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 fifteenth century 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 pro Portuguese 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. Laurencia, beaten and perhaps raped (although Frondoso later insists that she fought her way out of captivity) by the Commander and sundry soldiers, returns to the village and scornfully challenges Esteban and other men of the village to avenge her and other women of the village. Enraged and shamed by his daughter's outburst, Esteban leads the men on a raid of the Commander's quarters, and they rescue Frondoso and his friend Mengo from torture. Joining them are village wome...