Themes in the Play, Fuente Ovejuna The purpose of this research is to examine

The purpose of this research is to examine Fuente Ovejuna by Lope de Vega. The plan of the research will be to set forth the major themes that emerge in the plot of the play, and then to discuss certain major ideas of critics with respect to Fuente Ovejuna. Additionally, the criticism of Fuente Ovejuna will be discussed based on a current reading of the play, with a view toward suggesting the impact that the play's pattern of ideas and the means by which the ideas emerge may have.

Fuente Ovejuna is set in fifteenthcentury provincial Spain, at the moment of history when the nation of Spain was emerging, owing to the unification of the crowns of Aragon and Castile under Ferdinand and Isabella and to the dominance of the Spanish over the Portuguese throne on the Iberian peninsula. Fuente Ovejuna, an outlying village, is occupied by troops of proPortuguese Commander Don Fernan Gomez, whose immediate patron is an inexperienced nobleman, Master of Calatrava. Sexually corrupt and politically ambitious, the Commander manipulates or coerces virtually any peasant girl into what amounts to a private harem, except for Laurencia, daughter of Fuente Ovejuna's mayor Esteban and bride of Frondoso. Laurencia refuses the Commander's attentions, backed up by Frondoso, who threatens him with a crossbow. In the wake of a military defeat by Ferdinand, the Commander interrupts the wedding of Frondoso and Laurencia, arresting him for assault and carrying her to his quarters. Laurenc

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Spanish crown because he favored foreign intervention by the Portuguese against Isabella of Castile. As Spain evolved from the feudal ideas of the Middle Ages toward the more modern Renaissance concept of monarchy during the fifteenth century, the power of the local nobility in many towns and villages was sternly curbed by Ferdinand and Isabella. . . . This themepraise for the benign monarch who sides with the people against the nobilityis a favorite of Lope's (Colford xiv). Fuente Ovejuna is therefore played out against the backdrop of an emerging political landscape in Europe. To be sure, the play depicts peasants as having psychological integrity that is usually associated with the honor of nobility. Laurencia's searing indictment of the villagers' cowardice after she has been violated by the Commander and his men is also the philosophical argument that claims for the peasantryincluding womenas much as for any part of society a fundamental entitlement to honor. You've all been craven rabbits right from birth! You are not Spanish men, but heathen slaves! You cluck like chickens while you let your wives And daughters be

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