Dream-visions and oneiric experience in Early Modern Hispanic Theatre

ongoing

"The aim of this project is to study oneiric sequences in Hispanic theatre of the 16th and 17th centuries as a representative dramatic mechanism of the Early Modern period. Dream and sleeping scenes played a central role in numerous plays of the Spanish Renaissance and Baroque (also known as ""Golden Age""), because they enabled the creation of sophisticated plots, complex characters and visually stunning spectacles. Considering this, the project intends to document and theorise this phenomenon by proposing a key concept: the ""theatrical dream device"". The proposal is based on a novel and interdisciplinary methodological framework, which involves approaches from literary hermeneutics, theatrical semiotics and art history. The study will examine a corpus of plays composed between 1598 and 1693, written by playwrights such as Lope de Vega, the Count of Villamediana and Calderón de la Barca, among others. The project will be working with dramatic texts, but also with archive sources, historical testimonies and graphic works, such as manuscripts, old printed editions, engravings and records of the time. It is planned that the research outputs will be made available in the form of two products. The first will be a monograph to be published in open access, which aims to contribute to the field of Humanities by making a significant advance in the understanding of Early Modern European literature and theatre. The second product will be an online exhibition targeted at a non-specialist audience, mainly EU citizens related to the sectors of culture, education and artistic creation. This exhibition will display texts, images and documentation using a cutting-edge method from the Digital Humanities, which will allow to translate and adapt the scientific research results into an interactive, attractive and 21st century format. The exhibition will contribute to the preservation and awareness of a cultural heritage that is difficult to access and unknown outside specialist circles."