The Italian composer of operas, Giuseppe Verdi, relied heavily on plays of the Romantic Era as sources for opera librettos. Three such plays were from the Spanish Romantic School: El trovador and Simon Bocanegra by Antonio Garcia Gutierrez, and Don Alvaro o la fuerza del sino by Angel de Saavedra, el Duque de Rivas. The operas which Verdi composed using these plays as sources--Il trovatore, Simon Boccanegra, and La forza del destino--range in popularity from near zenith (Il trovatore) to near nadir (Simon Boccanegra). The study attempts to assess the suitability of the three Spanish dramas as source material for operas, and to determine if this suitability is correlated to each opera's popularity.

This thesis explores the characterizations and themes in the novels of Elena Quiroga.

Alejandro Casona is a major playwright in the Spanish language today. He is known chiefly for his fantasy and humor. The intent of this paper is to show that his humor is a device for obtaining the attention of those whom he would teach.

This thesis studies the life and the novels of Vicente Blasco Ibanez, including his Valencian period and his Madrid novels

The type of alienation discussed in this thesis is not related to the famous Verfrenidungseffekt attempted by Brecht, where the audiences are prevented from identifying with the characters of the drama in the hope that the public will reflect on the ideas presented more rationally and objectively. "Alienation" in this thesis is a psychological force which acts divisively between the characters in the drama and thus contributes to the development of a tragic situation.

The purpose of this thesis is to make an intensive study of the dramatic works of Max Aub in order to determine his significance as a playwright.

Through a direct comparison of representative extracts from the Lettres and the Cartas, this thesis proposes to demonstrate each author's portrayal of contemporary political, religious, social, and literary conditions in his own country.

This work studies the arguments of eleven of Manuel Ortiz de Pinedo's works, which the author considers as a matter of research and worthy of criticism and analysis on everything related to their themes, characters and resources used by the playwright.

It will be the purpose of this thesis to comment upon the eight novels by Marta Brunet. The novels will be examined in detail, giving special consideration to her emphasis on fatalism and destiny, and will examine critical opinion of her work and draw conclusions as to the author's place in the modern Latin American novel.

Until the time of Lope de Vega and the Golden Age of Spanish literature, women had always had secondary roles in the Spanish drama. There were two reasons for this: 1) Women were not fully appreciated in the society of the times. 2) Women were prohibited from appearing on the stage for many years, and boys usually took their parts. With the advent of Lope de Vega and his arte nuevo de hacer comedies, the situation was changed. The great genius, Lope de Vega, set the pattern for the drama of the Golden Age.

This thesis describes the how Miguel de Cervantes used proverbs and popular sayings to help compose his work, Don Quijote.