the character of the gracioso plays in defining the essential characteristics of such plays.

The methodology presented here helps to manage large amounts of information while maintaining the semantic structure inherent in the dramatic text. It is divided into five distinct phases: manual annotation of the works following the scheme of topics and relationships deemed appropriate, obtaining the complete graph of elements involved from the previous entries, conduct queries on the graph to answer the questions initially proposed, create visualizations of the results through data classification techniques and semantic maps representation, and interpretation of the results using both literary theory and criticism and the results and visualizationsas obtained.

From the philological field, different theories and studies are used to help with the analysis of the text: semiotics to the study for dramatic space; studies on the honor and character to determine the characteristics of the gracioso and its relationship with the other characters of the comedy, and dramatic genres theories to characterize the comedias. For the discourse analysis this study turns to the Speech Act theory in order to describe the character's actions.

Through this analysis it was possible to determine the importance that the gracioso has for the Golen Age theatre, it also help to determine the character features and functions in relation to the plot, allowing to identify the inherent characteristics of each dramatic style and highlighting the dramatic features shared between dramatic genres in Calderon´s theatre.

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