Gossip as an Anti-Establishment Discursive Genre in La Segua. Comedia en tres actos con prólogo y estrambote inspirada remotamente en un relato de Anastasio Alfaro

Abstract

According to L. Hoeck and G. Genette’s considerations of the title as an element programming the reading process, as well as to M. Bajtin’s theoretical approach on discursive genres, and to Y. Lotman’s approach on literature as a secondary modelling system, this article proposes a new perspective at the comedy La Segua, written by Alberto Cañas, based on two of its structural elements: the prologue and the extra lines. According to our approach, the (pre)text of the legend of La Segua plays a delaying role in the significance process of the comedy, considering the initial phrase of the title: “la segua”, the reading centers on the possible recreation of the legend and omits the second approach of a generic nature that constitutes the entire title, and that enables a different point of view of the reading, as set out in this proposal.