ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the development of sixteenth-century theatre and to contribute to the understanding of its specificity, rather than to present it as the predecessor of the better-known and more studied dramatic tradition of the seventeenth century. It is divided into three main sections: literary tradition and the theatre, theatre and performance, and theatre and society. The book shows how the characters' statements about the passing of time are rather indications of their perceptions of time and can be related to similar passages in Hamlet. It discusses a single play, the Auto da Festa, and its relation to the Copilacam, the compilation of Vicente's writings which was published in 1562, about twenty-five years after his death. The book explains the English universities were great centres for the production, in the sense of writing and of performance, of drama in Latin.
