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Fuente Ovejuna (1612-1614), Lope de Vega Carpio

Titles
English title: Fuente Ovejuna
Date written: sometime between 1612 and 1614
First publication date: 1619
Keywords: morality > honour, morality > crime, morality > punishment, morality > judgement, morality > vice-virtue, violence > social, violence > torture, violence > murder, violence > cruelty, identity > class/social standing, identity > hierarchy, ideology > morality, power > use and abuse, power > intimidation, love > desire, love
Genre and type: tragicomedy
Title information

Fuente Ovejuna is the name of a small town in the south of Spain (near Córdoba). In the historical account on which this play is based, when the investigation was carried out to determine who should be punished for the Commander’s death, even under torture no individual person from the town would admit guilt, and they all supposedly gave the excuse, Fuenteovejuna lo hizo (Fuenteovejuna did it). As a result, no one was ever tried for the crime of killing the Commander. And this refrain, Fuenteovejuna lo hizo became a sort of tag line that appears over and over both in Spanish literature and speech, meaning ‘it’s nobody’s fault’, or more precisely, ‘you’ll have to punish all or none of us, this was a collective decision’. The title can be literally translated as The Sheep’s Well or the Sheep Fountain, but it is normally left in Spanish, as Fuenteovejuna or Fuente Ovejuna.

Pitch

A small town rises up against the oppression of a cruel overlord, putting him to death in an act of collective justice. A drama about popular and institutional power, and its uses and abuses, this play has been staged regularly since it was written to express political upheaval and what can happen when a town takes the law into its own hands.

Synopsis

At the start of Lope’s play, the town of Fuenteovejuna welcomes the Commander to the town, offering him gifts and singing in his honour. Once the welcoming ceremony is finished, and the... (Read more...)

Sources

The play is based on a historical chronicle by Fray Francisco de Rades (1572), which details how the small town of Fuente Ovejuna struck out against its harsh and brutal feudal lord, F... (Read more...)

Critical response

This play has been used for political purposes in times of instability as well as to show how loyalty to a monarchy can re-establish order. It has been staged in the former Soviet Unio... (Read more...)

Editions
  • Vega, Lope de. 1989. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. and trans. Victor Dixon. Dual-language book in Spanish and English. Warminster, Aris and Phillips

  • Vega, Lope de. 1991. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. Fran... (Read more...)

Information about the editions

See the introduction and pp. 41-4 of López Estrada’s 1991 edition of Fuente Ovejuna for performance history.

  • Vega, Lope de. 1991. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. Francisco López Estrada. Madrid, Cas... (Read more...)

Useful readings and websites
  • Anibal, C. E. 1934. ‘The Historical Elements of Lope de Vega’s Fuente Ovejuna’, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 49, 657-718

  • Carter, Robin. 1977. ‘Fuente Ovejuna and Tyranny: Some Problems of Linking Drama with Political Theory’, Forum for Modern Language Studies, 13, 313-35

  • Costales, Kathleen. 2009. ‘Staging Fuenteovejuna in the Borderlands’, Comedia Performance, 6, 1, 110-36

  • Fischer, Susan L. 1997. ‘Fuente Ovejuna on the Rack: Interrogation of a Carnivalesque Theatre of Terror’, Hispanic Review, 65, 1, 61-92

  • Fischer, Susan L. 2009. ‘Lope’s Carnivalesque Theatre of Terror: Fuenteovejuna (The Sheepwell)’. In Reading Performance: Spanish Golden Age Theatre and Shakespeare on the Modern Stage, pp. 93-116. Woodbridge, Tamesis

  • Fischer, Susan L. 2009. ‘Lope’s Carnivalesque Theatre of Terror: Fuenteovejuna (The Sheepwell)’. In Reading Performance: Spanish Golden Age Theatre and Shakespeare on the Modern Stage, pp. 93-116. Woodbridge, Tamesis

  • Hall, J. B. 1985. Fuenteovejuna. In Grant and Cutler Critical Guides to Spanish Texts, 42. London, Grant and Cutler

  • Larson, Donald R. 1977. The Honor Plays of Lope de Vega. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press

  • Mitchell, Adrian. 1989. ‘Adrian Michell y su versión de Fuente Ovejuna’, Cuadernos de Teatro Clásico, 4, 175-80 (in Spanish)

  • Ostlund, DeLys. 2006. ‘Portland’s Miracle Theatre Group and Fuente Ovejuna’, Comedia Performance, 3, 1, 146-64

  • Samson, Alexander and Thacker, Jonathan. 2008. ‘Three Canonical Plays’. In A Companion to Lope de Vega, eds. Alexander Samson and Jonathan Thacker, pp. 119-30. Woodbridge, Tamesis

  • Smith, Dawn. 2009. ‘Staging Spanish Golden Age Plays for English-Speaking Audiences: An Interview with Laurence Boswell’, Comedia Performance, 6, 1, 161-80

  • Vega, Lope de. 1991. Fuente Ovejuna, ed. Francisco López Estrada. Madrid, Castalia (in Spanish)

    See the very useful introduction, and  see pp. 41-4 for performance history

Entry written by Kathleen Jeffs. Last updated on 10 March 2011.

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