Wyszynski, Matthew A.

Matthew A. Wyszynski is Associate Professor of Spanish in theDepartment of Modern Languages and Director of the Language Resource Centerat the University of Akron, in Akron, Ohio. Dr. Wyszynski received his Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

Lo Positivo / the Right Track: A Play by Manuel Tamayo Y Baus

2009 0-7734-4704-0
Tamayo y Baus’ (1829-1898) The Right Track (1862) is a product of the swirling social context of nineteenth-century Spain. This comedy is typical of the alta comedia [high comedy]: it is a didactic work that hopes to offer the bourgeois a model of virtue. As a genre, the high comedy supplanted the symbolism and declamation of romantic drama with a “realistic” portrayal of the moral dilemmas faced by the growing middle class. The climax and resolution of The Right Track unequivocally support the return advocated by Tamayo to virtue and to what he understood to be traditional Spanish values.