Fantastic Theater in the Early 20th Century: An Introduction to the Context and to the Dramatic Texts by Eduardo Calsamiglia

Abstract

Eduardo Calsamiglia’s plays represent a break with the aesthetic and ideological model of his time. The presence of mysterious, supernatural or fantastic elements in his plots tie them more to the theater renovation that took place in the late nineteenth century in Europe, especially in Spain, the so-called “teatro del ensueño”. There is also a philosophical concern on a particular notion of evil which coincides with the rise of positivism and Modernity. That’s why his texts should be reassessed and recognized for their literary value, as well as the contribution they hold in the context of aesthetic rupture with the Western theater of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.