The beautiful woman in the theater of Lope de Vega

the long version

"This study examines the dramatic function of the beautiful woman in the theater of Lope de Vega (1562-1635). The author uses as a critical framework medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque ideologies of beauty as well as contemporary feminist studies on the "beauty myth" which constructs female beauty as a form of patriarchal oppression against women. Included are a moral and physical portrait of the beautiful woman in Golden Age Spain and a survey of the literary treatment of this topic prior to Lope. The study further considers Lope's presentation of excessive female beauty as a prime agent of social disorder, as a potent threat to male honor, and as an inducement to sexual exploitation."--BOOK JACKET.